European Mount HOW-TO!!!

[Mike Vines]

Your goal in this step is to remove every bit of anything you can with your knife.  Keep a sharpener handy, the bone, fat and gristle will wear on a knife.  You also need to stick something in the brain cavity to scramble the brains.  Use anything you have available, I used my finger.  It was right there.  Notice the plastic bag on the ground.  You will want one handy to throw all that is cut off into.  This is after about 20 minutes of knife, and finger work...

     

[Mike Vines]

This tool was AMAZINGLY helpful.  It is a nozzle that gets screwed onto your garden hose to fill up water balloons.  It also works perfect as a low pressure power washer.  Make sure you have eye protection, because it splashes everywhere.  Remember when you scrambled the brains?  Here is where you can flush them out now...

 

[Rick Butler]

Mike in your list of essentials you forgot to include the "understanding wife"    

[Chumster]

Not to hijack the thread Mike but I did all of mine in the winter, so as not to offend the neighbors.

[Mike Vines]

Take your pot, fill it with water and add 1-2 cups of borax (I did 2 cups).  Mix it up well, and now your ready to put your deer head into the pot.  Remember you DO NOT want any part of the antlers in the water.  They WILL turn white from the Borax...

 

[Mike Vines]

To answer both your questions, I will get to the understanding wife in a few minutes Rick, and I honestly want my neighbors to see me doing this stuff.  That's why I did it in the front yard.  Notice the old grill that I converted to a work bench?  I leave it behind the house in the swamp, till I need it, then wheel it to the front to do my work.  The Neighbors tend to leave me alone.    

[Bobby Urban]

A piece of coat hanger mounted in a cordless drill makes a good brain scrambler.

[Mike Vines]

Now to get back on track.  Bring your pot to a boil using the turkey fryer.  Once the water starts to boil, reduce the heat to a nice simmer.  You DO NOT want your water to be at a rolling boil.  Think of it as making a nice stew (albeit a stinky one).  Your set up will look something like this...

 

[Mike Vines]

I guess a coat hanger would work, but I'm not afraid to get a little dirty.  It washes off, plus you get to do everything by hand and not OVER DO something with power tools.  Remember, it is not about how fast something can get done, it's about getting it done with minimal amout of damage.

[Mike Vines]

Now, find yourself something to do for 1 1/2 hrs while your "Stew" is simmering.  I actually did a rare thing for me.  I grabbed a chair and a few cups of coffee and enjoyed the day, and some time with my little guys.  They got to tell me all kinds of stories and explained to me what and how they wanted to go hunting for.

[Mike Vines]

After the 1 1/2 hrs have passed, turn your fuel source off, and prepare to remove the head from the water. I don't have any pictures of this process, but it is pretty self explanatory.  I placed the head on the grill/work station after letting all the water drain from the cavities.  Just start peeling all the stuff you can away from the skull with your fingers.  Get as much as you can, then go and grab your water balloon filler that's still attached to the hose and give the skull a good soaking, trying to remove as much material as possible.  Be careful, the nose pieces are brittle, and thin.  they WILL break easily.

[Mike Vines]

Now, after you are done rinsing, it's time to go back in the pot.  Same water, same scenario as last time, you might need to add more water to get it up to the correct height.  You want to rig it up so the antlers are not in the water (same reason as before).  Bring the water to a boil, and reduce to a simmer again.  Once again, find yourself something to do for 1 1/2 hrs while the "Stew" continues to cook.  This time I played a little baseball with the boys... (Same pic as before, because it's the exact same process)

   

[Mike Vines]

Then, once the 1 1/2 hrs has passed, turn the fuel off to the heat source, and remove the head from the pot once again.  BE CAREFUL, the 2 nose bones in the front will have either boiled off, or be loose enough to pull out (I'll cover what to do with this later).  Once again, set it on your work station and pick the rest of the stuff off, use a gentle hand if using a knife.  The bone has started to soften and can be easily scarred.  Go back out to the water balloon filler nozzle and rinse off the skull one more time.  Most everything will be completely gone by now.  If not, use what ever tools you can muster to get the job done.  Remember to go slow, or you WILL ruin all your efforts because you rushed at the end, and it's NOT worth it.  The cartilage in the center of the nose will pull right out.  Just grab it with your fingers and pull it out.  My boys thought that was really cool.

Get all the pieces gathered up.  If your lucky, there will be only 1 piece.  At most, you will have the skull and the 2 front nose pieces.

Now here is where the VERY understanding wife comes in handy...

[Mike Vines]

Here is where the VERY understanding wife comes in handy.  Take all your stuff into the kitchen, yell at the kids for just putting there dishes into the sink instead of rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher, so you wait while they do what they are told, then you put in the sink stopper and put your pieces into the sink and add the hottest water your tap water is capable of into the sink that has your deer head into it.  Once the water is near the top, add some Dawn liquid dish soap.  Yes, you MUST use Dawn.  It is awesome at cutting the grease.  now, let it sit for another 1 1/2 hrs in the soapy bath.  This time, I used my time to play around online on Trad Gang, to answer some questions, and see what all the other hunters were up to...

 

[Mike Vines]

Once the correct time has passed, let the water drain from the sink and rinse the head with hot water.  If the 2 nose pieces have fell off now (probably did), it's no big deal.  Get some paper towel and let the head sit on them to drain all the moisture out.

Get yourself some Elmer's glue (white school stuff).  Test fit the 2 nose pieces so you can see how they are supposed to go to gether.  Once you have that figured out, spread some Elmer's glue on 1 piece at a time and insert the nose bones back into place.

These are the 2 nose pieces I'm talking about.  They are the ones between my thumb and pointer fingers in this picture...

   

[Mike Vines]

Here is the skull drip drying.  I also did the lower jaw bone, and will be making it into a picture frame holder in the near future.  Process is exactly the same, and I did it at the same time I was doing the skull.  I Elmer's glued it together and held it together with a clothes pin till this morning...

 

[Mike Vines]

Now, let it sit for a couple days to dry out.  Hopefully no teeth have fallen out, but if they have, your able to glue them back in.  Once you are completely satisfied the teeth are in there solid, and all the schmegma has been removed from the head, find a plaque that you would like to use to mount them to and secure with 2 drywall screws, then hang where ever you would like so that you are able to remember your hunt and also that you just saved yourself around $100 by doing something as simple as cooking.  When it comes to just about anything, I will find a way to do it myself so I can save money to spend on hunting something, somewhere.  It's been said that I'm cheaper than a Chinese toy...

   

[Mike Vines]

It's really as simple as that.  Thank you all for following along.

For cleaning up the pot you used to boil the head, once again, use the kitchen sink, hot tap water and dawn dish soap.  

Make sure to clean up your mess, so your wife will not mind you doing this next time.

Mike

[Mike Vines]

Now, with hunting season fast approaching, or already upon us.  I would love to see everyone else do this, and post a picture of your "Trophy".

[magnus]

Awesome job Mike looks great!