Burlapped Goldeneyes from Herters 72 Bluebills

[Ron Schuna]

I recently purchased some old used Herters 72 Bluebills from hunting the world legend Erwin Brown. Mr. Brown is 88 years young and is still duck hunting however he has decided to sell off some of his decoys. I picked through the 1.5 or so doz he had to choose from and found 6 decent Bluebills and 6 fair condition mallards. I started the burlap process today on the future goldeneye rig. Erwin had epoxied the heads in place so this made coverage a bit more time consuming. It took about 2 hours to do the 6 decoys and could probably be done a little faster however this is my first shot at burlapping. I have another 22 bluebill and red heads that I'll be making into some buffies and red heads with burlap covering in the future. These I will remove the heads, burlap and then re-drill the head hole after curing, sealing and painting. Tomorrow sand a bit to knock down any high spots and then I'll hit with some thinned down acrylpro mastic to kind of paint on a layer of mastic to ensure all burlap is covered. I noticed the burlap swelling a bit as it absorbed some of the mastic so I want to be certain of coverage before I seal later in the week.

Getting started

Getting started (another view)

One down, 5 to go

Out in the breeze getting the last bit of sunshine to help get the cure going

 

[Matt Vanderpan]

nice ducker!

 

[CGeminski]

How are you attaching the burlap to the decoy? I am making a small floating "island" out of a foam "boogie board" which I am going to mount two full body mallard decoys. The boogie board right now is a hideous mix of neon colors and I want to wrap it in burlap so I can paint it to resemble some ground or logs, which mallards would stand on.

Any advice would be appreciated....

 

[mark Phillips]

I used Acrylpro tile mastic from Home Depot when I did my 15 dozen foamers

 

[Paul Charron]

Hi Ron,

The decoys look great. What will you seal them with before you paint?

Paul

 

[Ron Schuna]

I used Acrylpro tile mastic. The burlap is landscape burlap. I think if I do anymore decoys I will go to Michaels or a fabric store to get a tighter weave burlap. The landscape burlap works and will I'm sure outlast me but I think a tighter weave is needed. You just clean the surface, apply a coating of mastic and then cover with the burlap. I wore rubber gloves and worked the burlap into the mastic and vice versa. As for sealing. I've heard people use just Kilz2 but once this stuff gets a good curing time, I plan on sealing with spar varnish and then priming with Kilz2

 

[Ron Schuna]

Well, this project sure took a long time to complete but it was the first attempt at burlapping a foam decoy and also first attempt at painting any decoy for this guy. A learning experience from all angles.

 

[Bob Gator]

Very Nice!!