DIY fan mount

[mrklean]

Just started my fan mounts today will be posting pics of the process and the final product in the next few days. Wish me luck

[mrklean]

Just finished up the fans. You dont really need many tooks, nice sharpe knife to cut fat and skin away, wire brush the stiffer the better to remove fat inbetween the quills, borax, camping fuel and some bondo. I started out by cutting all the the extra fat away and removing extra feathers as well.

This is what it looked like before i used the wire brush to remove everything inbetween the quills. The wire brush worked great at removed all the fat and meat between the quills, a dremil with a wire wheel would work even better. This is what it looks like after using the wire brush, alot of the fat came off with the brush but cutting is still needed to remove some of it.

After the wire brush work i soaked the quills in coleman camping fuel to suck some of the oils out, it also breaks some of the fat that is still left over. After letting that sit for about an hour i hit it with the wire brush one more time to clean them up a bit more.

Next i rubbed team 20 borax over the entire base, it helps dry it out a little and keeps the bugs out as well, I let that sit over night. I pinned the feathers all out the way it will be mounted.

There are a few different products you can use to hold everything in place, bondo, epoxys, fiberglass etc. I used bondo since i was easy to work with and the only thing i could find at walmart on a saturday.

Again i pinned the feathers out to how i wanted them mounted, i put the bondo around the entire base, let that sit for about 3 mintes and it was good and set, flipped it over and repeated. The bondo worked better then i thought and its soft enough to drill though when i mount it on a board.

I did both my jake and tom i shot this year the tom turned out much better then the jake, the entire process was much easier then i thought, now i just need to get my board to finsih them up.

[DonBo]

Nice job mrklean. Only thing I would do different would be to save a few more of the feathers from the back.

[Cheetah]

I like mine with more feathers from the base of the tail as well, but it seems the majority of the fan mounts I see photos of online only have the one layer like mrklean.

mrklean, are you going to make your own plaques for them? Or go with store bought?

[mrklean]

not sure probably just buy one

[KMR85]

Nice work. I don't think I got many base feathers as well. They still look good when everything is clean and symmetrical.

[mrklean]

the ones i was looking at online didnt have many base feathers so thats why i went with fewer, next time ill try a few more

[MJ1657]

Looks real nice.

[mws4dux]

Looking good.They'll look really nice on a plaque