Turkey hunting forum for turkey hunting tips

I posted this on another forum and thought I would share it over here as well.  There were a lot of hrs put into both hunting and putting this together. 
After cleaning up my spurs I would always throw them in a drawer until I thought I would come up with some way of displaying them.*
Well last week has been that time to get something done with them.  I cut 6' lengths of Suede lace, threaded some wooden beads on in-between each spur and I am using them for window trim. ;D
I had some with the skin & scales still on so I stripped that after letting them soak in hot water with Dawn soap for a couple of days, I wire wheeled the bone with my die grinder and painted them with a hammer tone copper paint, buffed the spur and added boiled linseed oil to the spur itself like I do all of them after normal cleaning.  I only did one strand of 50 like that and left the other strands natural.

wow
what a collection!!!!!!!!
:icon_thumright:

Impressive !   :icon_thumright:

That's Awesome!!

Thats alot of turkey sandwiches!

D@MN!

Nice collection of spurs! I like what you ya did with them too!

That is alot of dead birds there, awesome!!!

What's the boiled linseed oil used for?  Mine all look almost exactyly like your, but I dont use any linseed oil.  Gimme some tips!

Thats a lot of spurs. I had a similar idea,  But I like the way you put the beads between the spurs. Nice
(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss115/earljeff/turkbeards004.jpg)

holy crap thats a pile of dead birds  :icon_thumright:

Wow, I dont think frank perdue killed that many turkeys. lol. nice work and nice collection.

Quote from: K9Doc on March 05, 2012, 04:43:59 PM
What's the boiled linseed oil used for?  Mine all look almost exactyly like your, but I dont use any linseed oil.  Gimme some tips!

If you have ever had the spur itself dry out and get a chalked look to it applying a coat or two of boiled linseed oil will usually bring it back to life and darken it back up.
I now strip my spurs to the bone, boil them until the cap will easily pop off, mix high strength peroxide pool shock and borax into a paste and coat the spur, let it set a week or two, rinse and scrape mixture off, let dry over night, glue spur cap back on and put 1 coat of boiled linseed oil on spur cap only and let dry.  I then take a hand towel usually to simply buff to a nice finish.
Once the above is done they will look the same for years to come as the boiled linseed oil protects them from what I call chalking/peeling.  Hope this helps....Good luck chasing those long beards this year..

Nice collection!

I like it alot. :icon_thumright:

My gosh man, that's a pile of dead turkeys! Looks good!!


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Quite impressive !!!!

Nice job...How long did it take to do them?

Geez! I thought I was spur collector....you definitely have me beat.

(http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab7/Gobln2/007.jpg)

Here's some of mine !    :newmascot:

Very nice!!!  I was crazy when I was young and threw most of my spurs away from some crazy reason....oh well I've now seen the light and they all are keep now.

God Bless

Very nice!

I think you have me beat, but I do a similar thing.  I don't treat them though, just freeze leg, cut off spurs, clean out marrow immediately, let dry, clean up with a Dremel sanding drum, and lace them up!  The key for me is to never let the marrow soak into the bone, then they need work.  I travel with a hacksaw blade, and can freeze the legs in a motel mini bar.

I bead them in pairs....

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v712/mudhen/2012Turkey015.jpg)

mudhen

Thanks for the Linseed oil tip! :icon_thumright:

nice, i havent thought about displaying my spurs like that

That is a nice collection

Sweet!

Very nice collection!!!

Nice!! I like it!!

NICE!!!   Plus some good tips, for the young guns and us oldster's too.    :fud:

 :icon_thumright:

my wife would kill me

I am impressed. After I clean mine up with a degreaser, I spray them with Silicone. It preserves them and makes them shiny. Maybe in 30 years I will have that many.

That is cool

Quote from: Shotgun on March 05, 2012, 09:39:28 PM
Nice job...How long did it take to do them?

If you just take care of cleaning and prepping them each season and stay on top of it this is not really that time consuming of a project.  It was the older spurs that had been hanging that really took a lot of time to clean up and get buffed out to where they come back to life that took the time.

Schuylkillspur, vaturkey & mud hen those are also very nice displays as well..
Good luck chasing long beards to everyone in the upcoming season...

looks good

How hard would it be to clean up some spurs from say the birds I've killed in like the last 3 years. I always just cuT the legs off and throw them in a bucket. They are all dried up now.

I like that a lot John but my spurs are staying on my bird :)

very nice

Awesome display and collection :icon_thumright:

Quote from: zach06 on March 15, 2012, 08:33:51 PM
How hard would it be to clean up some spurs from say the birds I've killed in like the last 3 years. I always just cuT the legs off and throw them in a bucket. They are all dried up now.

I had some spurs that I cut the leg bones a little long, left the skin on them and only knocked the bone marrow out and washed them up, I had a good bit of them like this.  I took a cordless 4" grinder with a cut off wheel and cut them all the same length just wider than the spur, I then threw them in a bucket of water with Dawn dish soap and let them set for a couple of days.
After that I took the razor blade knife to them and pliers and cleaned them the way I normally do which is stripping them and then boiling them for a few minutes afterwards.  I then put a paste mixture that I mix of strong peroxide (baquacil pool shock) and borax over the bone portion of the spur and let it sit for a few days.
It will get hard and you later can chip it off or moisten it and it will wash off.
After it is good and dry I take and rub one or two coats of boiled linseed oil onto the spur cap and they will then look good for years to come.
You will find that some of the spurs that have sat around for years with the skin on them will not come out white while others will.  Some of them just take that yellowish brown oil stain deep into the bone and can not be brought back while others can.  This is why I always make sure I clean them right away on the birds I kill now, no later than a few days to a week.
If you will notice in my first picture I took some of the older brown stained spurs that would not clean up and those are the ones I painted with the copper hammer tone paint, which is another option you can do.
Hope this helped if you need any help you can also always shoot me a pm and I will give you my #.
Good luck chasing those long beards this season....

Quote from: slamman on March 15, 2012, 08:46:35 PM
I like that a lot John but my spurs are staying on my bird :)

I don't blame you a bit Bill as that 4 spurred Ocellated Tom is the rarest of rare and is going to make one heck of a mount!