I want to make my own turkey feather fletching, which feathers do I use from the wing.   The longer ones with only one good side, or the shorter ones with the two good sides???   Or does it matter?

The longer ones(primary)are the best but the others(secondary) will work.

The primary are the best, but both work. You will want to cut your feather off the back side of the primary feathers. Normally the front of the feather is ground down from strutting and dragging their wings on the ground.

I've tried the grinding and prefer to strip my feathers (pulling the fletching from the quill).  The base isn't as sturdy but I can get a fletching in seconds and they lay on the shaft very nicely.

Is there a thread on preparing tukey feathers? Like a build a long? My search came up empty. I'm still new at this too, and was sure how to prep the feathers, or even store em for that matter.

I don't know if there is a follow along or not, but it is prett easy to do even without tools. Just use a sharp blade and split the feather in half. Take the good half and pinch it between something and rub sandpaper on the base until it looks like all your other feathers. You get the hang of it after a few tries.

There is a follow along on a web site that I found, I will e-mail it to you if you would like.  I will have to find it.   I am not sure how to pull them off the wing and store them either.

QuoteOriginally posted by elkboy:
There is a follow along on a web site that I found, I will e-mail it to you if you would like.  I will have to find it.   I am not sure how to pull them off the wing and store them either.

I'd be happy to take a look at it. Can you PM the site to me?

Both will work but you will want to use the primary feathers mostly. You also may want to treat the feathers so that if you loose them, lets say in a field, the bacteria in the siol won't damage the feathers as much.

P.S. As for getting the feather off the wing, one thing that you could do is use a pair of pliers and grip the feather as close to the wing as possible then pull it out of the wing. That was it damages less of the feather. As for storing them, it depends if you'll be storing them for a long period of time or not. If it is for a long period of time then you'll want to store them someplace reletivly dry and possible a normal household temp of somewhere in the 60's.

Now don't quote me on all of this, I'm kind of new at this myself.

The stiffest primaries from a longbeard (mature bird) are the quietest feathers. Secondaries and jake feathers tend to be noisy in flight.

I tried stripping my last set, but had trouble getting them seated well with my Jo-Jan fletcher. I'll be sanding my next ones.

I could never get the hang of stripping a feather.  Here is one link to earlier threads on feather grinders.


http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=050150#000003

Dennis

Can a person use the secondary feathers un cut for flu flu's  ?????

After splitting the secondaries, the bottom side of a left wing becomes a right wing, and the bottom side of the right wing becomes a left wing.  I use those and call them "don't cares" because they make great flu flu's, small game, and stumping arrows.  And if I happen to loose one or break one,  I "don't care" because they are not my prime feathers.

QuoteOriginally posted by stringstretcher:
After splitting the secondaries, the bottom side of a left wing becomes a right wing, and the bottom side of the right wing becomes a left wing.  I use those and call them "don't cares" because they make great flu flu's, small game, and stumping arrows.  And if I happen to loose one or break one,  I "don't care" because they are not my prime feathers.

Yep, what he said.  I use both sides of all my secondaries, but they do get loud. Good for stumpin though.

Dean Torges site: The Bowyers Edge has a great feather grinder build-along. My next project!  www.bowyersedge.com