Clean bones and skulls

[tyger]

I know that many folks wish they could clean bones and skulls for projects such as knife handles. Well, you can! The process is easy, and you can read more about it here:http://www.javelinahunter.com/

10 am


1 pm


5 pm


It can be difficult to find the Arm and Hammer washing soda (sodium carbonate); however, there are many sources of sodium carbonate, often in concert with sodium percarbonate (generates hydrogen peroxide), and I have found that these products work as well. Don't pay $8-$10 for the leading advertized product! I used this one for this project and it cost $1.96:

[Bugbear]

Interesting.

I've known people who use ants rather than meat eating Beatles.

Composting can work too, but takes a long time.

[tyger]

Interesting.

I've known people who use ants rather than meat eating Beatles.

Composting can work too, but takes a long time.

Ants and beetles (especially Dermestid beetles) are great....if it is warm (that means above 60F at night), or if you have a beetle colony.
Here is beetle colony information, in case there is interest:
http://http://cmsc.minotstateu.edu/m...tidcolony.html
http://http://bonesandbugs.com/purch...d-beetles.html

[HeathBar]

Its odd that I was just thinking about how this was done on my drive to work this morning.

[Tobus]

I've known people who use ants rather than meat eating Beatles.

That's what we do. My wife is known by all her friends as the "Road Kill Queen". We have skulls and various bones of a shocking number of animals in our house, many of which were harvested from freshly killed animals (either ones I've hunted or ones we've found on the roadway).

We just set the skull on a fire ant hill, cover it with a bucket and a rock to keep critters from dragging it off, and wait. The ants take care of it for the most part. We don't usually bleach the bones, though, but the advice given above looks great for that.

[Bugbear]

Ya, flesh eating, fire ants do a good job, and they usually have huge colonies to get it done quickly.

[Dixiecat]

Wow. You just reminded me of the guy I dated in university.

His dad was a professor of biology at the university we were at and his mom was an archeologist. Her specialty was identifying the animal bones left behind by the early inhabitants of North America. She had a whole room filled with skeletons of mammals, tiny to large. One day we showed up for dinner and she was boiling up a moose in the backyard and was excited that the dad (who'd just driven us to the house) had a dog for her to 'boil up'. The professor had us all sit in the front because the dead dog was bundled up on the back seat.

[tyger]

Wow. You just reminded me of the guy I dated in university.

Are you referring to me, or to Ted, or is it a collective 'you'?

PS: I am waiting on the right kind of red brass and commercial bronze. Your project is neither forgotten, nor abandonded.

[Bugbear]

Don't look at me; I didn't do it...

[tyger]

Don't look at me, I didn't do it.

"Methinks thou protests too much." S.