From turkey feather to fletching

[swampsnyper]

I take a full length right wing turkey feather and split the quill down the middle.






Place the feather in my homemade feather grinding jig.





Put jig on belt sander and grind it flat to about a 1/16 of an inch thick.





Remove ground feather and Place in chopper.






Chop feather into a finished feather ready to fletch.





I'm new at this so any pointers would be appreciated.

[Stringwacker]

Very nice!
I have ground my own feathers for my shafts in the past and used a chopper but of the last few years I have sent them to Trueflight and Gateway for processing. Trueflight doesn't do it anymore but Gateway still does. I probably have 150 LW in Gateway 5" diecuts. They used to charge $50 per hundred.

I love your work...very good! I bet you use those on your stickbow!

[swampsnyper]

Thanks stringWacker.

Cut me a sample batch to decide what I like best. Just shot all of them and a 5in shield cut over and over again with field points and vpa terminators and I can't tell a difference. I think I may go with the 4.5 in banana. Just seems more stream line. Need to test in the wind.


4.5in banana
5.5in banana
4.5in parabolic
5.5in parabolic

[swampsnyper]

VPA Terminators 175gr

[dublelung]

Those look great and I'm sure you get lots of satisfaction from making them yourself. I have a abundance of left and right wing feathers if you ever run low email me [e-mail].

[jgreg]

Good job looks real nice Where did you get your feather chopper

[swampsnyper]

3 rivers