Wood for decoy heads

S

Scott Gilliland

Active member
I hoping to carve a few heads for decoys. I have a good source of eastern white pine and I'm wondering what qualities I should look for. I can get the boards in rough sawn 2" and 3". I think the 2" is will work. If I have an option should I select quarter sawn or flat sawn? For growth rings should they be tight or wide?
Thanks
Scott
 
Quarter or flat sawn will be fine as long as the grain direction is as parallel as possible to bill direction unless you make long necks and would need to have two separate pieces; one for the neck and one for the head.

Do you have a head pattern you are wanting to use? Use that to determine the width of board you need.
 
I'm hoping to make a small ringneck set to start. I have a bunch of old herters with broken heads that I plan to convert from scoters/eiders to ringnecks. The head pattern I have is ~2" wide and I think the 2" pine will work. If the board is quarter sawn I'm guessing the neck might be a weak point. This could be strengthened with a dowel. My thought is flat sawn where the grain runs as vertical might be stronger.

Thanks
Scott
 
Well I'm making my first attempt. I decided to use quarter sawn white pine. I found a nice slab of +2"x12" centre cut and taking the heads out of either side of the pith. I have carved exactly 3 decoys a long time ago and did most of the work with a coping saw and a hatchet. I bought one of those Chinese clone Foredoms and a couple of very aggressive carbide burrs ... I'm impressed, it cuts the pine like butter.

I'm starting with a small set of ringnecks. I started with the drakes - here are the first 7. Not sure I got the base right, and maybe the eyes are a little big. I was planning to use 12 mm eyes -- two big? I will insert a white oak dowel to strengthen the neck.

Scott


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I'm re-heading a bunch of Herter's 72 bodies that lost their heads. Maybe I miss calculated, I've heads from 63s and 72s, and the 72 heads were ~1.3x larger. I'm looking at the 12 mm eyes and they seem a bit big.

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Judging from the hole drilled in that head it looks fine to me. That being said I use 12mm eyes in my swan. Geese, brant, and magnum ducks I use 9mm, regular big ducks 8mm and small ducks 7mm. Maybe mine are too small?? Personally I've always thought the size recommendation charts I've seen sounded too big to me though. I have thought about going up one size on everything, may try some this year. Don't think I've seen anything bigger than 12mm, at least not where I buy from.
 
Nearly all the ducks I do get 12 mm eyes other than teal which I drop to 10mm. I came to that conclusion when I was also doing taxidermy and when you skin out a head, you see just how big the surface of the eye really is. I like to be able to create some expression with the eyelids that go with the pose I'm creating, everything from full eyes closed sleeper, to sleepy eyes slightly opened, wide open alert or fighting. On Canvasbacks especially I like to have the pupil right up at the top eyelid, kind of gives it that canvasback "I am King" feel. The size of the eye can be way too big for wigeons and buffleheads, but I control the size of the eye with Apoxy Sculpt. I have some 8mm for quail and even some 4mm for carved animals. I have put 25mm eyes in this giant goldeneye the size of a swan. The wigeons with the goldeneye are oversized. They final eye size the way I do it is determined by what I do with sculpt over the glass. Since I paint my own eyes, I can get any size I want up to that 25 mm. I use 14mm on cranes.

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I don't do anything to create eyelids, that's probably why I can get by with smaller eyes. That and I'm just making gunners. I just drill the hole and set the eyes with a 2 part filler I found through an old post on here by Geoff Vine. I believe JB Weld makes it. Clean up around the eyes with a little putty if needed.
 
I got the size of the crochet eyes from a post of Don's (link here), and they seemed to fit the larger bodies. However, I did not plan to add eyelids. Maybe a smaller size would be better If not putting eyelids.
 
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