Finished and have displayed my Osceola from Florida this year. Thanx to WVBoy for the help getting it skinned out properly.

Nice job, looks great.


Earl

That is very cool I've never seen that before

Looks great!!!

Doug

very Nice!, I'm sure many of us (haha,me) would like to know how it was done.

Wow....... looks great

Thanks Guys

Hey Bird Dog and others if interested, It was a pretty easy process. The hardest part about the whole thing was actually skinning the cape off the back. The skin gets very thin towards the middle. But here are the steps I took:
We hung the turkey up by the neck at a workable height. Cut off the wings just above the shoulder socket to give more room to work. Set these aside. Begin cut around base of neck where it meets the feathers and start skinning down the back and side. There is a line that you can follow down the side of the bird when skinning. Dont worry to much if to much extra skin and feathers come with the cape. They can be trimmed later to make a nice shape. A very sharp knife is a must for this process. Be very careful as you get to the middle of the back as it is very thin skin through there. Once you are down to the Quill, hold the fan folded up in a upward position and cut from underneath just above the shoot to take off the tail fan and keep attached to the cape. Thats pretty much it for caping. I cleaned the flesh side up really good especially getting on the underside of the quill. Pin everything down feather side down on a board and borax, borax, borax, and more borax. Be careful not to ruffle the feathers when laying down on board. I kind of laid it down with a sweeping motion neck to tail fan to keep all the feathers going in the same direction. It dried for about 6 weeks before I felt it was done.

As for the wings, there are 3 joints lets say. I stand the wing on the elbow joint on a table and slice down starting at the shoulder joint. Using a good fillet knife works best IMO. Get right in between the flesh and shoulder bone joint and slice straight down against the bone past the elbow and to the wrist. Be careful once you get to the wrist because the feathers start to wrap back around and you will have to kind of skin them off the bone. You will be left with a continuous flesh strip that has all the feathers attached and no bone. Once it is seperated from the bone you can clean up the fleshy side really well, spread out, pin down, and borax all of this. Note, I put a small slit in between the feathers and any other thicker portion after I have cut away all the meat and such. This allows for the borax to get down in all the little nook and cranies.

Once dried I tacked the wings to the wall and hung the cape over them. Hope this helps and is not to confusing. It is a win win trial to try because if you do mess the cape up while skinning out you can always just cut the tail fan off and mount as usual. Good Luck.

Beautifully done. I think the wing barring on that bird is one of the best representations i have seen of what true Osceola barring should like. So many "Osceola" pictures have wing barring that looks like a bird from east tennessee or other pure eastern locations. Congratulations again on your bird and your mount presentation.

Excellent work. We have skinned several and it is an experience thing. The more you do the better you get. One tip try a few eastern birds first that way if you get an Osceola, Rio, Merriam, you have practiced. Like mentioned when practicing if you screw up you still have the fan.
Here is a video that shows what is explained. These really make a nice mount, and to do it yourself saves you a lot of $.
http://www.grandslamnetwork.com/mountin ... pe-and-fan

It looks great man.. Glad I could help out a little..

Now I just have to do my wings now.. Mine it still in the Freezer

Very nice!

Very Nice, I did one a few years ago very similar to yours, fan up on mine as you can see. I have a few capes done and they all look nice i think.

Beautiful! That is a meticulous process. Congratulations.

Looks good. I am going to practice on some next year. Wv boy made it look easy