European Mount Desktop Pedestal

After making the turkey fan display plaque last week I thought of another item to make using my wood router. I have a nice whitetail skull I want to put on display so I decided to build a desktop piece that the skull could sit on.

I started out by tracing the skull and making some cardboard patterns to use for transferring the shape I want on to the piece of wood I would be cutting out. I then cut out the three pieces of wood that would be used in the pedestal: an oval base, an upright piece, and the skull panel.

After cutting and sanding I used the wood router to create the decorative edge on the base and the panel.

Next, I took the three pieces and drilled pilot holes for all the screws and test-fitted them together to make sure they would fit properly and be the desired angle for the skull to sit on.

Then I stained the wood using a red mahogany stain and darkened it up a little bit with some dark walnut stain.

After the stain had dried I applied a couple coats of polyurethane to give the piece a glossier furniture look. I allowed it to dry for about a day and then attached the skull. I really like the way it turned out and think it has a pretty classy look. Here are some pictures of the finished desktop pedestal.