Turkey cape taxidermy help

[ryjack70ss]

Hey all. I shot my second ever turkey here in Missouri this year. My first was 10 years ago and I just did the fan. I decided to do a cape mount. Cape came off great and I fleshed it, pinned it and put on the borax. The fan and back look good. Feathers need a little rearranging but I am happy. What I don’t like is the neck. I attached a photo but I am not sure what happened or how to fix it. If you can see, the center of the neck only has down feathers. The actual feathers are out to the sides. Thoughts on how to fix it? If it can’t be fixed, should I just cut that part off? I don’t think that would look good either.

Thanks for any advice.

Ryan


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[ryjack70ss]

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[hobbes]

A couple things may be going on:

1. You've probably lost some feathers in the killing.

2. The feathers that you are showing have gotten either wet from water, blood, or grease. It also looks like borax stuck in feathers. Powdered borax makes a mess of wet feathers. I never get it near feathers until 100% completely dry.

3. You have the skin stretched too much and need to "taxi" feathers and skin into place more naturally to bring feathers into place.

You'll have a hard time with getting it to look great. Your neck feathers are dirty and matted. After fleshing; I used to wash the whole thing in cool water with Dawn, rinse multiple times to remove absolutely all soap, white gas it (controversial with taxidermists), tumble in corn cob grit, then use a cool to warm blow-dryer for a long time until all down fluffs and feathers shine. BUT... that's probably not a good idea for most folks because you'll make it worse.

I think you could use a damp rag to lightly clean those feathers at the neck then a blow-dryer on warm to cool. Don't over heat. Dry until down is fluffed and feathers shine. Then taxi skin into a position that allows feathers to lay naturally.

The easiest option is take a pair of scissors and cut 3" of skin off to remove the whole area. I'd prefer that if it can't be cleaned up. Of course that doesn't work on a skin to be mounted, but should be fine on a cape.

 

[jruff002]

exactly what hobbes said, 1 other option is you could just dip the neck portion that needs fixed in water/soap without doing the whole thing, clean and rinse best you can then use a blow dryer on cooler setting and blow dry it (caution don't get feathers too hot!), worst case scenario if you still dont like it cut that portion off.

 

[ryjack70ss]

Awesome advice. I will try that method this weekend and if it doesn’t work I will cut it off a bit. I didn’t realize you should wash the whole thing to degrease. You can tumble these things without the fan busting up? This is only my second downed turkey so I relied on YouTube videos on how to do the cape process. Thanks!

Ryan


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[jruff002]

yes, i made a tumbler years ago out of old dryer by just removing the heating element and tumbled few turkeys w/that and sawdust and dryer moves much quicker than a normal tumbler. Mounted a hen for another decoy month ago and just washed her in dawn w/water really good and rinsed well then blow dried. Takes some time that way as i dont have a tumbler any longer and never tried the white gas or alcohol approach but heard it shortens process and makes sense that it would, just my .02

 

[ryjack70ss]

yes, i made a tumbler years ago out of old dryer by just removing the heating element and tumbled few turkeys w/that and sawdust and dryer moves much quicker than a normal tumbler. Mounted a hen for another decoy month ago and just washed her in dawn w/water really good and rinsed well then blow dried. Takes some time that way as i dont have a tumbler any longer and never tried the white gas or alcohol approach but heard it shortens process and makes sense that it would, just my .02

Thanks. Mine is a month old with borax on it. Do you think it’s worth it to wash the whole thing or too late and fragile now?


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[jruff002]

i wouldn't chance the whole thing, id try to do the neck part and worst case cut it off. if you were talking about a game hide that had been wet tanned or krow tanned it would be fine but i dont know in this scenario i'd guess 50/50

 

[hobbes]

I didn't like tumbling the fan. I almost always removed the fan and worked on it by itself then put it back together, but that was on a full mount for the most part. I've done that with capes also, but reattaching cape to fan for hanging was always tricky. I've not had a taxi shop for years, so don't do much of it at all anymore.