Dave Shady Larsen
Well-known member
We sell the trewax brand at my store now. Just funny how folks just ask for Johnsons and we get-to convince them it's OK 
January Workbench
- Thread starter Ronald Bock
- Start date
Dave Shady Larsen
Well-known member
Awesome love a ringneck! Well done
Steve Sanford
Well-known member
Good morning, Ben~
Gorgeous bird! I love the hard lines on the paint. Perfect for this species - always on the Best Dressed List.
All the best,
SJS
Ronald Bock
Member
Just got a video of my daughter working on a half size decoy and my 5 yr old granddaughter is helping vacuum. Gotta love it. Three generations of carvers? Fingers crossed. Files to big to attach. Sad sigh.
Vince Pagliaroli
Well-known member
Ben,
That's a mighty fine Ringbill decoy. Everything that should be there is, no fluff. I like the textured head and the brush marks gives the decoy extra appeal. Should work very well for yer friend for many years.
Best regards
Vince
Steve Sanford
Well-known member
Tim~
Gorgeous work! I've never painted a canine head - but once thought I'd paint human portraits.
I did break out the watercolors - for this Wildfowler Model Superior Mallard. Balsa-bodied bird from the Old Saybrook factory.
All the best!
SJS
Gorgeous work! I've never painted a canine head - but once thought I'd paint human portraits.
I did break out the watercolors - for this Wildfowler Model Superior Mallard. Balsa-bodied bird from the Old Saybrook factory.
All the best!
SJS
I ended up looking a bit like a dog.
Back in the late 70's I paid my way through college painting family portraits. I still do some portrait painting, but in a whole new way. In college it was hand painting with acrylic, now it's airbrush on steel like this one I did for a friend last month. He cuts the steel and has all kinds of steel I've painted for him hanging on the wood fence in his yard.
Another portrait of sorts. I feel like I'm very good at painting a mug of beer.
my son, Caleb is 36 and sketches portraits of people and dogs and various critters when he has some spare time.
These are a couple he did last month and a couple months before. He has a nine year old son that is showing some skills with drawing and sculpting. I'm sure he's going to be in my way in the airbrush booth soon.
Another portrait of sorts. I feel like I'm very good at painting a mug of beer.
my son, Caleb is 36 and sketches portraits of people and dogs and various critters when he has some spare time.
These are a couple he did last month and a couple months before. He has a nine year old son that is showing some skills with drawing and sculpting. I'm sure he's going to be in my way in the airbrush booth soon.
MLBob Furia
Well-known member
Tim,
Awesome job on the dog portrait!
We've been frozen out most of January. Started with a foot of snow that just stayed. With Scooter on the mend not much incentive to even prog around the frozen bottoms.
Continued work on my January decoy project, the trio of ringbills. Temps the past two weeks have been bitter, but it's warm in the studio, so I spent time painting the drakes. Hen will be the next paint job to tackle.
Awesome job on the dog portrait!
We've been frozen out most of January. Started with a foot of snow that just stayed. With Scooter on the mend not much incentive to even prog around the frozen bottoms.
Continued work on my January decoy project, the trio of ringbills. Temps the past two weeks have been bitter, but it's warm in the studio, so I spent time painting the drakes. Hen will be the next paint job to tackle.
Noah Shaver
Member
My workbench has looked a bit different lately
Now there is a scene from my distant past!
I havent set a trap line since winter 1990, when it got hard to even find a buyer in central Alabama.
Which state are you in? Is the market for otter and beaver decent? Can you at least cover gas money?
Back in 1982, when I sold my first batch of fir, blanket beaver were bringing $50-75 depending on grade, muskrats were $7-12, and raccoons $25-50!
I havent set a trap line since winter 1990, when it got hard to even find a buyer in central Alabama.
Which state are you in? Is the market for otter and beaver decent? Can you at least cover gas money?
Back in 1982, when I sold my first batch of fir, blanket beaver were bringing $50-75 depending on grade, muskrats were $7-12, and raccoons $25-50!
Noah Shaver
Member
There has been a little fur market resurgence on beaver in the past couple three years, but it is starting to dwindle back down now. The widely popular TV show Yellowstone had everyone going to buy a cowboy hat, so beaver felt for making the hats was in high demand. Trappers trapped beaver and it was pretty easy to flood that little bump in the market with product, so prices are starting to come back down now.
I am in North Carolina. I have the option to ship my fur to Fur Harvesters Auction in Canada or sell to Groenewald Fur and Wool when their spring truck route comes through NC. FHA may usually yield you a couple more dollars but you have to pay shipping and an 11% auction commission, so I typically sell to GFW when he comes through 20 minutes from my house. Fur is selling for less now than it did when you were selling it in 1982. The last couple years a good fleshed and dried blanket beaver brought you right around $40. This year that will probably be $30 with the XL's and L's being down in the low 20's. Southern raccoons are only worth a buck or two, muskrats the same.
I sell my otter on the taxidermy market for fairly good money. I started trapping seriously in 2012 and at that time a fleshed and dried otter at auction was minimum a $100 bill. Now at auction they are 25-30 bucks, but I get 2 to 3 times that on the taxidermy market.
Unfortunately I don't know if a real fur market will ever come back. Our society seems to be convinced that killing animals is bad, and wearing fur is worse. They preach environmental friendliness and then wear synthetic, non sustainable, petroleum based clothing. Fur is a renewable resource that is much warmer and more effective than synthetic clothing. It doesn't get more "green" than that!
I am in North Carolina. I have the option to ship my fur to Fur Harvesters Auction in Canada or sell to Groenewald Fur and Wool when their spring truck route comes through NC. FHA may usually yield you a couple more dollars but you have to pay shipping and an 11% auction commission, so I typically sell to GFW when he comes through 20 minutes from my house. Fur is selling for less now than it did when you were selling it in 1982. The last couple years a good fleshed and dried blanket beaver brought you right around $40. This year that will probably be $30 with the XL's and L's being down in the low 20's. Southern raccoons are only worth a buck or two, muskrats the same.
I sell my otter on the taxidermy market for fairly good money. I started trapping seriously in 2012 and at that time a fleshed and dried otter at auction was minimum a $100 bill. Now at auction they are 25-30 bucks, but I get 2 to 3 times that on the taxidermy market.
Unfortunately I don't know if a real fur market will ever come back. Our society seems to be convinced that killing animals is bad, and wearing fur is worse. They preach environmental friendliness and then wear synthetic, non sustainable, petroleum based clothing. Fur is a renewable resource that is much warmer and more effective than synthetic clothing. It doesn't get more "green" than that!
I miss those days on the trapline, paid a lot of bills with coyote fur, they were $35 each back in the 80's, that was a lot of money for a young married guy. the last year I trapped was 91 and we tanned all the fur we had that year. I still have a half dozen of the best, gave the rest to a friend back in Kansas. I worked for a fur buyer as a skinner back in my younger days when I could throw down on the beam with those beaver and coyote all day. You did a fine job on that beaver. The buyer I worked for wanted everything unskinned so I kept busy. I still have my big two handled knife, I've used it on bears and deer here and there over the years.
Noah Shaver
Member
@Don Mintz similar story for me as well. I am a young fella, I wasn't alive in the 80's fur boom, but there was a little burst in the fur market in the early 2010's for 3 years or so.
In 2012 I was a freshman in high school and didn't even have my drivers license yet. I started trapping that fall off of my old honda atv and managed to catch quite a few raccoons. I think that year I averaged close to 20 bucks on poorly handled southern raccoons. I spent a lot of time learning how to get better and by the next season I had the fur handling thing down pat. A local fur buyer contacted me and would bring me a large black trashbag full of skinned, frozen coon pelts every couple weeks. Probably 40 or 50 in a bag.
He paid me $2 per coon to flesh and dry them. I could flesh and board about 6 an hour and put up hundreds of them that season. I thought I was rich!! I bought my first truck largely with money I made trapping and putting up fur. I also had a side job at a cabinet shop after work. Those were the good ole days. I would wake up at 3am to check traps, get to school at 7am, work at the cabinet shop from 2:30-5:30 in the afternoons, and then put up fur until 10 or 11 pm every night. I had it made, then the fur market crashed and burned. This latest beaver increase is the first glimmer of hope since then
In 2012 I was a freshman in high school and didn't even have my drivers license yet. I started trapping that fall off of my old honda atv and managed to catch quite a few raccoons. I think that year I averaged close to 20 bucks on poorly handled southern raccoons. I spent a lot of time learning how to get better and by the next season I had the fur handling thing down pat. A local fur buyer contacted me and would bring me a large black trashbag full of skinned, frozen coon pelts every couple weeks. Probably 40 or 50 in a bag.
He paid me $2 per coon to flesh and dry them. I could flesh and board about 6 an hour and put up hundreds of them that season. I thought I was rich!! I bought my first truck largely with money I made trapping and putting up fur. I also had a side job at a cabinet shop after work. Those were the good ole days. I would wake up at 3am to check traps, get to school at 7am, work at the cabinet shop from 2:30-5:30 in the afternoons, and then put up fur until 10 or 11 pm every night. I had it made, then the fur market crashed and burned. This latest beaver increase is the first glimmer of hope since then