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Spur prep

Fishbonker

Fishbonker

Life Member
I know most of you are still chasing deer and I hope you connect, but I was putzing around in the garage today deburring jigging sinkers and for some reason I started to think about the sets of turkey legs I needed to cut the spurs off of.

Years ago a poster on here (Ghost) had an incredible neckless of spurs from the turkeys he had killed. He prepped them somehow and they just looked fantastic. I am trying to figure out how he prepped the legs/spur section.

I have three sets, one from '07, '16 and '17. I cut the spur section off the leg with a hack saw today. I did the '16 legs first, they smelled awful when I cut them, then I did the '17 legs and the marrow was still gelatinous and smelled worse. I finished with the '07 legs, yes 10 years old, and they were quite dry inside but dry bone still smells bad when cut.

I was able to peel the scales off the front part of the legs but the back part still looks like a snake trying to shed its skin. Underneath the peeled section is a nice red color. Is there anything I can do to get the other scales off and stop the stench without waiting 10 years? My goal is to put the spurs on a leather string and hang it from the '07 turkey fan mount (that has been on the wall for 9 years) and add to the string in the future.

A tip for the young guys out there, relationships are like walking through a mine field. Eventually you figure out how the other person in the relationship lays their mines and you learn how to avoid them. Sure you get blowed up a few times in the learning process but it is a learning process and if you fail to learn then it's your own fault. So to avoid stepping on a mine I need to string the spurs and any future spurs from that original fan mount without the stench and without "snake scales" on the spurs.

Any help to keep me from getting blowed up is appreciated.

Yes Muddy, the '07 bird is the one you called in for me. Do something correctly once and I guess a fella becomes a legend.
 
i cut mine above and below the spur with a band saw, then use a knife and remove all the flesh, next i take a pair of pliers and pull out any ligaments and run a wire in the bone. let it dry in borax for a month or so then just touch them up with a wire brush. Works well for me, I put mine on a leather string and put a dab of hot glue in each end after i run it through the spur
 
I did much like hotshot and did it the day after shooting them. Smell was not an issue die to the borax drying things out and bacteria never getting started. If yours sat a long time the bacteria breaking stuff down may have let odor sink into the bones bad. I'd still try the borax for a few weeks and see what happens.
 
Fishbonker said:
A tip for the young guys out there, relationships are like walking through a mine field. Eventually you figure out how the other person in the relationship lays their mines and you learn how to avoid them. Sure you get blowed up a few times in the learning process but it is a learning process and if you fail to learn then it's your own fault. So to avoid stepping on a mine I need to string the spurs and any future spurs from that original fan mount without the stench and without "snake scales" on the spurs.

Any help to keep me from getting blowed up is appreciated.
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Haha! Great advice, I love it! I need to cut mine up as well, so you probably just saved me from stepping on one.
 
Go figure, I was looking for something else in the basement today and came across another fan, beard and legs probably from '15. I trimmed the spurs out of the legs and they too were gelatinous goo. I found my box of borax and packed the hollow part of the spurs/legs using a 3/16th punch then I covered them in borax. I'll give them a few weeks, probably after new years, then take them out of the borax and see how they smell and look.

I really shouldn't be worried about the smell. My wife has zero sense of smell. It's the scales that will cause her concern and therefore me to step on a mine.
 
You can peel the scales right off the bone. Just take a knife and slice around the spur on both sides and the scale will pull right off.
 
If you clean them up the day you kill them you don't even need to Borax them. I just scrape them clean and then let them dry out. No scales, no stink. Old ones like you have, clean them up, Borax them a bit and check back in a week or so like you are doing. I have not done this so I am not sure how this is going to go for you. Good luck.
 
You can scrape that stuff really hard without hurting the bone. Once I get mine cleaned up I put some peroxide on them to whiten them up. Sometimes they get brighter, sometimes they don't.
 
I use a dremel tool to clean the scales / skin off the outside of the bone and it works great and leaves a super white bone finish. After pulling the tendons out of the inside of the bone I put borax inside to dry it out. This is all really easy to do and really cheap. Looks great when finished. I can send pics of the finished product to anyone who pm's me their cel#.
 
IMG_5169.JPG Attached is pic of the Dremel bit and finished spurs. I use that Dremel bit to take off the "scales" and all tissue. I have not bleached these spurs, this is how they look after using the Dremel tool.
 
I love having a good excuse to go buy a new tool. I think I have enough can money stashed that the wife doesn't know about to pull it off. Now I just need to find a place to hide it.

Thanks for the pics.
 
Bought the Dremel. Tried it on one of the spurs but I don't think it was quite dry enough yet. Still smelled nasty and that was before I started grinding. I put it back in the borax and will give it more time.

Hanyak, any chance you can take a photo looking down the bone? I don't know how much I should grind out. Seems to be a groove or two in the bone that when I try to get out what ever piece of anatomy that fills the groove the leg bone gets pretty thin. Sure seems to be a lot of tendons still stuck in there and I'm afraid to grind much more out.

Oh yeah, to justify buying the Dremel I told my wife, who is pretty artsy craftsy, that she could use it on her projects too. She thought that was a pretty good idea. She came out to the garage when I was using it to grind on the bone. She sniffed the air, took one look at the bone dust covered tool and let's just say I don't need to worry about her wanting to use my tool(s). And yes, there was penalty box time involved for not being up front about actually being OK with sharing a tool but it was a much shorter stay in the penalty box than if I had bought the tool and tried to hide it. So it was kind of a win-win-win for me, new tool, short stay in the box and I don't have to worry about my wife getting girl cooties on my tool(s).
 
Absolutely will take a photo and post it. Basically I grind through all of the "non bone" material and once I hit bone it turns from a dark color to white and then I'm about done.
 
IMG_5257.JPG IMG_5258.JPG I use a nail to push out the tendons inside the bone and then put borax inside to dry it out. If it's a fresh spur you should be able to pull / cut off the outermost skin / scales before using the dremel.
 
Thanks for the pics. Mine don't look at all like yours. Maybe I've got an eagle talon not a turkey spur.











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I'll take some pics of the other talon spurs and what I have done so far in a few days.
 
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