I learned over on the taxidermist site of a sealant called "paraloid b-72" that is mixed with acetone. Dunk the skulls in this and they are permanently sealed to the elements, yet look as if no sealant was ever applied. Looking into this stuff now, and will letcha know how it may work...

In the meantime, the experiments continue...

Polar Bear 1 should be assembled later today or tomorrow - will post a picture once that's accomplished.

Many more on the go:



The sheep & the one whitetail are ready for whitening.

Despite more than 6 days in the pool Shock Treatment (through which we added several containers of the stuff to bring the concentrate up) the elk shows very little progress in the whitening results:



It is now our assumption that this stuff does not work nearly as well as hydrogen peroxide for our purposes. Oh well, lesson learned... Didn't hurt the skull, just ate a little time is all.
So it will be back to the drawing board, and down Island to the supplier of the hydrogen peroxide in the next little while.

Further note on that... One has to be a tad careful what you're mixing!
One of the bags full of hydrogen peroxide ruptured in the tub we were using for whitening. No Worries we thought, and simply removed the skulls, and poured the contents into the water batch surrounding that - effectively diluting the hydrogen peroxide but figuring it might have enough strength left to finish off a bear or two. A small amount of ammonia had also leaked into this brine (unbeknown to us). When we realized the Pool Shock was not too likely to do the job we intended for it, we had about 1/4 of a jug of the stuff left. Why not simply add it to this brine the bears are in - might bump up the strength just a tad we thought. So, I did just that.

The result was an Instantaneous Foaming Madness! I quickly slammed the lid down on the bubbling brew, and stood well back, wondering just what kind of concoction I may have created!



We decided to let that sit and die down. Kind of wondering what effect the brew will have on the two skulls swimming in it.
Guess we'll find out a little later today...

Final Entry for today - an initial shot of the whitetail we named The Hitler Buck before the work commences...



And on it goes...

Cheers,
Nog