All Things Flocking

[HenryHawthorne]

Great picture!

Agree, Eric, staff, and forum contributors have ensured this forum is what a good forum should be -folks with a central interest/passion sharing not only around the central theme but also across their broader interests. I belong to one other forum about which I feel similarly - woodbarter.net. If you're not familiar with that one, like this forum it was started by an individual with a passion who wanted to share and invite participation - in that case in wood and woodworking. Its central purpose is to be a place for (small shop) woodworkers to share knowledge and to buy/sell/trade wood. It is quite a collection of craftsmen and smart-asses (at least I fit with the latter).

 

[SJ Fairbank]

If the truth be told, there isn't a lot of reason for the airbrush on black ducks. It just depends on how dark you want them. We airbrush primarily because it's fun.

I'd still do the double coat. Depending on how black you want them you can change the color under the brown flocking. If you aren't going to airbrush, I'd recommend gloss black rustoleum and brown flocking. Something you will likely notice on a second coat of brown is you'll see some shine coming through after you put the flocking on, shake over it a couple of times, shake the excess off and set it aside. What will happen over just a few minutes is that shine goes away as the flocking settles into the paint.

Black rustoleum with black flocking would also work just fine.

The test swatches were black Rustoleum with feather brown and dark brown for the body. I need to study the second coat, but I think the feather brown on black produces a fine Black Duck body.

The store didn't have almond bisque, I got a can of sand (color). I tried the tan and the goose grey on the sand paint, I think the goose grey may be the winner. I know you said you add a little brown to the almond bisque, I may add a touch of raw umber to brown up the sand color and retest. I'm a little behind my target progress because I'm still fussing with the little boat canvas, and there are ducks to be hunted.

 

[William Reinicke]

The test swatches were black Rustoleum with feather brown and dark brown for the body. I need to study the second coat, but I think the feather brown on black produces a fine Black Duck body.

The store didn't have almond bisque, I got a can of sand (color). I tried the tan and the goose grey on the sand paint, I think the goose grey may be the winner. I know you said you add a little brown to the almond bisque, I may add a touch of raw umber to brown up the sand color and retest. I'm a little behind my target progress because I'm still fussing with the little boat canvas, and there are ducks to be hunted.

You’re done now…. Let us know when you’re ready to carve custom poses and need paint mix formulas to get different colors for your soon to be airbrushing sessions.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

You’re done now…. Let us know when you’re ready to carve custom poses and need paint mix formulas to get different colors for your soon to be airbrushing sessions.

I did the fancy poses thing years ago, just too much work for one decoy. But the flocking looks like fun and the results you guys get are phenomenal. I'm curious what kind of blending, if any, I can get using only flocking on the heads. I may tinker with mixing flocking colors just to make a mess. I'll be surprised if I'm not airbrushing in a couple of weeks.

 

[William Reinicke]

I did the fancy poses thing years ago, just too much work for one decoy. But the flocking looks like fun and the results you guys get are phenomenal. I'm curious what kind of blending, if any, I can get using only flocking on the heads. I may tinker with mixing flocking colors just to make a mess. I'll be surprised if I'm not airbrushing in a couple of weeks.

I haven’t really delved into fancy poses just yet either. I don’t think it’s going to be too hard and it’s no secret we work with foam, and not wood. Im assuming it makes life mucho easier…. I think lol. I probably will never know though, as I’ll probably never work with wood in my life for decoy making.

I should just get the bumper sticker now…. Foamer for life!

 

[Don Mintz]

The rustoleum color is just Almond, but it's just not quite right for a black duck head, even with the bisque tan flocking. Here's a tip if you do start airbrushing, it's easier to start with a light base if you want to paint light colors over that, it's hard to paint white over dark flocking. It's easy to paint dark color over light or medium colors and get good coverage.

Caleb and I keep experimenting with color and flocking combinations to get where we want to go. I recently flocked some harlequin heads and used gloss black over the top of the head and blue over the rest of the head and flocked black. The blue shows through and of course the black is black, it gave a good base for the head with only coating with black flocking.

The big deal with blends in the same painting steps is the flocking has to be the same, the colors don't. For instance the wigeons I paint brown on the body and grey on the head and flock the whole thing grey and get a great base for painting over and as I mentioned before I hunted over a wigeon that had no airbrush on it other than the bill and no one knew. We shot three limits of mallards, wigeons and a pintail that day.

My background is wood carving, I did a lot of competing over 30 years ago, but never in decoys. If I do a decorative waterfowl carving it will likely be a life size flying bird, fully feather detailed. When it comes to decoys, my own decoys are pretty common looking, with poses reflecting behaviors like feeding, fighting, calling etc. There might be a time when the details might matter, otherwise it's just artistic expression for me. Caleb is a production painter, he thinks I mess around too much and take too much time.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

My first attempt at flocking went better than I hoped. I decided to sacrifice a half-dozen old GHG plastics to the cause, even if the paint might not adhere permanently. The basic procedure was as suggested by Don and William, flocking over Rustoleum Gloss oil.

First coat was black paint over the entire decoy minus the bill, then feather brown flocking. I flocked over a plastic bin using the screen available through Flocking Unlimited. I had very few clumps on the decoys, although a couple did jump over the edge of the screen went I shook too vigorously.

I did the cheeks next, "sand gloss" with goose grey flocking. The brown first coat came through just a touch and provided a really nice effect. Next up, second coat of black on the cape and body, feather brown flocking. Last was the eye stripe, which I'm not crazy about. Black paint, feather brown flock. The stripe is far too prominent but I doubt the ducks will notice. Overall I'm very pleased with how they look and how easy it was to turn out a simple gunner.

Gave the bills a coat of paint in between flocking sessions. For reference, Black Duck bills are mostly olive in color unless they're mallard hybrids. Drakes are light olive like these, hens darker olive with dark splotches similar to a hen mallard. This paint was a mix of Rustoleum Sunburst yellow (stay with the Rustoleum theme) with tube raw umber brushed in on a piece of cardboard. It doesn't take much to paint six bills.

Hope to try them this weekend. There have been very few ducks around, but I want validation by the ultimate arbiters before I go crazy on a couple dozen.

Thanks again guys for the tutorial, the procedure works and is really easy.

 

[Don Mintz]

I really like the color combo on the heads, I'm going to try that out.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

I really like the color combo on the heads, I'm going to try that out.

I'd like to hear how it works out for you. Next time I flock an eye stripe, I'll try the sand paint with the feather brown flock. I bet that will look good, the dark feathers on black duck heads are more subtle than the black/brown combo presents.

 

[Don Mintz]

This is a head that Caleb painted. Typically he feathers the bodies far more than necessary with an airbrush, but there is a level of expectation from customers that they see that kind of detail in our work. We use black ducks decoys instead of mallard hens even here in Idaho, almost no feather detail, just brown flocking over black rustoleum. The heads were flocked bisque tan flocking over almond, but I'm really liking your color combo better. The detailing with the brown through the eye channel is all airbrush, not flocked, and then enhanced with a brown oil based paint pen on top of the head to add those lighter details and black oil based paint pen to blend the dark to light areas on the head and then some white oil based paint pen to add a third color. Absolutely unnecessary for hunting purposes, but the details sell lots of decoys.

There is something I call the rule of '3'. To create a 3D look you need three colors or three shades of color to get that effect. To achieve a little more detail in that dark line through the eye you can use paint pens or airbrush. I do a lot of the hand detail on our mallard hen heads and black duck heads as well as wigeon heads with paint pens, it's very simple and faster than you think. I can detail a mallard hen head in about 15 minutes. An airbrush would put that eye line down in just a few seconds.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

The flocking is my first attempt at finishing a decoy with other than oil paint and brush. I've wanted to try paint pens for years and never got around to it, time to look into it. Out of curiosity though, I'm going to try to stick with flocking only on the next batch of blacks to see what I can accomplish. I'm doing test strips today with mixed flock color, I expect failure but what the hell.

The blacks look so simple, but having hand painted hundreds I think they're harder to get right than a detailed mallard drake. Of course, a hen mallard is about the same challenge as a black.

 

[Don Mintz]

I let Caleb make the decisions on the paint schedules for our regular decoys, I don't give him a lot of input. I'd rather he develops at his own pace. I do nudge him a bit on his black ducks, I just feel like he over does the feathering. I like a much less defined black duck with hints of feathering on what will end up primarily a very dark, black/brown look. I'm making this series of originals so that when I'm gone he will have an entire line of my sculptures to produce. So, I let him make his own decisions as far as the painting goes. Mainly what I do is paint a few along the way and just let him see a possible way to go in the future. He does a great job, but doesn't have the time I have since he has a "real" job. He's definitely a production painter.

The only place I've found oil based paint pens is on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C81B9J4Z?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1

you can get all kinds of colors, but make sure they are oil based. I've used the black and white on the flank of some wood duck full bodies and set them out on the west side of our house from April to October, they were snowed on, rained on, hot summer sun exposure and they held up perfectly.

The fancy paint if for fun, the flocking is for putting ducks in the decoys. Even if I used plastic clorox bottles, I'd flock them black.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

I like the blacks you posted in the last two months. I agree the feathers pop a little, so he might try burnt umber and raw sienna with a tiny bit of red. He can then feather to his hearts content and it won't pop, but will look quite realistic. In real life the feather tips are usually a rusty tan.

 

[Don Mintz]

Part of the trouble I suppose is having to mix everything from a few basic rustoleum colors. When I paint a black duck, it do some of the feathering with what I'd call a rusty buff and then paint right down the middle with black to blow it out and make it darker, kind of gives it a 3D look. Not very many people can mix colors, there are so many craft colors available you can generally pick out something pretty close like territorial beige, but I don't use acrylics very often and never on a hunting decoy. I enjoyed reading your recipe, sounds like my approach to mixing paints. I probably drive William nuts with my mixes. I ended up with a half pint of paint today trying to come up with a beige for the side of a white fronted goose. Caleb and I design paint schedules for decoy factories and with that color I made today, there is yellow, red, brown, black and white, with no measurements of anything I'll probably have to plug it in to photoshop and get a Pantone uncoated color code. I'm not real high on factory painters. I think with artists/painters the greatest skill we can have is the ability to decipher a color at its root combinations. I still mix colors for Caleb. When you paint over brown or black flocking the colors will not be true, often they will appear yellow when you want them rusty beige. You have to push them a little farther to get it to translate out of an airbrush. I need to find my pantone book and match up some colors, it gives the percentages of color you need. I usually give the factory those color numbers.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

Part of the trouble I suppose is having to mix everything from a few basic rustoleum colors. When I paint a black duck, it do some of the feathering with what I'd call a rusty buff and then paint right down the middle with black to blow it out and make it darker, kind of gives it a 3D look. Not very many people can mix colors, there are so many craft colors available you can generally pick out something pretty close like territorial beige, but I don't use acrylics very often and never on a hunting decoy. I enjoyed reading your recipe, sounds like my approach to mixing paints. I probably drive William nuts with my mixes. I ended up with a half pint of paint today trying to come up with a beige for the side of a white fronted goose. Caleb and I design paint schedules for decoy factories and with that color I made today, there is yellow, red, brown, black and white, with no measurements of anything I'll probably have to plug it in to photoshop and get a Pantone uncoated color code. I'm not real high on factory painters. I think with artists/painters the greatest skill we can have is the ability to decipher a color at its root combinations. I still mix colors for Caleb. When you paint over brown or black flocking the colors will not be true, often they will appear yellow when you want them rusty beige. You have to push them a little farther to get it to translate out of an airbrush. I need to find my pantone book and match up some colors, it gives the percentages of color you need. I usually give the factory those color numbers.

You are far beyond me in painting. I only have a few tips to offer, a touch of red in the rusty black duck feather tip on raw umber paint is one. Pretty sure it will work on the flocking. My one entire day of flocking experience has me convinced. Rookie enthusiasm!

 

[SJ Fairbank]

Here's the decoys, representing my first attempt at flocking. A simple flocking pattern sure makes a pleasing black duck. The mallard is a plastic decoy I set near them for comparison. Note the way the plastic shines compared to the flock. Unfortunately no blacks to be seen, but a couple of mallards were mesmerized by them. I don't have enough confidence yet to flock my wood and cork decoys, but I'm thinking about it. Durability is a question, as I leave a rig in each of several boats for the entire season. To that end, I flocked another group of old plastics and changed the heads a little. I didn't like it so flocked the heads again and now they look great. This is encouraging since it demonstrates how easy it is to repair woopsies or damaged flocking.

 

[Don Mintz]

Those are going to be very effective. I had some decoys that we made 12 years ago sent back for repairs last year. They had been shot with a shotgun and one with a rifle. The flocking was still intact. The durability of a double flocked decoy is stronger than paint. The issue I have with plastics is the ones made in China are primarily recycled plastic and adhesion can be a little iffy from decoy to decoy. I had a plastic decoy tested 10 years ago or so, it was advertised as virgin plastic, but it tested 75% regrind or recycled. Recycled plastic is going to have mold release and a variety of other impurities. The big deal about flocked decoys is they can be pretty rough and putting them together to rub can mar the finish, it won't wear off the flocking, but can leave marks, slot bagging is best. If I have dirty decoys, I just wash them off, oxyclean is also a good way to clean them if they are really bad, if they get bloody, spray them off with the store 3% hydrogen peroxide and rinse.

I was looking at a drone video a couple of days ago and you could barely see the hens, the drakes were clear, light grey to white and black, you didn't see any green on the heads, just black and white/grey. I personally use black ducks instead of mallard hens for that very reason. The last black duck I shot was about 2000 miles east.

 

[SJ Fairbank]

Those are going to be very effective. I had some decoys that we made 12 years ago sent back for repairs last year. They had been shot with a shotgun and one with a rifle. The flocking was still intact. The durability of a double flocked decoy is stronger than paint. The issue I have with plastics is the ones made in China are primarily recycled plastic and adhesion can be a little iffy from decoy to decoy. I had a plastic decoy tested 10 years ago or so, it was advertised as virgin plastic, but it tested 75% regrind or recycled. Recycled plastic is going to have mold release and a variety of other impurities. The big deal about flocked decoys is they can be pretty rough and putting them together to rub can mar the finish, it won't wear off the flocking, but can leave marks, slot bagging is best. If I have dirty decoys, I just wash them off, oxyclean is also a good way to clean them if they are really bad, if they get bloody, spray them off with the store 3% hydrogen peroxide and rinse.

I was looking at a drone video a couple of days ago and you could barely see the hens, the drakes were clear, light grey to white and black, you didn't see any green on the heads, just black and white/grey. I personally use black ducks instead of mallard hens for that very reason. The last black duck I shot was about 2000 miles east.

Good info, as always. I've experienced the paint adhesion problems in attempts to repaint beat up plastics.

I'm going to keep an eye on the first couple of batches this year, then figure a game plan for next year. My thinking is to try a small batch of mallards before our season reopens in November. In the early season here, I think most of the blacks were still 2000 miles north.

 

[Don Mintz]

It really changes things when you are flocking your own decoys. I always put my newly flocked decoys in plastic bags and then slot bags for the first trip, they come home doubled up in the slots, no plastic bags and we don't worry much about it the rest of the season. I know William is pretty hard on his decoys too. We know if we have an issue we don't have to ship them anywhere for repairs or repaint, kind of nice when you can do it all yourself. There are a lot of folks that are super abusive with their decoys, not really taking seriously how much difference the decoys can make. I'm always strategically placing my decoys, I want them sending a message. Two things I say about decoys, lots of hunters kill ducks in spite of their decoys not because of them and while others believe in accuracy by volume when it comes to decoys, I believe in accuracy by precision and strategy.

When we were first getting started teaching guys how to flock I had a friend in California hunting a flooded rice field. He kept a daily journal which included wind direction, temperature, species of ducks. He had a levy where his blind was between two flooded rice fields, regular decoys on one side, flocked decoys on the other. His records were amazing, over 90% of the ducks would land with the flocked decoys even if they were flying into the wind, they would overfly the regular decoys to land with the flocked ones. He left his decoys out all season and of course they all got pretty cruddy on the lower half, but the percentages remained true. I won't mix regular decoys with my flocked ones.

 

[B. Heitman]

I wouldn't hunt if I couldn't hunt over my custom double flocked Speck decoys....
All thanks to Don Mintz and his generous sharing of valuable information.
Yesterday was a prime example. Limits of Specks for my blind partner and I. Cupped and webbed to say the least. No other shots heard in the north Sacto. Valley. Generally poor Opener for most hunters in our area.
We hunt in very "hard" water. Lots of calcium. Some dekes always manage to fall over. When straightened up and dried out, there is a heavy, visible, white calcium line that adheres to the flocking. I hate it. Any thoughts on how to remove this? I was thinking a vinegar rinse might do the trick, but, I don't want to disrupt the enamel Rustoleum glue. Thanks
( Photo taken before deployment)