Compared to one I harvested on the Turk Ranch some 12 yrs ago or so

Man, those turned out great - did you do that yourself?  Or, did you have someone do that?  I'd love to know how...

very nice and clean!

I did the yellowed-looking one. Sat it on an ant-bed for a year then recovered it and boiled the remaining flesh off (terrible smell). The rediculously clean white one was done by the taxedermist in Midland. Wild West Taxedermists I think. There are kits available that come with all the chemicals you need to bleach/euro a skull from most tazedermist supply stores.

I do my own skull mounts and they turn out quite well. You can skin the head, boil it, then take a pressure washer to blow off the cooked meat and excess skin. This may take 10 to 15 minutes with a decent walmart bought pressure washer. Then you can get a hair bleaching kit at walmart in the hair coloring section and put it on the skull. I have found that the hair bleaching kit is almost the same as the taxidermy kit one's just in a different package and damn sure different price. total procress take me  probably 4 to 4.5 hours with 2 1/2 to 3 of that boiling.

col_bee, do you find that bleaching the skulls weakens them? Do you put on a proctective coat after? Any pics of your mounts? Trying to get my own technique down lately. We do the same process but I dont bleach cuz I heard it weakens the bones.

I did the same thing years ago (boiling head) and mine turned out a little yellow.  It still looked good enought to put in the house though.  Glue the teeth and tusk in when the head dries enough because they will fall out over the years.  Same with any skull.  The hair color kits sounds like a good idea.  After I skinned and boiled the head the meat on the head smelled delicious.  I didn't try any since I boiled it in an old metal 5gal can over a coleman stove in the back yard, but it was tempting.

The Tusk will split over time if they are not glued as well.

Just did my first at home a few weeks ago.  Added just a touch of bleach to the boiling water and about 3 tablespoons clothes detergent.  Too much bleach will cause the bone to become brittle.  I used 3% peroxide and the skull whitened up beautifully.  I was a little careless and broke the very delicate front nose bones, so be wary of that!  Here's a couple of pics....one pic beside mount my taxidermist did for comparison.