3rd Duck - Please Critique

Also, look at the half naked duck pic. See how the leading edge of the flight web is taut and flows crisply into the body? That's what you're trying to accomplish by pinning the flight web to the "shoulder" of the mannikin. If you don't stretch and pin that leading edge, you don't get that crisp flow. Clear as mud... eh?

 

Nope if he is on the downstroke then he is trying to acquire lift and can't afford to lose any air through a gap. My thinking anyway but my brain is also feeble

 

Next bird you skin pose it before you start. Feel the bones, feel that flight web. Then when you skin pay close attention to where you cut the flightweb away from the body. That is where you need to reattach it. If you've got the birds to do it, take a crappy one and pluck one side. Then freeze it back. Then when you go to mount your next bird thaw that one out. Have it there with you and pose it and feel and look as you are mounting. You'll get a couple of thaw freeze cycles out of it before it starts to stink.

 

Definitely learning a lot from here. Thanks, fellas!

 

It didn't happen without pictures as proof!!

 

Looks great! Remember that the secondaries we're attached to bone. So when you tape keep that in mind. Since you removed them from the bone they can go anywhere, just put them back where they go.

Are you inserting a tail support wire? Before you assemble take a piece of wire and poke it in the form in the center of the tail. Remove it and reinsert it after you sew up but before you caulk the tail. That will give you something to support the tail and also will act as a centering tool for the tail feathers.

Keep practicing and paying attention to things you don't like and try to fix one problem at a time!

 

Looking a lot better - now preen those coverts and get them shingled!

 

What she said.

 

Now you're cookin, Kenneth!
Things are tightening up very nicely.
It's no crime to tape the tertials at all. Tape helps you get them "just so", and keeps them there during drying. Now, if you have to use tape to "pull/stretch" them to where they need to be... you got a problem. It's obvious to me that that's NOT what's going on.
You should be hooked by now...
You're well on your way, sir.