tail fan question

[MouthCaller]

after reading some of your guy's ways you do fan mounts Im wondering if I already screwed mine up or not... I've always just cut them off with some meat still on the tail and salted it down really well and then spread it out nailed it and let it sit somewhere I cant smell it for a long while until nature takes its course, now I have had a few fall apart after a long long while and I normally keep them out in my shop but I want to put the one I killed this year in the house. So what should I put on the back of the fan to hold everything together plus Im thinking of taking my beard and cutting off the plastic off the brass on the hull I shot him with... the idea I had for this is to just hot glue the beard inside the hull and Ive salted the feet above the spurs so what should I do about spurs?

[Buckcrazy]

Ur fan will fall apart after a couple years dermastid beetles will eat the meat left in it if u put it n ur house and have other mounts n there they will b n jeopardy then !!! Take it apart and bondo it back together !! Ur beard will keep in a shotgun shell just make sure u fill it good and air tight with glue give me a call and ill fix u up!!

[catman529]

I did this fan this year by cutting all the feathers off and hot gluing them onto small cardboard semicircles. The shiny hackle feathers are still attached to a small piece of skin which is just glued onto the cardboard. All 3 layers sandwiched together with hot glue and then attached to this barn wood. I killed 2 of these birds in the general area of the old shed I pulled the wood off of.

[stinkpickle]

Skip the salt.  Use borax instead.  It's cheap, and it works better than salt.  You can also use auto body filler to permanently set the fan after it has dried.

[GobbleNut]

If you wish to take the fan completely apart and then reassemble it, that is totally up to you,...but it is also completely unnecessary, and will take you a considerably longer amount of time to accomplish the same end result. 

The simplest and fastest way to preserve the fan is to simply remove as much meat and fat from the tail area as you can with a razor-blade tool of some sort (single edge razor blades in a holder work very well).  Just fold the skin back around the tail to expose the meat and fat and trim it away, leaving all the tail feathers attached to the base and skin.  Once you have as much of the meat/fat removed as you can get with the razor tool, rub borax thoroughly into the fan base.  Then take a wire brush and brush away as much more fat as you can, and then apply more borax. 

If the fan has gotten dirty or bloody, you should wash it thoroughly to remove whatever is on it.  Put it in a tub of cold water, add a little dishwashing soap, and gently clean off the fan feathers.  Clean them thoroughly.  Rinse in cold water, let drip dry, and then take a hair dryer and blow dry the feathers until they are completely dry.  The fan will come out looking just like it was on a live bird by doing this.

Spread the tail fan on a piece of cardboard to the shape you want it and pin it in place.  Often, just a couple of pins through the outside fan feathers will hold the fan in place, but put pins wherever needed to hold the fan in the shape you want it.  Use your fingers to straighten and/or close split feathers, and be sure to position the secondary fan feathers in place so you have a balanced appearance to the fan and the feathers are uniformly spaced. 

Let the fan dry on the cardboard for at least a couple of weeks, making sure you look at it on occasion and reposition any feathers that are moving as they dry.  Once it has dried, it will hold its shape without any additional work, but if you wish to apply bondo or some other epoxy to  protect the fan base, that is up to you. 

As for the time a fan will last, the important thing is to inspect them every few months to see if there is any evidence that you are getting any sort of bug infestation.  Spraying a little Raid or other insect killer on the fan occasionally will insure that the bugs will stay away. 

[canadatom]

I have followed the steps in previous post and have not had any issues with bugs or anything, fans hanging in house and in shop for 12 years now with no issues. Example of one from 4 years ago.

[lightsoutcalls]

I generally don't have time to process my fans right after my hunt, so they go in the freezer (along with beard and spurs) for a few weeks to a few months.  I have heard this also kills of any mites, etc that might be hiding in the beard or fan.  I do mine similar to what Gobblenut explained, using a razor blade to remove all excess meat and fat.  I pin them to a big piece of cardboard and sprinkle borax on the part where any remaining meat or fat is/was.  I then lay them on top of a bookshelf to allow them to dry.  I have never had an issue of odor from them drying.  Once dried, I place mine in fan holders that I make that has a drop for the beard and spurs.  My displays are built something like a napkin holder, so the fan slides between a front and back wooden piece.  I generally wrap a piece of papertowel on front and back of the "meaty" part of the fan base to absorb any remaining fat that might "leak" out over time. 

[catman529]

If you wish to take the fan completely apart and then reassemble it, that is totally up to you,...but it is also completely unnecessary, and will take you a considerably longer amount of time to accomplish the same end result. 

The simplest and fastest way to preserve the fan is to simply remove as much meat and fat from the tail area as you can with a razor-blade tool of some sort (single edge razor blades in a holder work very well).  Just fold the skin back around the tail to expose the meat and fat and trim it away, leaving all the tail feathers attached to the base and skin.  Once you have as much of the meat/fat removed as you can get with the razor tool, rub borax thoroughly into the fan base.  Then take a wire brush and brush away as much more fat as you can, and then apply more borax. 

If the fan has gotten dirty or bloody, you should wash it thoroughly to remove whatever is on it.  Put it in a tub of cold water, add a little dishwashing soap, and gently clean off the fan feathers.  Clean them thoroughly.  Rinse in cold water, let drip dry, and then take a hair dryer and blow dry the feathers until they are completely dry.  The fan will come out looking just like it was on a live bird by doing this.

Spread the tail fan on a piece of cardboard to the shape you want it and pin it in place.  Often, just a couple of pins through the outside fan feathers will hold the fan in place, but put pins wherever needed to hold the fan in the shape you want it.  Use your fingers to straighten and/or close split feathers, and be sure to position the secondary fan feathers in place so you have a balanced appearance to the fan and the feathers are uniformly spaced. 

Let the fan dry on the cardboard for at least a couple of weeks, making sure you look at it on occasion and reposition any feathers that are moving as they dry.  Once it has dried, it will hold its shape without any additional work, but if you wish to apply bondo or some other epoxy to  protect the fan base, that is up to you. 

As for the time a fan will last, the important thing is to inspect them every few months to see if there is any evidence that you are getting any sort of bug infestation.  Spraying a little Raid or other insect killer on the fan occasionally will insure that the bugs will stay away.

this is great advice, but you did contradict yourself. It takes longer to reassemble a tail fan, but takes 2 weeks to pin and let one dry? I could cut off the feathers and reassemble within an hour if I wanted. If I'm not going to reassemble right away, which is usually the case, I cut them off one at a time and stick the bases to duct tape to hold them in the correct order till its time to start gluing. Gluing itself probably doesn't take more than an hour, in fact probably less, but I haven't timed it.