Making a fish skull

nice brichardi cichlids and java fern in the background

Quote from sdeisen

nice brichardi cichlids and java fern in the background

Yeah, I bet their not happy seeing what may happen to them if they don't behave.:@:D

Cheers, Don

haha too right

Dan, Word on the street he posted a step by step, but someone needs to go there to read it.
Cheers. Don

Quote from pelagicmisfit

The bigger skull was from a cuda that weighed around 15-20 lbs. The smaller one was from a cuda that was about 5-7 lbs.

Here is the process that i used to skeletonize the heads:

first you need to cut off as much meat as you can from the head. Except, you need to be careful to to mar the bones or cut through them as they are relatively soft, for the most part.

After you trim as much meat off as you can, place the head in boiling water. Let it stay in the boiling water until all or most of the skin has separated from the bones. (makes the job easier)

Once the skin has separated, take all the parts out of the pot and let them cool before taking the meat off.

Take off all the meat that remains on the bones, then take the bones and soak them in a bleach and water solution. Leave it in there for about 12 hours. This way the bones will turn white, any bacteria will be killed and it will get rid of the smell.

Take the bones out, rinse them quickly with water and then let them dry. Make sure they are dry before you proceed to the next step.

All that is left to do is to figure out how to piece the skeleton back together. When putting the head back together, make sure that you do not use a glue that will expand as it cures or dries since the expansion would ruin the alignment. Hot glue works well, or if you want to get fancy you can use thin gauge wire (without insulation) to wire the pieces together.

A few tips:

Make sure your wife, husband, children, and other family members or anyone in the general vicinity is okay with the residence reeking of fish for a while. I think they may be due to the amount of fat that is in the head? Even better than boiling the head indoors would be to do it outside on a gas burner or a hotplate.

look for dark areas around the base of the teeth gently pull on the teeth that have the dark areas. if they come lose, glue them in. Otherwise they will fall out easily later.

Be careful will the larger skulls. For some reason the bones tend to come apart more at non-mobile joints and sutures.

Also, on larger skulls it is a good idea to add a support system. I used bamboo skewers. I could post pictures of the supports if you guys would like?

The best way i found to assemble the skull is assemble the top part of the skull first and glue it, then assemble the lower jaw. Once the glue is cured and the pieces are in the desired position, glue the upper and lower portion together. Additional support here is crucial on the big skulls as all the weight is balanced on one joint.

You could also use an epoxy or poly-urethane coat to give it a durable and glossy coat."

Display More

Back in the day, I used to do black bear skulls exactly the same way as pelagicmisfit wrote above.
And there is a lot of difference between black bear skull bones and fish skull bones

They look great, if he was here I would tell him that.......Pelagivmisfit sound like a name the would fit in here. I wounder if he is a freediver?
Cheers, Don

woah! that cuda skull looks insane!

invite sent!

Oh and here's a kingfish skull I just finished using the method I outlined earlier.

That is terrific. Do you make notes or a video of the dissection to refer against for reassembly? I can't imagine that with no instructions

Very nice work.
Do you accept commissioned work? I would love to pay someone else to do this for me hahaha

I know that the taxidermists use dermestid beetles. The trick from what I understand it to dry out the meat as much as possible and then let the beetles do the trick I know a couple of guys that do it professionally here in CA. One sells beetle kits. I had a deer skull done and it looks great. I burries a coyote skull but I need to clean it and de grease it and then peroxide it to get it really pretty. Its a lot of work. Most guys will do a skull for at or under 100 bucks and they also glue the loose parts in for you. I will try to post a picture later of the deer if you like.

Quote from LunkerBuster

That is terrific. Do you make notes or a video of the dissection to refer against for reassembly? I can't imagine that with no instructions

Very nice work.
Do you accept commissioned work? I would love to pay someone else to do this for me hahaha

Ive been doing some research and have a few different things I want to test out to get those nice professional looking lilly white skulls so let me do a couple more first to get my technique down (before i have people shipping me irreplaceable heads in dry ice lol) and then I would gladly accept commissions. And thanks for the compliments guys, overall im pretty happy for a first try.

OK, what did you have in mind?

Here is a picture of the skull. Hes not a big buck but after hiking 40 miles in 4 days I was happy to get myself some tasty backstraps for the BBQ.

There is some good info on this website about beetles and taxidermy.

Taxidermy / Dermestid Beetles - California Predators Club Forums

Spikes are some of the tastiest anyway