Coloring deer antlers with tea

[astronankin]

I am wondering what kind of tea is best to recolor the antlers on my 2022 buck. Here are photos from right after the shot and then this evening. I've got the skull clean enough to go into the house, just wanting to recolor. I've done one other Euro, didn't need to recolor that one. This is my first crossbow buck and biggest to date.

I am thinking maybe peppermint tea since I know that can have a light color similar to the original antler color, but want other ideas as well. You can see that there is still some original color, especially near the bases.

[whitetaildave24]

That’s a new one for me. Never heard of using tea before.

[scrub-buster]

In the skull groups I'm in most of the professionals use potassium permanganate to dye antlers. You use more coats on the bases where it's normally darker.

[HuntMeister]

another vote for the potassium permanganate but educate yourself on the use of it and proper handling, it can be toxic. Some folks use wood stains as well with great results.
Look up taxidermy.net and do a search there for staining antlers.

[astronankin]

Probably not the permanganate. I've heard of it before, and I don't think I have any on hand. I did a search tonight and tea did come up in a couple places, including taxidermy.net I think. Mostly I want to try tea because we have it in our pantry, so I don't have to waste time looking hard for something that I don't know where it's kept or what it looks like. Wood stain came up too. That's another good option for me, I think we have some somewhere. I don't have any income, so would much rather save my money and just use something I know we have.

[astronankin]

I thought tea for this particular deer because I watched a video that used coffee, which was way too dark for this deer. And not using walnuts, I've dyed cloth with them before and my dad works with them so I know how dark the dye is.

[astronankin]

I ended up staining him with walnut colored wood stain. Just finished. Only needed about two coats. Very close to the original color. Not much done around the bases because his were only slightly darker than the rest of the antlers.

[HuntMeister]

Look great!

[astronankin]

Sept 22, 2023 18:31:59 GMT -5 HuntMeister said:

Look great!

Thanks! My first time coloring antlers. I've done one other Euro, about 8 years ago. Now I might recolor my brother's deer skull, but with coffee since that deer had grey antlers.

[budd]

I've used chaga chunks to darken antlers. Just scrub it on. Here is one I done 6-7 years ago.

[astronankin]

Sept 24, 2023 9:33:09 GMT -5 budd said:

I've used chaga chunks to darken antlers. Just scrub it on. Here is one I done 6-7 years ago.

Wow, looks very natural!

What are Chaga chunks? I'm thinking about doing my brother's 2021 deer as well and his antlers were gray. Probably a little more gray than yours.

[budd]

Chaga grows on birch trees. My family drinks it as tea.