yonv2

My wife is native American 3/8 Cherokee but I am the beadwork fanatic. I do peyote stitch on some round items. An I have made a wood fan handle that not knowing what I was doing beaded in Comanche stitch until I needed to add beads on the taper and then was lost. So I Finished it in bead wrap. Now that it is done I need to add/insert the feathers. Thus the Questions?? My wife an our two (2) children all have Eagle feathers from the US Fish and Wildlife. They received the whole bird (that was in 1997) We removed and kept all the feathers stored in a box with cedar shavings.
1st. Question? How do I clean them, as you do with traditional herbs. How do I stream, flattened out,
2nd. Question? One of the birds we received was badly eaten out by a skunk. How do I clean and removed the odor.
3rd. Question? How do I insert/add the feathers to the fan handle (I made a elongated hole for them approx (1.50" long x .50 wide x 2.00 deep.
I would greatly appreciate answers to these questions if anyone out there can HELP me.
Thanks. WADO (Cherokee goodbye) From my wife an me of the (want a be tribe).

Blackbear

this sounds like a job for SUPER POWWOWBUM49!!!!


LOL I'm sure there's more that can help you out than just him... I know you get rid of skunk smell by washing things in tomato juice, but is it a skunk musk or decay smell? If it's decay smell, pluck that bird clean and then wash the feathers separately from the body cause you can't wash the smell of decay from something that's decaying. And I don't know what formaldehyde would do to feathers personally.

But for putting the feathers in the handle, Bum can probably help you better with that cause most of the time people put the feathers in first before beading the handle....

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Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.

OLChemist

I bead before mounting feathers, since I work 18/0's and seem to only be able to about as many beads as are in a fan handle beaded with 13/0's before: a) one of the cats gets into the studio and starts looking at the fan like it is a moving cat toy, b) I have a thread vs. feathers tangle, LOL.

Are you using extenders on your feathers?

If you are, you just glue them into the handle. I usually give the socket a thin coating of glue first to keep the glue from finding any paths out to the beadwork. Then I fix the feathers in place and glue them in.

If you are planning not to use extenders then there is a little more to it. And someone with more experience should advise you. PowwowBum 49 where are you?! LOL.

yonv2

Thanks for the input. It made sense to me to bead before adding the feathers, that way they were not in the way of the thead and Me. What are extenders??

yonv2

Thanks for the reply.
It smells (not as bad as when we got the bird). The whole bottom (butt) was eaten out an that's the smell of the skunk (I'm only guessing). It was a young golden eagle an I didn't want the tomato juice to stain the white of the feathers RED.

Josiah

Cleaning wise not sure if you will ever get the skunk smell out of them...
But try Regular ole Borax Soap that you buy at the Grocery store it has deoderizers in it
lay it on pretty thick and let them sit for a while...
I did that for my Eagle Feathers after I recieved mine from the Fish and Game it removes the flesh and meat and they dont smell bad when it doing it...
I clean my fans with Woolite and works great, helps bring back the natural sheen to them and they smell nice

I have heard of several ways to Straighten Feathers but i use a 100 watt bulb and run the feather over the bulb untill the shaft starts to get very warm and gently move the shaft where you want it
It is time consuming but it works and it don't damage the feather
By the way Wear Sunglasses

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Fat Albert

You had asked about extenders earlier. A lot of craft workers sometimes trim the quill of the feather and then insert something like a bamboo skewer into them (using some glue to keep it there). It is helpful for adding length to the fan but more importantly gives you room to work for thread wrapping and feather work. Make sure that if you do this though that you don't cut too much of the quill off. One of my uncles had a macaw fan done this way that was really pretty until the center feather popped off. Who ever made it cut them really shallow so there was not much for the bamboo to grab onto. I am including a picture from the Powwows.com files. From teepee_creeper126 I hope it works!



http://www.powwows.com/galleries/sho...=12492&cat=506