After the accidental demise of a Soup Fin shark last week, I decided to take the jaws to mount them on a plaque. Here is a picture of the jaws after I removed it from the shark's head.
After about an hour of using a filet knife and pliers I had this:
I placed the jaws in a large zip lock bag containing a 1:3 Hydrogen Peroxide/Water solution. The jaw and remaining flesh started turning white.
After letting the Shark Jaws soak for 2 days in the Hydrogen Peroxide/ Water solution I removed the jaws to find a very white soft set of jaws.
As you can see from the photo above there was still a good amount of flesh and cartilage on the jaw bones. By soaking them in the solution for 2days it made it easier to remove the remaining flesh. I used a razor blade and tweezers to remove as much soft tissue as I could and then I mounted it on board to dry. The instructions that I found online said to salt the jaws to help with the drying process, so I gave the jaws a nice dusting of table salt while I let it dry out.
There is still small bits of tissue on the jaws but I'm hoping that once everything dries out that I can sand off any of the remaining tissue.
So after three days of drying and a little sanding with some 320 grit sand paper I have these set of jaws.
As you can see they look white and smooth. I put some clear varnish on the jaws to maintain the white color and to make them a little shiny. I'm working on a wooden plaque next.
So here is the wooden plaque I made for the jaws, it's white pine that I will put a dark stain on.
After a couple of coats of stain and clear varnish this is the final outcome of the plaque.
