The drawing provided by Mike Connor, in his post on another thread, prompted me to ask this question:

Surely some of you have stripped off lengths of the 'Quill Shaft' and used it for a quill body. If you haven't, you should try it. You can use any feather from any bird, legal bird that is, with a long enough 'quill shaft'. Simply soak the feather for a little while, put a small notch towards the tip of the feather, where the shaft is wide enough, and peel it down with tweezers, hackle pliers, etc. Wrap this as body with the dull side down.

Here's Mike's photo:

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/1...rshaft1wm6.gif

Dub