I'm wanting to make my own wire wheel flesher for doing turkeys. The one offered in many of the catalogs i have looked at just don't have the room to work that i would like, especially when trying to do turkeys. I read in Breakthrough that Cally uses a flesher that he designed himself and that got me wanting to make my own as well. Have any of you guys done this? What size motor do you use and where did you purchase it? I would like the shaft of the wheel to be between 8-10 inches. Any ideas on how i could achieve this? Where would i find the shaft is what i am asking? Thanks for any help.
Return to Bird Taxidermy Category Menu
Go on down to sears and buy their 40 dollar bench grinder. Get a fine wire wheel and some spacers and you're set. Break the wire wheel in with an old file then a 2x4 and flesh away. The biggest difference between a bench grinder and a commercial bird flesher is the power. If you're not careful the bench grinder can pull the skin right out of your hands.
Thanks Jim, that's just what i was looking for. Can you explain to me what you mean by spacers and where would i use them? Is that what i am supposed to look for "spacers" or are they called something else? Again thank you.
I have two bird machines, one is made by Authentic Taxidermy Supply and the Turkey machine is a 1/2 HP bench grinder, with a fine wire wheel.
The big boy I use outside, it throws fat everywhere! not having a box around it keeps the skin from getting tangle and torn to pieces.
It may launcg 10-15 feet, but works great for TURKEY.
There's only about 150 other postings on this same subject. Now I don't claim to be a turkey expert, but my Van Dykes machine has worked fine for over 25 years and I've done turkeys, geese, and tundra swans on it and never had a problem. I don't know how much room you need, but if you don't have a shield on your flesher, I sure hope you have a good maid service.
I recently used my bench grinder to flesh a turkey and I was really surprised at how well I was able to do it. Being completely inexperienced, I was able to get it 99.9% clean as a whistle. The trouble areas were right along the incision. That's where the wheel wanted to rip the skin out of my hands. If you have a Menard's store nearby (not sure what region you're in) they have a Tool Shop brand bench grinder for $20 which is the cat's meow for this. You don't care if it's not super-powerful because you're not using it to grind metal, etc. It has a guard housing around the wheel that I found caught most of the mess and actually deposited the slime into a pile at the back of the wheel. I used a course wheel for turkeys and just used a chunk of spare lumber on it for about 5 minutes to "break it in". Worked just fine for me.