Help With Dried Fan

[AR Cowboy]

Hello guys,

This spring my brother shot a beautiful Rio. He called yesterday to ask if I would do the fan mount. The problem is the fan has been laying in the garage since May and with some meat on is still stiff as a board.

Is it possible to rehydrate the fan, cut off the meat, and reshape the feathers?

Thanks for the help!!

[culpeper]

Absolutely...I can't remember where, but somewhere on the site you can find a you tube link or maybe you can search you tube yourself, of a video/pictures that walks you through the process.  Essentially, you cut the fan completely apart, being very careful as you do to lay the feathers as you took them apart so not to lose track of how they place naturally.  It's really not hard to do, just will take you some time, I have done about a dozen this way and they come out perfect, no meat, no fat and completely clean.  When you cut apart the individual feathers, you need to scrape them with an exacto blade to remove the meat and fat, it really comes off pretty easy.  You will also need a hot glue gun and a few glue sticks and a small mounting board to support the fan as you rebuild it.

[culpeper]

Found it...go to vanheldengamecalls.weebly.com and look on his DIY projects tab and scroll down to find the fan cleaning tutorial.  They really do turn out great

[VanHelden Game Calls]

It is a simple process and once you get the hang of it pretty fast.  I keep a story board in that I mean a large plywood board that I have drawings of fan arch's on them.  All fans are a bit different but the pre-drawn arch's keep the balance and form correct.

This process is not mine however as I learned it from a taxidermy site many tears ago, but I believed it was pulled because of outrage among taxidermists. It wasn't to hard to replicate