[Nhcoll-l] Skulls and cleaning

[Simon Moore]

Hi Sergio,

I used to use sodium carbonate (10%) in hot water, which worked quite well with a bit of scraping; try not to boil as that ‘fixes’ the flesh.  There are   other fleshing crystal products around but no-one will reveal their composition!  They are gradually deliquescent if that might give someone a clue as to their identity - they work even better.

With all good wishes, Simon

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian,

www.natural-history-conservation.com




> On 4 Oct 2022, at 11:21, Sergio Montagud <sergio.montagud at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
>  
> We have a series of skulls from mammals and birds obtained directly from nature and all of them maintain remains of dry skin that are very difficult to remove.
>  
> We have try it with enzimatic digestion (using the Enzym Med 4 - 3%) and worked well with the bird skulls, but mammals are very strong to this mix. We can macerate them boiling in water, as usual, but it's a very complicate now in our lab and skulls aren't particularly interesting. 
>  
> Can anyone recommend something useful (and easy) to remove this skin in a usual protocol? Some chemical product, maybe? 
>  
> Thanks in advance!
>  
> ********************************
> Sergio Montagud Alario
> Museu [UV] Història Natural
> Universitat de València
> ********************************
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.