It is simply made; the walnut plaque is c and c machined and it's pretty decent. It has a flat satin finish but if one wanted more gloss, a coat of polyurethane would be easy. The veloured skull cap is not too flimsy but one has to be very careful cutting the two holes for the antlers as you only get one chance. I made a paper pattern that fit exactly on the cap then cut out trial holes on that first. Once I got that right I transferred the pattern to the skull cap and cut with VERY sharp x-acto blade. I had to trim a lot of the bone away to make the cap fit but still leaving enough to hold the two antlers! Drilled two holes into the bone and easily mounted it to the plaque using two drywall screws they provided. You must tape the gold rope in the middle where you will cut; then a hot melt glue gun secured the ropes into place around each horn.

All the steps were easy besides the velvet skull cover that came with it. I messed up the original one that came with the mount and ordered another one off a taxidermy site and I got it right the second time. My advice for the velvet cover would be to make the two holes at the midpoint of the cover so that there's space for the skull to rest under. Pretty minimal tool requirements as well. I would recommend a: hacksaw to either shave off a flat angle on the skull if you haven't already or cut off any excess, a drill is a must, a hammer for the nails, and some extra wall Hanging nails to actually mount it, and superglue to hold the ends of the gold rope once you cut it, because when you cut it, it frays a lot and comes undone. Otherwise pretty simple mount

High quality solid walnut mount, better quality than the imported ones you see on here. I wanted a nice mount for my old 10 point buck that I got 30 years ago, the old one was cheap veneer and was showing its age. You have to work carefully when cutting the cap but the end result looks great. I got the solid brass engraved plate from another US company here, they will also get 5 stars.

My son actually got antlers sent to him as a present! They were cut a little large and the cloth part of this display wouldn't fit and my son wanted the fur visible! So we just screwed the antlers to the wood piece

This do-it-yourself antler wall mount is of pretty good quality overall. I used it to mount a decent set of mule deer antlers that my son bagged this season. It looks great, but it will take LOTS of time and patience to configure it just right. Be prepared to trim, re-trim and re-trim again as necessary the skull bone so it will fits securely and squarely against the plaque. The plastic skull cap will have to be carefully cut for holes to fit the diameter of the main tines at the base where they connect to the skull. Use a sharp razor knife and cut a little at a time then see if it fits the tine. You'll going to have to do this several times to get the perfect fit. Don't rush it or you may cut a too large a hole at which point the gold rope trim won't cover the gaps.

However the following are cons:

The plastic skull cap only uses two brass capped tacks to secure it in place, one on top and one on the bottom. This leaves the sides of the cap vulnerable to bulging up from the surface of the plaque. Even when you've carefully cut the holes out for diameter the of the main tines the sides may still tends to pop up just a little. I finally secured the sides in place with a dab of super glue gel around the edges. Some people may not mind the slight gap but I'm pretty annul about quality so I took the extra time.

It would have been nice if Walnut Hallow would have fabricated the plastic skull cap so several more brass tacks could be used around the entire circumference of the cap, thus keeping it flush against the plaque. The additional brass tacks would also add to the appearance of the mount.

One more tip, use a plastic tipped finishing hammer to drive the brass tacks. A steel hammer head could possibly damage the brass finish if you're not extremely careful.

Good luck and enjoy your trophy.