How I clean turkey spurs tutorial (super clean and picture heavy)

[jims]

Nice tutorial and pics!  I do the same thing with pronghorn european mounts and they really clean up nice!  That's definitely a thorough job of cleaning and ought to keep the bugs away.  I've seen a couple mounts where guys have boiled the entire bottom leg bones w/toe-nails and spurs attached.  I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to boil the entire bottom leg and glue the toe joints together to add to a mount?  I've seen a similar thing done with turkey skulls and neck bones.  Have any of you tried to do either of these?

[Cut N Run]

Nice tutorial.  Thanks for posting. 

A taxidermist told me to use powder dish washing detergent to keep fats & oils out of the bones.  It sure looks like Dawn does a fine job for you though.

I do Whitetail skulls the same way, but boil them longer.

Jim

[VanHelden Game Calls]

Not sure it makes much difference as long as you are using a detergent that breaks down natural fat/oils.  I have heard of some colored detergents staining/dying the bone but have yet to have a problem.

I do soak at least a week in ammonia to help remove and break down any fat/oil in the bones.  Sometimes longer as I get busy with life    Heard some cook longer and go straight to the whitening, so there are plenty of ways to go about this, just find what works for the quality you want and go with it.

[ncturkey]

Awesome tutorial. One thing I have found that makes them a little whiter is to mix whiten flakes to your peroxide.

[Finch]

Bringing this thread back to life.   Thanks for taking the time to post your process.  I have several legs that I just cut off and left on my shed's workbench.  I'm going to try this out.

[jumpmaster21]

Thank you for posting! Going to try and mimic this spring.

[JALA Strut]

Great info ... Thanks for sharing!

[Joe2Kool]

Kool!  A lot kleaner than just drying in borax!

[WNCTracker]

Worked great!  Awesome tutorial.


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[VanHelden Game Calls]

I found a new way to clean!!

After popping the spur caps and an initial boil in salt water to remove as much gunk as I could I tossed BONE ONLY! into my diswasher's silverware rack.  Came out better then I could have imagined, almost to good as it cleaned out every pore in the bone and 2 days later it shows no grease leaching - so I am thinking it eliminates a step and gets you from popping caps to ready for whitening in a day or 2.

I have a Bosch dishwasher with sanitize feature, used rinse aid and Finish pellet detergent. Seems the detergent is stronger and with the high heat/steam it got into the bone and did a great job.

All that needs to be done from here is the finish cuts and some sanding and tossed into peroxide.  Then follow the tutorial for paint and glue-up.

[BHMTitan]

So no ammonia or peroxide using the "dishwasher" method? 

[WNCTracker]

Looks like it says peroxide still


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[VanHelden Game Calls]

So far so good with the dishwasher.  Yes it seems you are able to skip the degreasing, you can scrap, boil, DishWasher and peroxide whitening.

This is a new procedure and I am unfamiliar if the results are reapeatable.  I will have a new test this week of 4 other sets.  So please use caution, and if you have further results please update here.

Thanks

[VanHelden Game Calls]

Upon further DW testing I am not sure it will eliminate the degreasing step.  While it seems to "help" it does not eliminate the basic steps in the tutorial.

I have tried a total of 5 sets and have a mixed bag of results, seems every bird has a different bone density and grease/oil content.

[ScottS]

I am trying my first set of Spurs and I soaked them in the 40 volume peroxide and when they dried there was no change in the color. What am I doing wrong?