Degreasing and washing birds safely without gas, lacquer thinners, etc can be done and done effectively.  This is a wood duck after wire wheeling.  Before wire wheeling it is always helpful to remove fat with scissors.  Especially on delicate birds such as wood ducks.

Next I make 3/4 of a gallon of hot water between 90 and 100 degrees.  This is as hot as my hot water heater makes water.  I then add 4 oz. of both LipaSolve 55 and LipaSolve 77.  You can experiment with smaller quantities.  This is what I use in my shop.

This is the duck submerged in the solution.  If this were a video you’d see the live action of the degreasers working on the fats, oils and grease.  They literally attack the gunk!

This is the water after a 30-40 minute soak with periodic agitation.  You can see the disolved fats and oils on the surface.

The duck skin after a thorough rinsing.  After the rinsing the skin can be spun or towel dried and gently tumbled in 2040 corn cob grit.  Then blown dry with a hair dryer.

Mounted Specimen

This is the mounted specimen.  No dangerous and expensive fuels or lacquer thinners needed for great results!