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I told the story before but my wife came home to find a whole pronghorn skull in the microwave spinning in circles. She just sighed and told me I’m cleaning it. (I was having trouble pulling the horn sheath off, and yes it worked).

I’ve hit my first snag. Despite using a quality primer, stains seep through after 3 coats. I will let this last coat dry hard in front of the fire tonight and try one more. If that doesn’t work I’ll strip to bare wood and use two coats of spare varnish. Which would be a shame because I...

Ready to paint. I grabbed a few decoys for inspiration. On the left, E Allen’s that I painted last summer, on the right a pair of the originals. Which one to model? Maybe a little of both.

I thought I would finally rehab this poor hen that met a spinning propeller on a windy day in Chincoteague Virginia. It was the second decoy I ever made.

Stole this from a Pat Gregory post on Facebook I would really like to figure out how to make these keels

When I started exposing the original paint I tried to do a proper restoration by removing the chipping and peeling paint. Unfortunately it didn’t work. I’ll be painting them to the original scheme.

A good chance to honor the original design. I have to decide how to paint them. I intend to hunt over them. The basic scheme (I have others that have the full paint in good shape that are simple in their appearance) or a more complex version that I have developed using Steve Sanford’s...

Shaped the bills and used a scrubber pad to knock off the loose paint. Really surprised how well the original paint layer stuck. Probably a lead or oils based paint given they were originally made in the 1950’s. Also wonder about this style of keel weight. It is free hanging lead. I have...

Thanks. I didn’t think to try that but I will next time. I have a variety of foredom bits and sanders that should make it easy though.

I am starting with bill repair. Two of them were damaged and the third was broken off. I experimented with epoxy sculpt on the two and was happy with the result. I used a nail and a larger amount of the material and so far seems to be getting very hard and well attached. I tried to pull the...

My second cork decoy. I wanted to carve in the wing pockets and tips. I’ll be honest I don’t think I’ll do that again until I get more experience. It restricted the way I painted it which I thought I would like but didn’t since I didn’t put the shapes in the right spaces. Will do the rest of...