I believe it was in the photo pages that I saw a picture of a feather inlay you did. I believe it was a grizzley hackle wrapped around the balnk. How did you get the barbs to lay down? I tried it today and they all stood up, just like a Whiting Silver should, although I admit I didn't soak it in CP first.

That's not quite how I did it. You're looking at about 40 or more individual grizzly hackles laid butt to tip. I applied them, wetted with color preserver, along the blank and at definite intervals. I would let those dry, then come back and apply more inbetween the first ones. After those dried, I came back and applied more inbetween the first two sets. This continued until the entire blank was closed in and the hackles were about two layers deep.

I'd never seen one like that before so I didn't have access to anyone's past experiments with it. So I used the "stumble" method. The method I just wrote about above was the third I tried. The first two didn't work.


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Tom,

It only took you 3 tries to get that? On one I'm doing right now for Charolette I'm on my 10th attempt, another was 6. You are good!!

I'll be posting pictures (with links to my server until the new photo page is going) soon.

The 10 time design is in direct response to a rather leanghty post on this forum some time ago about gun stock checkering. I WILL SUCCEED!!!!!!!!

Nice to hear from such a determined young man on here!! LOL! Go get 'em, Ray!

The only trick is in "seeing" what you desire for the end result and then figuring out how to obtain it. What I learned is that this particular type of inlay does not allow you to put feathers on or against other feathers while they are all still wet. It has to be done in several sequences.

If I can find that rod I'll bring it to Charlotte. It really came out well and the photos didn't do it justice. I keep kidding myself that I'll do another like it at some point.

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I think my hackles are too good a quality to do this. I tried it again, using a short hackle, about 1" long, soaked it in CP and the barbs still stood right up. I think I may give this one up.