Preserving Spurs

[turkeyfool]

Quick question on preserving spurs. Typically take a knife to the skin and ligaments and clean out the bone after the season. There's some spurs i've neglected for a few years and obviously everything rotted in a ziplock in the fridge. Any advice on what to do to make cleaning the spurs easier after a few years of sitting?

[runngun]

If the caps came off of the spurs, you can glue them back on. Then polish the spurs prior to putting the caps on iff needed to soak the bones in hydrogen peroxide for a couple of hours. Check on these during soak. Take them out when you are happy with the results. Then glue the caps back on. 

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[captpete]

Here is a great tutorial on preserving spurs. It takes some time but works very well. Hopefully it will help/give you some ideas.

http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,19047.0.html

[ShortMagFan]

I've been doing it for years with nothing more than table salt

I cut the lower leg off at the joint when dressing the bird. Dab the fleshy/boney part in a pile a table salt. Let it sit for about a month. The salt will draw a lot of moisture out. They sit on a paper towel (to soak up the moisture) on a counter in my garage. I do the same with the flesh on the beards when I cut them off

After everything is good a dry (a month or so), the feet and beard go in a plastic bag labeled with the specifics and into a shoe box where they sit in the closet for a year.

After a year I pull them out, saw the legs an inch on either side of the spur. Glue the beard into the brass of the shotgun shell that killed the turkey and run a leather shoe string thru the hollowed out leg bone for each spur and an eyelet I put in place of the primer on the shotshell brass. Cut the leather shoe string and staple to a cedar board. Use a sharpie to label the cedar with whatever details I want to preserve.

[tad1]

The link posted earlier is similar to the process I've used in the past.  Only difference is for degreasing I didn't do ammonia, I just stayed with a good squirt of Dawn and continued simmering  for a while after the caps have been removed.  Then the bones go into some peroxide. You can probably get away with the cheap readily available 3% if you let them soak a few days, although that 40% certainly expedites the whitening process.  The caps can be pulled off pretty quick in the simmer and then the soft gunky stuff underneath scrapes off with ease.  A drop or 2 of whatever glue you have on hand should secure the caps back nicely.  I've also touched up the caps with the black sharpie before just to get them all shiny. 
   This process can be used for wing bones and other taxidermy like skulls, etc. It's pretty much just making sure they are well degreased so the bone doesn't yellow over time, and then whitened.
Have fun and post up some taxidermy projects!
        JT

[357MAGNOLE]

I cut them where I want them, put in boiling water for a few minutes.  Peel the scaley skin off and run a q-tip through the bone. Then I put them in borax for a few days to dry out. Easy peasy.

[Greg Massey]

I just usually let them sit for about a month and cut them off with dermal tool cutting blade and clean the insides out with a piece of coat hanger wire, and put clear fingernail polish over the spurs , let dry for couple days and do whatever with them.... You can pickup a cheap dermal tool from Harbor Fright for around 10 dollars that has attachments etc or you can buy one of the more expensive ones ... I have both and either will work fine for cutting the spurs off the legs ... The smell of cutting them off isn't pleasant, but it's just part of cutting them off....