norcal7.3
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2018
- Messages
- 111
Hello everyone,
Im not sure if this has been talked about here or any other forum for that matter, but I would like to share my experience with having losing the velvet on a deer and still making it presentable. This year after harvesting a buck in velvet, I stupidly had a friend euro mount it for me without curing or preserving the velvet in any way. The last time I euroed a buck in velvet, I left in in the freezer for about 6 months, completely curing the velvet. However, this year was a different story. I picked up the buck and instantly knew something was wrong, it had quite the smell to it to say the least. I grabbed the horns and came away with a fistful of velvet.
So after a moment of disappointment. I stripped the velvet completely to reveal antlers that were basically completely white. I let them dry outside and harden completely before doing anything with them. My first idea was to try and color the antlers with used coffee grounds. That did not work at all, the grounds just fell off, leaving no staining. My next idea was to mix coffee grounds and water in my outdoor sink and soak the horns for a couple of days. I really thought that would do something, but it in fact did not. After two failed attempts I called a taxidermist and he told me to use a light wood stain. This sounded good to me so I went into that part of the garage and did some inventory. I then remembered I had a chalk shed I found a couple months earlier and decided to use that as my test canvas. I tried three different stain types and used the lightest one as my color of choice. I highly recommend trying different colors out in order to find the desired color. I say this because the stain I thought I would like the best based on the name and color turned out to be way off the mark. I hope this helps.
Im not sure if this has been talked about here or any other forum for that matter, but I would like to share my experience with having losing the velvet on a deer and still making it presentable. This year after harvesting a buck in velvet, I stupidly had a friend euro mount it for me without curing or preserving the velvet in any way. The last time I euroed a buck in velvet, I left in in the freezer for about 6 months, completely curing the velvet. However, this year was a different story. I picked up the buck and instantly knew something was wrong, it had quite the smell to it to say the least. I grabbed the horns and came away with a fistful of velvet.
So after a moment of disappointment. I stripped the velvet completely to reveal antlers that were basically completely white. I let them dry outside and harden completely before doing anything with them. My first idea was to try and color the antlers with used coffee grounds. That did not work at all, the grounds just fell off, leaving no staining. My next idea was to mix coffee grounds and water in my outdoor sink and soak the horns for a couple of days. I really thought that would do something, but it in fact did not. After two failed attempts I called a taxidermist and he told me to use a light wood stain. This sounded good to me so I went into that part of the garage and did some inventory. I then remembered I had a chalk shed I found a couple months earlier and decided to use that as my test canvas. I tried three different stain types and used the lightest one as my color of choice. I highly recommend trying different colors out in order to find the desired color. I say this because the stain I thought I would like the best based on the name and color turned out to be way off the mark. I hope this helps.
