I've used CP in the past but I thought I had read here one time that some use only water to wet their feathers pryor to applying to the rod and that was it, no CP, no Permagloss, nothing but water. Is that correct and if so, must you wait until the feather is dry before you can apply your first coat of finish? As always thanks for your input.

Rob, I can't imagine that working at all (but I've been wrong before!). I'm relatively certain that the feathers would have to get some form of adhesive (CP, varathane, or Permagloss) to hold them down before applying a finish over them.

Putter
Williston, ND

I wash my feathers in denatured Alcohol, let dry , this gets the oils from the featherd off. Then I let them soak in C/P for a minute or two. After the soak I place the feathers on the blank and arrange the feathers in the pattern I want. Let feathers dry, after drying cover with finish
Good Wraps Bob

I vaguely remember a post about applying feathers using water and it may have been from TK but i believe it was only a step in the total process. I have used water applied to feathers as a test to get an idea of a final design and some feathers will dry in place but I never checked to see if they adhered well enough to stay that way to allow a coat of CP or Permagloss to be applied as a more permanent fix.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"