I recently did some repair work for a guy who had some older custom rods that instead of a butt-wrap had many(probably 100 or more) overlapping feathers finished over on the blank. anyway, he said it was built by a man named Jake Wilson, who is from Iowa somewhere, but spent his summers in the Leech Lake area of Minnesota. He couldn't tell me if he was still alive, said if he is, he is probably in his late 80's or 90's. Does anyone know this gentleman,or is anyone familiar with the technique, if he is still alive, I would love to pick his brain to find out how he stuck on all those feathers before finishing them. Or if anyone else knows how, please let me know.
thanks, jeff

RodMaker did a story on how to do it but I think that issue is sold out. Russ Gooding wrote it so maybe he would help you out. I have seen a few feather inlays, but never 100 on one rod! I hope you take a few photos of it before you hand it back over.

Lay the Feathers out on table how you want them on rod, then just soak the feathers in CP or put a thin coat of finish on rod and apply the feathers directly to rod.. The only problem with not usin CP is the feathers may dissapear. This is so easy it's funny, you just have to be artistic.. Feel free to email me directly and I will try to answer your questions.. Thanks Dave

I have only seen 1 rod done with feathers. It was on a fly rod. I would like to have more infor on the process

Jeff-- If you can uncover more information about this guy & his technique be sure to let us know. I'm very interested also. What
would be nice is if this board had a place to post pictures of things
like this or a technique that someone specializes in-- a picture is
worth a thousand words!

I have found using CP to lay the feathers on the blank can cause some hazing or milkyness around the feathers if the excess is not removed properly and removing can sometimes dislodge the feather. I do as mentioned above, lay a thin coat of finish then apply the feathers using tweezers as to not touch the finish or blank and get skin oils on it. Then use a brush to move/position the feathers. Remember, the feathers will act differently when saturated (clump, seperate etc.) So a good technique to lay out he feathers is lay them out on the blank with water first. This will show you how it will look and how the feathers will react. Just be sure to let the feathers dry completely (24-48 hours) and clean the blank to remove any deposits left from the water or feathers. Then apply feathers with finish like you did with water, rotate for recommended time, continue with coats of finish until feathers are covered and finish is level. Only caution is, if you have a design with multiple feathers on top of each other, be aware of how much build you will have to have to cover them. Trimming the parts of the feathers that will not be shown helps in this. Let me know if you have any questions. Hope this helped Happy Wrapping!!!!

Hi,

I posed this same question - How do inlay feathers - about 1 month ago.

The answer I recieved was that Golden Witch does this on all of thier rods. They are also the ones that wrote the article in Rodmakre on how to do this.

If you e-mail them (their link is on the left) Golden Witch will send you a copy of the article. They also have some beutiful pictures on thier sight of some inlays.

The article is very well written and easy to follow. I will be trying his techniques here in a month or two. (After the wild ducks in this area color up and I can get some feathers from some local hunters.)

Thank You, I finally got to contribute to this board - It has been helping me out since it started.

PO

PS - Their secret to doing the inlays is 50% color preserver solution, this prevents the 'Hazing' and a certain type of preserver, I believe, Brillance was the name, but I'm not sure.

well, unfortunately, I only got ahold of the tip section, so I was unable to get any pictures, but the guy says he has some more stuff to be fixed, so I will try to get some pictures then.

PIECE O CAKE......DONE FEATHER INLAYS ON FLY ROD BLANKS. 50% COLOR PRESERVER FOR INITIAL SET OF FEATHER. THAN 1 100% COAT OVER FEATHER.LOOKS GREAT AFTER EPOXY FINISH APPLIED.