Seperate quills from hair?

[Michael Bootz]

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a porcupine hide and started plucking it yesterday. I cut off a piece of the hide (approx 1/3), soaked it and plucked the quills. Now I've got a large bowl that is filled with quills and all the hair that came off together with the quills while plucking.

Is there any trick/technique how I can seperate the quills from the hair? Any way to do this quickly and easily?

[wyo_rose]

Find someone that wants the hair for a roach. They'll separate it in no time.

[powwowbum49]

Make you some screens. It is kinda like shifting flour for baking. You find some screen with varying size mesh which translates to different size holes. stretch it over some frames. Place your quills on the screen with the largest holes and bounce it. The quills will pass down through the holes in the screen and much of the under fur will remain and can be discarded. Move to the next holes size down and repeat. You may have to repeat this process with each screen a few time to get rid of the under fur. Now the up side is this is pretty quick and not only will this clear the under fur but it will also sort the quills by diameter which is a definate plus for doing good quill work.

Hope that helps

[Michael Bootz]

Thanks! Gonna try that!