Ok boys & girls ....
First I am not a professional taxidermist! I dabble a little...
As you know there are many ways to skin a cat or fish....
so this is my method
The best way is with Dermisted Beetles! Hands down. But I have never done that yet. That will be my next project.
1. Drink IPAs helps with the smell
2. Boil the fish jaw, Parboil, but not too long as you will loose some teeth depending on the fish? If you have small thin teeth yep you will loose them. If they are like shark teeth or Sheephead no problemo
3. Then get as much meat off as you can. Boil too long an the jaw will fall apart into as many as 6 pieces potentially. Keeping the connective tissue can help you in the end. But too much it can look funky.
4. I then soaked it in water for a day, you can mix with peroxide..
5. More meat removal
6. Then soaked in peroxide 3% for another day
7. More meat removal but teeth are getting loose...
8. Drink more beer!
9. Then I put into ethanol as it will fix the remaining connective tissue and make it firm and white.
10. That's another day or so.
11. Dry it out and apply the skull paste which is 40% hydrogen peroxide with sulfate powder.. Only beer here is for drinking! You mix the two and it will makes a paste, use a paint brush to apply
12. Leave on for 24 hours and then rinse off with warm water. works very well!
13. Repeat if yellow..
15. Paint on an Elmers Glue and hot water mix 1:1 to secure any loose teeth. I added some Isopropyl alcohol too.
16. This should be done now but add a spray clear coat gloss to make it shine..
I have also just soaked it in hydrogen peroxide before for about a week and that worked well too....
It really depends on the teeth....
Hopefully this helps you all a little....
Getting it fully pearl white with no yellow is the ultimate goal! Don't use bleach as the ph will mess up the bone structure and make it brittle and fall apart as it has a high ph.
If you want to use bleach it will have to be PH adjusted with vinegar...
but then you need ph strips too.. But caution as this can produce chlorine gas...
So the easiest way is quick boil, remove meat, soak in 3% hydrogen peroxide 2 days, if you can get a higher percentage the better up to 20%40%, remove more meat, peroxide again not for long as the bones get loose. Dry out and clear coat if white.....
Again this is just my method and there are many out there but nothing definitive that I found. The key components you have to use
-Skull Paste 40% Hydrogen Peroxide with sulfates
-Ethanol
-Elmers glue mix...
Cheers
Todd
