Curling turkey wing feathers????

[buckyb3]

Has anybody curled any turkey wing feathers on a flying mount? I've tried in the past using a heated wire and running it up the quill. I had moderate success and a slight curl. I am hoping for a more aggressive curl. Any ideas out there???

[txoutdoors]

I just bought a feather curling tool from van dykes. Havent tried it yet but when i searched the archives on it people say it works well.
http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,128625.0.html

[Nancy C]

Just bend them firmly with your finger against a dull edge, making a series of very tiny dents. They are actually pretty maleable, especially when compared to waterfowl feathers.

[buckyb3]

Nancy what do you mean a dull edge? I am afraid of kinking the quill making it look bad and at worst weakening or snapping a feather?

[Jan George]

Turkey feathers are pretty stout and they wouldn't curl on a live active turkey as they would on, say, a pheasant.  If you want the tail to have some action, do the reverse of what you would do to have a curved tail.  I have a jig that I use for a curved tail, but I've done some fighting birds that I made a different jig for.  The tails on these (as you are looking down at it from the front) are flat to the table in the center of the tail and the outer tail feathers are elevated.  Kind of an inverted curve.  (Hope that makes sense).  As far as the wings, in heavy action, the feathers SEPARATE rather than curl.  I have an awesome photo of a hen turkey flying right at my cuddeback camera.  She's about 3 or 4 feet from the camera coming almost head on, but just above camera level, like she's going to fly right above and past it.  I was going to post it, but photobucket gave me a BIG RED SCREEN with a warning saying the site was unsafe and has been reported to cause major problems at this time.  SO, I can't post it.  Anyway, the photo shows NO curling of the wings or tail.  Not even on the secondary wing feathers.  The book "Wild Turkey Country" has some great photos of fighting and flying birds. 

[buckyb3]

This photo by Monte Loomis shows the curl on the ends of the main primaries. i have other photos that show this much or more curl. May post later

[Nancy C]

By dull edge, I meant something like the back of a butter knife. You don't want to actually cut the quill, just make a series of very shallow dents about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart. They won't noticeably weaken the feather. If you don't like the effect you can always steam the feathers and they will go right back like they were.
I have never been bold enough to do this for competition because I don't know what the judges would say about the little dents, but the overall effect and the amount of control that you get from this method makes the results FAR superior to those from curling irons and etc, especially from a normal viewing distance.
In my opinion.