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....
