fan mount question

[skimerhorn]

Friend of mine killed a nice bird this morning, he wants to try one of those DIY kits from bass pro. I've never done one, so I have no clue. Has anybody on here ever attempted one of them, I think you can put the beard on to not sure tho.

 

[Mudranger1]

One from bass pro no but mine plaques will be here tomorrow. I used borax to dry it out Took about a week and a half to completely dry. Will post pictures tomorrow when I get done. It was actually very easy

 

[Chad Gus]

I have and it's an easy process

 

[mdunc8]

Here's one from a few years ago. I tacked mine to cardboard in the fanned out position and dumped a bunch of salt on the base. As others have said, it's fairly easy.

 

[schmalts]

OK, here is a Taxidermy lesson that will give you instant results and you can hang in less than an hour from start to finish.
Use a scalpel or Havalon or caping knife and skin back the hide exposing both layers of the feather quills. Don't be to shy, dig in there and cut dut back far, without much worry.
Cut between the layers of quills and then in between each quill to separate the quills. Don't worry again, things will get real loose and seem like you ruined it but stay with me here. Now get a fine wire wheel from the tool or hardware store, the kind you would put in a bench grinder with the finest wires they have. put a bolt through the wheel and nut it so you can now chuck it up in a drill. Take that baby to those quills and it will eat all that fatty meat from between those quills like Miller on a night out in Havre. Make sure you attack it at the right direction so the fat and goo flies away from the feathers . Get in there real good, and get out all that crap that is left in there if you use only one of those kits that have bug and smell trouble at times. Now, take a can of brake clean and spray out and degrease that area with carefull aim and let it dry a few minutes. Rub in the Borax that the mounting kit came with, or buy some from a taxidermy supply place, but get it in real good.
Whip up a batch of Bondo, about the size of say a lemon, and lay your fan out on some cardboard and arrange the loose and floppy feather as best as you can making sure the proper feather over feather overlap is correct, and spoon or putty knife bondo into the area that used to be all that meat and fat. Arrange the feather all spread again the way you like it, work fast, and make sure to pull the skin back down over the bondo and flatten that whole area a bit so it fits into the wooden tail holder that comes with the kit. When the bondo set in 5-10 minutes, it is rock solid and can be hung up right away with or without the wooden plague.
This is the way to go, trust me on it. I like to get a couple tails saved up and do all of them at once as it makes a mess when you wire wheel the goo out from the quills. But this will keep you from tacking it on cardboard and waiting for it to dry, plus no worries about bugs in the future. This is how we do it on the tails of full body mounts.

 

[Mudranger1]

here is the one I just did. now this one didn't have any spurs so I'm not sure how I'm going to mount up those but I really like this plaque

 

[BillyGoat]

I just did this recently for the first time... I started by washing all the feathers gently in warm water with Dawn soap and scraped the bases clean leaving just the skin to hold the feathers in place, then used a blow dryer on low heat to dry them. Afterwards I arranged the feathers and pinned them to cardboard adding borax and salt to the base and left for a week or so. Meanwhile I picked up a couple wood plaques from the local craft store for under $10 and stained them. Then I cut the plastic off the shell I used to kill him and punched out the primer, fed some gold bead chain through the hole and glued it. Finally used a staple gun and a few wood screws to assemble it all together.

Here are a couple before & after pics. My son liked the way it came out.

 

[Mudranger1]

Nice. How did the feathers come out such different colors? They look about the same in the original picture

 

[Wapiti Warrior]

The borax trick is what I did on a tail over 30 years ago and it is still looking the same today as it did then.

John

 

[RUT JUNKEY]

agree. Borax is what I always use and spread the fan and tack to cardboard to let dry. I've never had any trouble. . .except for the one my daughters cat took a liking to and got down off the wall. . .I almost used the previous technique on that damn cat!!!