Jeremy: About the feathers. I think that feathers from birds other than waterfowl can be preserved by ensuring all the meat is removed from the skin and the skin the cured with either salt or borax. However for waterfowl I find is is much much much easier to simply pluck off the feathers you wish to save, ensure they are dry and store is a bug proof place until use. Waterfowl skin has too much fat in it to make curing the skin an easy task for me.

Tim