I make mine. I cut the feathers with a razor blade, down the middle of the spine. I then made a simple gig that is nothing more than two pieces of wood that hold the feather with the split spin exposed. I glue a small piece of 3/32" stock to the ends of the two boards (I actually use metal so that it doesn’t grind down over time) with enough gap between them to slip a feather of 5" or less between them.. I grind them while holding them between the pieces of wood (you can use a dermal tool, or hand sand, or a belt sander to grind them, I like hand sanding). The two pieces of wood on the end keeps the spins all even in thickness. To burn them, I simply have two pieces of wood that I cut out with my band saw in the shape I want my feathers. I glued a popsicle stick, flat to the base of one with about a ¼” or more over hang so I can rest the other board on the base of the feather spine, trapping the spine between the popsicle stick of the other board and base of said board. I then sanded both shaped pieces together, so they are identical when placed together with an 3/32 inch piece of wood between the popsicle stick and the board (this way they will be identical when I trap a feather between the two). Now all you got to do is take your ground feathers, hold them between the two pieces of shaped wood, cut the feathers close to your design with scissors, then burn the rest of the feathers off with a propane torch. The way I do it, you can start with raw feathers and make them any way you want. Burners are prefered becausethey willmake much smoother edges. Triming leaves jagged edges adn uneven barbs that sometimes will not catch the barbals worth a flip on the ends.

I hope this makes sense.