What is your most recent discovery in technique?

K

Kevin Puls

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I was working on a hen canvasback body today and when I picked up the bow sander I started thinking about all of the “ah ha” moments I’ve had over time.

I was going to try to decide what my biggest discovery in making decoys has been. Is it Don Mintz introducing me to epoxy sculpt and 10cent glass eyes? Or Steve Sanfords paint colors and schemes? Maybe Pat Gregory’s carve from the center line out. Or Tom Christie’s cork cut out methods.

I could go on and on and on.

Today I’m going to go with my most recent, which is a homemade bow sander based on Pat Gregory’s design.

What is everyone’s most recent discovery? I bet we could all learn something from you!
 
Post pictures of the bow sander. I need to made a couple more.


I don't know if you'd call it an "ah ha" moment or exactly recent but I really like the way I've been doing vermiculation the last couple years. I started doing it a long time ago using a fan brush and this is talking acrylics. I paint the base coat, say dark gray like on a greenwing or pintail drake. Then I use the fan brush and black over the whole base coat and then go back over it with a lighter shade of the base coat to tone down the black and give it some depth. On some birds I will go back with another lighter color like white on the back of the blackhead I just posted in the workbench thread. It's not the fastest of the easiest I'm sure but it's something I feel like I made my own style if you will.

Here is a hooded merganser I just finished where I used that technique on the sidepockets.

1000019745.jpg
 
I don’t even know if I could count all the techniques I’ve learned from others on forums or online. Bowl calipers, contour gauges, soldering iron for bills, brad nails or sandpaper sand to keep things from slipping during glue up and a bunch more have all been nice quality of life improvements when Im carving.
The single biggest changes to my decoys though, have probably been tube oils I started using after picking up Keith Muellers book. Understanding tube oils is full of little ah-ha moments in itself.
The other one, isn’t really a technique, so much as a fear that I had to get over.
ALL of my first decoys looked awkward because I was worried about taking off too much material and ruining them. I still leave things thicker and flatter than they need to be, but not nearly to the extent I did.
 
JasonM said:
Post pictures of the bow sander. I need to made a couple more.


I don't know if you'd call it an "ah ha" moment or exactly recent but I really like the way I've been doing vermiculation the last couple years. I started doing it a long time ago using a fan brush and this is talking acrylics. I paint the base coat, say dark gray like on a greenwing or pintail drake. Then I use the fan brush and black over the whole base coat and then go back over it with a lighter shade of the base coat to tone down the black and give it some depth. On some birds I will go back with another lighter color like white on the back of the blackhead I just posted in the workbench thread. It's not the fastest of the easiest I'm sure but it's something I feel like I made my own style if you will.

Here is a hooded merganser I just finished where I used that technique on the sidepockets.

View attachment 77779
Click to expand...
That is a really nice effect!
 
Nick Papavasiliou said:
I don’t even know if I could count all the techniques I’ve learned from others on forums or online. Bowl calipers, contour gauges, soldering iron for bills, brad nails or sandpaper sand to keep things from slipping during glue up and a bunch more have all been nice quality of life improvements when Im carving.
The single biggest changes to my decoys though, have probably been tube oils I started using after picking up Keith Muellers book. Understanding tube oils is full of little ah-ha moments in itself.
The other one, isn’t really a technique, so much as a fear that I had to get over.
ALL of my first decoys looked awkward because I was worried about taking off too much material and ruining them. I still leave things thicker and flatter than they need to be, but not nearly to the extent I did.
Click to expand...
With your tube oils do you get the colors you need or do you have to mix them? I’m colorblind and I rely on Steve Sanfords colors pretty heavily.
 
Kevin Puls said:
With your tube oils do you get the colors you need or do you have to mix them? I’m colorblind and I rely on Steve Sanfords colors pretty heavily.
Click to expand...
I do mix them, I think something like a drake wigeon, teal or of course, wood duck could be tough.
But most ducks I do are just different shades of brown (umber/sienna)
I often go off of Bruce Burkes painting and pattern portfolio books as a guide, which is extremely helpful.
One thing I would warn though, is every tube oil black I’ve tried, turns blue when mixed with white, and needs brown to be grey.
 
Nick Papavasiliou said:
I do mix them, I think something like a drake wigeon, teal or of course, wood duck could be tough.
But most ducks I do are just different shades of brown (umber/sienna)
I often go off of Bruce Burkes painting and pattern portfolio books as a guide, which is extremely helpful.
One thing I would warn though, is every tube oil black I’ve tried, turns blue when mixed with white, and needs brown to be grey.
Click to expand...
You can paint most ducks with a handful of different colors. Black, white, burnt & raw umber, burnt & raw sienna will go a long way. There are a few others you'll need here and there. Green, red, blue, yellow, crimson etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple I use.

To get gray I mix black, white and raw umber. Different amounts of black and raw umber will give varying shades of gray. I've even used warm white instead of titanium white to get a more earthy, brownish gray.
 
Kevin Puls said:
I was working on a hen canvasback body today and when I picked up the bow sander I started thinking about all of the “ah ha” moments I’ve had over time.

I was going to try to decide what my biggest discovery in making decoys has been. Is it Don Mintz introducing me to epoxy sculpt and 10cent glass eyes? Or Steve Sanfords paint colors and schemes? Maybe Pat Gregory’s carve from the center line out. Or Tom Christie’s cork cut out methods.

I could go on and on and on.

Today I’m going to go with my most recent, which is a homemade bow sander based on Pat Gregory’s design.

What is everyone’s most recent discovery? I bet we could all learn something from you!
Click to expand...
ive had lots of "ah ha" moments in the decoy game. Funny thing, go to bed over thinking a dilemma you are trying to figure out, and most my "ah ha" moments come at 2 am standing over the toilet taking care of my annoying full bladder. Its actually so common, Don and I (and now Bob) all call them the 2 am pee ideas. Its like the brain needs a few hours to think without the subconscious thoughts to figure it out. But From figuring out removable keels, to figuring out a paint scheme on flocking, Ive had so many, since starting this journey with Don. Bob and Don think I have some engineering brain, but I dont know about all that. I just look at something and think to myself, theres always a better way. Working through some now with proto type full body stuff. I think i got some things figured out. Will know by next week if my thought process worked or not. Fingers crossed... ill have full bodies hitting the bench to be made by mid next week. Also a few other things in play to add to our decoys, that I dont want to spew out just yet until we can post pics of the final product.
 
My most recent was watching a batch of harlequins on a river this spring. The way they ride in the water. They ride lower than most decoys. The way no two birds ever held the same pose. Lots of subtle positions but definitely not the cookie cutter dozen you see from store to store. I've made patterns to match. In a given 6 pack I'll have at least 4 different poses.
 
Ronald Bock said:
My most recent was watching a batch of harlequins on a river this spring. The way they ride in the water. They ride lower than most decoys. The way no two birds ever held the same pose. Lots of subtle positions but definitely not the cookie cutter dozen you see from store to store. I've made patterns to match. In a given 6 pack I'll have at least 4 different poses.
Click to expand...
Best part of making decoys... not a single one has to have the same pose. None of my decoys have the same pose. Love that part of all this.
 
I like to throw out some abstract ideas to William and he will figure it out or upgrade it.

Ron, I'm working on adding harlequins to our decoy line and blue bills. An Oldsquaw is on my list for our personal use, we have them here, but they are pretty snobby on my stretch of the river. We've shot them over barrows decoys.

As far as poses, I've been working on another group of 30 decoys right now and have around 20 poses amongst them. One thing that kind of surprised me about Harlequins was how small they are. I made the Alaska State DU decoy some 20 years ago of a harlequin and no one said anything, but they must have thought it was a super magnum. The big deal I see with harlequin is whether their wings are tucked or out and which one would be more effective, what does it say to a diver when those burnt orange flanks are hidden? Is it just a pre dive look or something else.

When customers ask about poses, I tell them if they buy 48 decoys they will have 48 poses. It is to the point right now that It's hard to think of something new, I've looked at thousands of photos of ducks doing ducky stuff and considering what kind of behavior and what time of year that behavior would take place.

We are learning lots of new flocking techniques this summer and are incredibly busy, so figuring out production is pretty important. Apparently a lot of people are tired of buying chinese decoys and having to replace them every few years.
 
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