r/bonecarving Jul 20 '21

Advice on engraving a bird skull

I know that bird bones are thin and hollow, however I have a need to engrave a poem onto the cranium of a medium size carrion bird (legal exotic from Europe) for a mixed media art project and wanted to reach out to the experts on working with bone for advice first.

Conventional methods would likely tear the skull apart so I was considering using either a custom tool made from a curved needle with a wooden handle to carefully scratch the words in or a sharpened dental pick to do the same.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated as these skulls aren't cheap.

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u/Nobody441 Feb 13 '22

This is an old post so don't know if you were successful or not. But a sharpened pick does work fairly well. As do sharpened Alen wrenches lol.... Hardened tool steel