Removing Club Antler: Long story short, I couldn't come up with any other option. There was no way to submerge the skull of my elk without also submerging the club. This would have likely ruined it by degrading the mummified tissue and porous bone that comprised the club. Therefore I used the skinniest saw I had (coping saw) and sawed through the pedicle on a curve to aide in re-aligning the antler to the skull after cleaning. The blade would heat up and stick to fats in the bone core so I couldn't stop the sawing motion once I started. Would have been easier to use a bigger saw blade, but wanted to minimize bone removal.
Cleaning and Whitening: I then cleaned and whitened skull as I normally would.
Re-attach antler: To reattach, I wanted to keep from doing a permanent fix in case I wanted to remove antler again to degrease the skull further in skull tank. So I pegged it with a wooden dowel, and did the main glueing with hot glue. This took several tries. First I used too much. Then it was cooling too fast. Finally I used less glue, and kept it away from the center, and also pre-heated with a blow-dryer.
Final Touch: To blend the seam, I used JBWELD underwater putty epoxy because it was off-white already and I could mold it like clay. I put a small bead around the seam and pressed it in. Then I scraped off excess. Finally I used a wet finger to smooth and blend the epoxy in the seam.
Mounting: I mounted the skull on aspen log because it was the first elk I killed in aspens, and angled it so the club would be displayed at a better angle. Then I added my arrow, ivories, and picture for appearances.
