Hello, folks.

Working on old elk antlers...hit a roadblock. Would sure appreciate any help or comments. This is an old deadhead that was chalky and very rough.

1. Broken tips have been replaced with Apoxie Sculpt, which worked very well.

2. Used Plastic Wood X to fill cracks, etc.

3. Sanded down well and ready to paint with white latex

4. had trouble leveling out the apoxie sculpt where it met the existing antler...when i would use the dremel to sand it down, the antler would almost chip off a bit. Was hoping the paint would just fill in

5. used white latex to paint the whole of the antlers; looked really good


Today, started the staining process with Minwax Early American stain; got pretty excited as it was looking pretty good...but then started having some issues

Issues:

1. The apoxie sculpt area took the stain much differently than the rest of the antler; perhaps not a thick enough coat of paint?

2. The replaced antler tips don't transition to the existing antler smooth enough for me

3. There are areas of the antler that the stain really evaporated on...these where some of the more porous areas that weren't sealed as well.

4. What's discouraging is some of it looks super, and some areas just didn't work


Here are my thoughts and questions:

1. If i want to smooth out and re-sand the transition area with Plastic wood x, should I try to remove the stain first with mineral spirits, or just apply the wood X over the existing products?

2. Would it be best to put a thicker coat of latex paint over the areas that seem more porous and aren't taking the stain hardly at all? Or would applying plastic wood X be a better option?

3. Should i strip down the whole thing and get the stain off before undertaking these steps, or just the trouble areas?

Any thoughts or advice from any of you who have successfully completed a restoration would be greatly appreciated! I'm a beginning, but I'm trying to post some pictures. They were in the heic format, but i think i got them successfully saved as jpegs now...

I’d try antler stain not Minwax. It’s not wood. I don’t know how antler stain would work on the filler you put in. With some antler stain, dirt, soot, and tree bark I’d have that thing looking like it was just harvested.

A newer friend of mine is a very good taxidermist and has some videos on his website on antler repair. He completely recreated a complete rack, for a customer who had his mount taken, by piecing together real antler with other materials. Jeff's website is:

https://www.facebook.com/mitchellstaxidermy614/

Keith

The lighter the color the harder to get looking natural but looks like you got a good base color. Try smoothing the repaired transitions with spot putty for auto body work. For blending in the color of the repairs, get & mix various oil base paints to match up surrounding stain. You can also use the oil base to brush in darker accents at the bases and rest of rack. When your all done & happy hit it with some matte clear to lock everything in. Remember they won't be perfect in nature or your repair & most people won't notice what you fixed.

Get a brown sharpie and go over the white areas that didn’t take stain . Antlers aren’t exact color through out. Then stain it again with SPECIAL WALNUT. Let it dry. Then use antler shine or clear acrylic SPRAY matte or semi gloss depending on how you want shine for a top coat. Post pics

Potassium Permanganate is the best & only way
to restore the brown coloration to any kind of antler !!!

Google it regarding taxidermy.

I color white antlers the way the wildlife does: pine tar, rub with branches and dirt.
Probably won't work once painted but might try.

Thank you for all of the replies.

Some of those look awesome and i will review the posted references as well.

I was amped up when it started going on so smoothly, but the evaporation process changed the whole trajectory in areas.

I'll keep working.

And, yes, I know nature doesn't make them perfect...I'll settle for close to nature!

Thanks, all. Any other thoughts or tips...fire away!

Those turned out excellent. Everybody in taxidermy uses epoxie sculp. To paint order antler paint kit from Mc Kenzie taxidermy supply. If don't like color can wash with water and try again.

BC -Buck...

suppose my son's pine tar stick from baseball would work for the pine tar route? Might try that on some weathered deer antlers.

I use liquid pine tar but a nice sticky other type of application would work.
The liquid pine tar does give the antlers a kind of yellowish tint when applying it before you rub them with a cedar branch or pine branch. I have used hardwoods to, something with dark, powdery bark works great.
You just need to make the antler sticky so the bark and dirt sticks to it.
Dirt adds another natural color layer to them.

It takes a lot of time and I've seen many other methods that look just as good. I just though doing it the natural way was kind of neat.
The various dyes work great as mentioned above.

I will second the potassium permaganate, much better than any kind of stain or paint. Easy to work with.