When doing a trukey fan beard mount, do you pluck the rear featers(fan) out and realligne them or do you skin them off and leave them intact with the skin? I know you scalp the beard leaving some skin attached.
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or you will turn a 15 minute job into a nightmare...lol I remove the tail with the skin attached, shave down to remove any meat, careful not to cut into quills, they will fall out. Then I dust the skin thoroughly with preservative and fan out on cardboard and pin into place. I always place a second piece of cardboard over at least the base of the the tail and pin again. This will give a nice flat fan. I usually let them dry about 2 weeks before I get back to get them on the plaque, hope this helps...
Yes you can cut them and realine them. It's quite simple to do. Just lay the fan out and you can see on how they overlap each other. This will just help you set them up later. You can now cut them free, clean all the fat and grease off. Them lay them down and you can use hot glue, bondo, epoxy to fill inbetween the quills. Breakthrough has a good article on how to do this. It in a past issue.
Definitely cut it apart! Take each of the large feathers and scrape the feather butt clean with a knife. Lay the feathers out as you want them on a flat bench and put a couple of lines of hot glue over it to temporarily hold it in place. Clean the skin of the part right in front of the tail that holds the smaller feathers - keep these feathers intact. You only need a piece of skin about 2" x 2". Dust this part with preservative.
I have a jig that I use to bondo everything together so that the finished bondo thickness is exactly the same as the space where the tail fan goes on the panel I put it on. Mix up the bondo, put it on the tail fan feather butts, lay the skin part over the wet bondo, and clamp the jig onto it. In about 10 minutes I take it out and drop it into the turkey panel and secure it with a screw from the back. Trim the skin from around the beard, cover it in preservative, and place it in the slot where the beard goes. Secure it with a staple from the back.
I have customers who have brought me a turkey tail and waited while I do the mount for them. I charge $85.00 have have it back in about 30-45 minutes. Sure it still has to dry, but it can dry just as easily at the customers house! Good luck, Jerry