Bird Hide Tips?

[Myk]

I'm saving some duck/goose hides to keep the feathers organized better for fly tying. Just a salt/borax cure or maybe even a aluminum sulfate tan is all I plan.

Any tips on scraping these hides? Do I have to worry about slippage with feathers? Since I'm not really going for an all out tan do I have to degrease?

[Bill Yox]

I honestly have NO idea what to tell you on this. If I were saving a duck or goose hide, I would want to remove all the fat and grease and then dust them with borax. In the industry we use commercial wire wheel fleshers to do this. I guess if you want to trim the fat off by hand youll get the job done. Hell I think Id just remove all the desired feathers from the skin and store them THAT way...

[Myk]

Wing feathers have to be in matched pairs. I tried plucking and they got mixed up, plus it's a lot of plucking and trying to keep everything straight. The flank feathers aren't so bad and on some of the less useful ducks I am just bagging them up.

With the bagged flank feathers there's a problem of when you open the bags many want to escape. It's really bad with the down :)

When you buy the overpriced tying feathers they only come a pair to a bag or a few flank feathers so it's not quite the problem as it is with a whole duck.

I'll figure something out. The worst that can happen is that I end up leaving them frozen or plucking out what I need.