Steam & Ironing Feathers

As a classic wet fly tyer I encounter paired Duck and goose quills that seem all crumpled. Most people won't buy these and if I am picking paired wings quills out in person I would not either. There are however those times they come in the mail this way or sometimes in my old storage system would get damaged. So what should you do with them:

1) Take a whistling tea kettle and place the damaged quills one quill at a time right into the steam path from the kettle. I do this to the front of the feather for about 15 to 30 seconds and then flip the feather over and do the other side. For most crumpled feathers this usually repairs the wings quills into workable wet fly wings.

2) Then there are the sever crumpled. What I do is repeat step one above two times. This will repair the quill but upon inspection you will see a rippling affect in the wing quill. So the next step is to place the feather with the dull side/velvet side facing you. Then take a low steam iron on the lowest setting and iron the wing quill. The important part here is to iron the quill in the exact natural position is is pointing. It take two to three times of doing this and it generally places the wing quills into fine working order.

So next time you guys have crumpled feathers or need a certain color that you find at the store is crumpled, buy it. If the feather is torn and ripped then just pass because it will remain that way forever and will not be worth your time to try and repair/salvage. My wife use to look at me at first a little odd and after she seen the finished product was amazed. Now when I ask where is the iron, she laughs at me and ask's how many need fixing this time.