carving supplies
- Thread starter danl
- Start date
Kristan
Well-known member
Dan,
Not to lead you in a goose chase because I do not know your carving preferences in scope of body style...
TheDuckBlind.com
Di and Willy McDonald are owners...Can get you started...And there are many people on this sight with different carving styles which may cater to your liking...The great thing about this sight is all you have to do is ask...
Regards,
Kristan
Not to lead you in a goose chase because I do not know your carving preferences in scope of body style...
TheDuckBlind.com
Di and Willy McDonald are owners...Can get you started...And there are many people on this sight with different carving styles which may cater to your liking...The great thing about this sight is all you have to do is ask...
Regards,
Kristan
Dave Church
Well-known member
Thats a loaded question. Depending on whether "making your own decoys" means cork, wood, styrofoam, or burlapped will depend on how much stuff you will need to have to get started. Some carving requires some wood and a good carving knife, others require molds, jigs, bandsaws, sure forms, rasps, belt sanders, etc. I am not trying to discourage you in any way. You have come to the perfect place to ask these questions. Be very specific with what you are wanting to build, what material, how many, etc and plenty of people will chime in to help you out.
dc
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BillS
Well-known member
First, hook with a local carver or carvers. Watch them work, then decide what medium your going to choose and what will work best for you. No video or book is going to come close to helping learn the craft. Educate yourself from as many sources as possible and develop your own style and identity. I tried a knife, drawknife, and rasp. Didn't enjoy it, switched to a foredom type grinder now I love it. For tools and stuff like that I buy from MDI woodcarvers, knotts knives or local places. for wood you'll have to find a local source, for cork, maybe George Williams will post and see where he is using right now on the east coast.
Im more interested in trying to carve cork, but i deffinetly would like to try wood as well, thanks for the info guys,
deffinetly alot of good leeds! Very much appreciated!
as far as wood goes, i can't say i have ever seen pieces of lumber as thick as a decoy body at any of my local lumber yards.
how thick of material should i be starting with?
thanks guys!!
Dan
deffinetly alot of good leeds! Very much appreciated!
as far as wood goes, i can't say i have ever seen pieces of lumber as thick as a decoy body at any of my local lumber yards.
how thick of material should i be starting with?
thanks guys!!
Dan
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Dan,
A couple years ago I purchased some rough cut white cedar 4x4's and a rough cut 1x8 to glue up for carving blanks. I ran everything thru my thickness planer to clean them up then glued the 4x4 together to form a 4x8. It was undersized of course from the prior planing. Then temporarily screw the 1x8 onto the bottom for a "bottom board".
Then on to the bandsaw to saw out the pattern. In the next picture you can see the end grain pattern in the three pieces.
The head is of coarse cut from a separate solid block.
After rough carving, the bottom board is separated and the upper body is hollowed out.
There are other ways to do it, but this has worked for me.
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Dan,
A couple years ago I purchased some rough cut white cedar 4x4's and a rough cut 1x8 to glue up for carving blanks. I ran everything thru my thickness planer to clean them up then glued the 4x4 together to form a 4x8. It was undersized of course from the prior planing. Then temporarily screw the 1x8 onto the bottom for a "bottom board".
Then on to the bandsaw to saw out the pattern. In the next picture you can see the end grain pattern in the three pieces.
The head is of coarse cut from a separate solid block.
After rough carving, the bottom board is separated and the upper body is hollowed out.
There are other ways to do it, but this has worked for me.
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Dennis Johnson
Active member
Ck out www.workingdecoys.net the forums, they have them on wood, cork, carved foam, cast foam, and canvas decoys. TONS of info there, and several how to dos it if ya join there. Good luck to ya on your new hobby!
Dennis
Dennis
Capt. Larry M
Well-known member
they are hollowed to reduce weight
D
Davey W
Guest
Hollowing wood decoys allows them to have the proper bouyancy to self right when weighted. Cork doesn't need to be hollowed because cork naturally has more bouyancy. A properly hollowed and weighted wood decoy should ride about 1" in the water and be able to self right from any position.
Chuck J
Well-known member
Dan
Here is where carving gets very opinionated. There aren't really wrong answers, just preferences based on what works best for the end user in a given situation. Hollowing decoys does lessen weight, which will change boyancy and weight disribution, and will lessen the chances of a wood decoy splitting. There are plenty of wood decoys out there that are not hollowed and decoy birds just fine, they will sit a little lower in the water, which isn't all bad depending on how the pattern was drawn and how it is weighted. I also know of a couple guys who do hollow cork decoys (tan) to lessen weight, and I know of at least one who has filled that void with lightweight foam to give the cork more structural integrity. As far as self righting, that is a heck of an arguement weather or not it is necessary, any deek I make that will go to a show will do that but frankly for something strictly for my gunning rig I could care less as long as they stay righted once on the water.
As far as your original question, I have bought cork from Willy as many here have. There are other dealers on the east coast, George Williams or Bomber might be able to help you there. The other dealers seemed competitavely priced, so it came down to shipping, which Willy is close to me so that worked good. Do you have a saw capable of cutting up a sheet of cork...and cutting side profiles? When I got started, I didn't yet have an expansion block on my bandsaw so I started with a buffy pattern that I squeezed to fit within the 6" limit of my saw to do side profiles.
You've come to a good place to get started, if you don't find someone local to hook up with keep at it, I'm mostly self taught, and look at the crap I can churn out. Ask lots of questions, and try to be specific in your questions. Do lots of searches as others have likely had the same questoin before. If you read something in those old posts that is unclear, post a new reply and those old threads will jump to the top and hopefully get clarification.
Best
Chuck
PS Davey, not trying to start an arguement, just wanted Dan to know there is more than one way to skin a cat...
Dave Church
Well-known member
I agree with Chuck. There are a billion ways to go about making decoys and just when you think you have seen them all, somebody comes up with something different. I work with black and tan cork 95% of the time. I have also seen tan cork hollowed out which does reduce the weight. Black cork is very porous and light weight anyway so you will probably never see anyone hollowing it out. It would make it too brittle and black has a tendency to "chunk out" when drilling. As I mentioned, black is light weight, pretty easy to work with without alot of tools, and fairly inexpensive. A case of black cork (3 sheets) will produce about 2 dozen good size decoys. If you buy it in bulk, as with anything, some suppliers have better quality than others. I have black cork that carves beautifully and is almost as tightly grained as tan. I have also recived black cork that is so loose and "dry" that it is too brittle to make anything out of it. Self righting is not big on my list of things the deke has to do. I dont compete in anything which requires that and it is very rare that hunting conditions will turn one of my corks over. Corks do not tend to be as bad at "leaning" in the water as wooden decoys. Wood decoys usually need to be weighted so that they dont lean or ride with the head up or down. Corks just float which makes them a great medium to start out on without getting into balancing, lightening, splitting, etc. Depending on where you hunt, you can also live without keels on cork if you hunt small beaver ponds or slow moving streams.
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Davey W
Guest
No problem Chuck! I'm always a fan of differing opinions, thats what helps to improve the art! What you posted makes a lot of sense and I agree with a lot of it.
I actually tested a solid cedar decoy vs. a hollowed one. Weight difference was obvious, but the hollowed bird tended to move more in the water than the solid bird. Which would make sense, since the solid decoy is heavier. The hollowed decoy also required less weight to self right.
On the topic of self righting, 99% of the plastic production decoys I know of do not self right. I make my decoys self righting for two reasons. The first is that I gun mostly on the bay. I have had situations where the weather is nasty, rolling waves are coming through and all of my plastic decoys are upside down. My cedar birds will never turn over, even in high winds and choppy water. The second reason I self right is so that I can literally chuck the decoys in the water and regardless of how they land, they will self right LOL!
Ultimately, they are YOUR decoys, so you make them any way you want. I have some with no keels, some with keels, etc. Cork, TAN cork, is a good way to start. Stay away from the "BSC" as it's brutal on your tools. Find a local carver to show you the ropes and you can cut stuff out on his bandsaw before you plop $800 down on one of your own. See if you like it first...