Eye options

K

Kevin Puls

Well-known member
I carve gunners. They are modest at best. I’m trying to produce more, to make my rig more “mine”.

Glass eyes really slow me down. They are great, don’t get me wrong, but my decoys will never see a table in a competition.

What are some alternatives?
 
You could definitely paint them on if you wanted. I’ve heard of using rubber tube to get a clean circle.
I think a fair amount of carvers have also used tacks or just omitted the eyes completely. Almost no wrong way to do it in my opinion.
 
As suggested, tacks are an easy solution.
My family always put glass eyes in decoys. I did it until a few years ago, and will do it in what i think will become really good looking birds. Now i omit them in most decoys. Unless you need eyes to feel good about your rig, the decoying birds can't tell if the decoy has eyes, so why bother?
 
my decoys will never see a competition either, but eyes aren't that difficult to put in, I've put in over 300 pairs in the last year. However there are some other options, I paint my own glass eyes, usually 12mm, they cost about a dime a pair. Another option I discovered while rehabbing 60 full curl heads was their eyes are crochet eyes available on amazon. They would be real easy to install, there are plastic, so they will scratch, but they are dirt cheap, I'd probably get 12mm in those as well. As has been mentioned, you don't need eyes at all, you don't need much of a paint job either in the long run. I'm going to make a few oldsquaws hopefully before the end of season here, we get a few and I have a notion they are particular who they associate with.
 
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SJ Fairbank said:
As suggested, tacks are an easy solution.
My family always put glass eyes in decoys. I did it until a few years ago, and will do it in what i think will become really good looking birds. Now i omit them in most decoys. Unless you need eyes to feel good about your rig, the decoying birds can't tell if the decoy has eyes, so why bother?
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I definitely obsess over things that only matter to me. I’m working on a goldeneye foam/butlap/pine head that has far more issues anatomically than how the eyes are set in.
 
Don Mintz said:
my decoys will never see a competition either, but eyes aren't that difficult to put in, I've put in over 300 pairs in the last year. However there are somer other options, I paint my own glass eyes, usually 12mm, they cost about a dime a pair. Another option I discovered while rehabbing 60 full curl heads was their eyes are crochet eyes available on amazon. They would be real easy to install, there are plastic, so they will scratch, but they are dirt cheap, I'd probably get 12mm in those as well. As has been mentioned, you don't need eyes at all, you don't need much of a paint job either in the long run. I'm going to make a few oldsquaws hopefully before the end of season here, we get a few and I have a notion they are particular who they associate with.
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You are absolutely correct. It should not be difficult. But for some reason it takes me a long time. I just spent thirty minutes fighting with a pair of eyes and wood filler. The crochet eyes with those stems might really help with setting them evenly since I drill a hole all the way through the head when it’s still a square blank. I also have a 15 year old daughter and therefore a pretty good supply of nail polish and top coats. I bet she would love to paint the eyes for me.
 
Use apoxie sculpt and make sure you drill your hole bigger than the eye.

If your eye hole goes all the way through make sure you don’t push out the first one you set when setting the second.
 
Apoxie Sculpt is the way I have set my eyes forever, Almost all of my decoys are foam, even the heads. Once burlapped I'll drill a shallow hole the size of the eye and press the eye into the hole. Since I paint my own eyes, I don't put anything behind them, just smooth out a little ball of apoxie sculpt over the eye and clear off the eye with a pencil to the desired shape, such as alert, sleepy, or resting. I use apoxie sculpt on several things on a decoy, to strengthen feather tips, tails and enhance some feather groups. If you are on facebook look at Mintz Decoys, I have a lot of information on there regarding carved foam decoys. Here is a grouse with some apoxie sculpt application. Eye sets, creating a bill, and some feather enhancement. I'm more of a sculptor than a carver and will use about anything that works to make a decoy stronger, lighter and more accurate.The close up of the foam head mallard hen shows the results you can get setting eyes this way with ten cents a pair glass eyes. I have a saying regarding making decoys or other artwork. "always do the best you can do, not the least you can get away with.

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Kevin Puls said:
You are absolutely correct. It should not be difficult. But for some reason it takes me a long time. I just spent thirty minutes fighting with a pair of eyes and wood filler. The crochet eyes with those stems might really help with setting them evenly since I drill a hole all the way through the head when it’s still a square blank. I also have a 15 year old daughter and therefore a pretty good supply of nail polish and top coats. I bet she would love to paint the eyes for me.
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I also tye flies, I use nail polish instead of head cement. I go to a beauty supply and go through their sale racks, cheap...
 
From Amazon.

I was needing eyes that were clear so I could custom color a few pairs of Oldsquaw eyes. I bought some clear eyes from a taxidermy supply and they looked exactly the same as these cabochons. All I had to do was paint a black pupil and mix my own color from oil based enamel for the eyes, kind of a beige/carmel color for my oldsquaw. When I used to order real taxidermy bird eyes I was always waiting or not having the right color eyes. For a few years i was making a lot of foam crane decoys, about 600 of them, but couldn't really find an eye I was satisfied with and the cost would have been outrageous, so I got some 14mm cabochons and painted my own. I use an oil based paint pen for the pupil and then paint over that with rustoleum and let them cure for a week or two. I do not bed the eyes in anything like clay, I just cut the slot deep enough to push them in and apoxie sculpt over them and shape the eyelid with a pencil. If you are concerned about them staying secure, just try getting one back out. A tiny 1/8th paint brush is what I use to clear the apoxie off the glass while it's still wet. I just cut the end off sqare and it works really well to clear what the pencil doesn't and even shape the eyelids. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092CQSW1Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1

Here is a collection of eyes I've painted for my decoys from cabochons. where are you going to get a 25mm yellow eye for a giant goldeneye. The wigeons with that goldeneye are oversized. The goldeneye is as big as my swan pattern. in the eye picture there is a light almost white eye for scoter, a yellow orange eye for redhead and ringer, a yellow eye for bluebill and goldeneye, red for wood duck and canvasback, a beige/carmel for oldsquaw and a 14 mm blended eye for crane, as well as the brown for a lot of the puddlers. I do straight up black eyes for some scoters.

My first foam decoys had wood heads, but I didn't like the weight and balance which made for a heavier keel. I started right where you are with no one to ask. The process continues to evolve and upgrade. Just about any decoys you see me post are foam. There aren't very many of us carving foam.

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Don Mintz said:
From Amazon.

I was needing eyes that were clear so I could custom color a few pairs of Oldsquaw eyes. I bought some clear eyes from a taxidermy supply and they looked exactly the same as these cabochons. All I had to do was paint a black pupil and mix my own color from oil based enamel for the eyes, kind of a beige/carmel color for my oldsquaw. When I used to order real taxidermy bird eyes I was always waiting or not having the right color eyes. For a few years i was making a lot of foam crane decoys, about 600 of them, but couldn't really find an eye I was satisfied with and the cost would have been outrageous, so I got some 14mm cabochons and painted my own. I use an oil based paint pen for the pupil and then paint over that with rustoleum and let them cure for a week or two. I do not bed the eyes in anything like clay, I just cut the slot deep enough to push them in and apoxie sculpt over them and shape the eyelid with a pencil. If you are concerned about them staying secure, just try getting one back out. A tiny 1/8th paint brush is what I use to clear the apoxie off the glass while it's still wet. I just cut the end off sqare and it works really well to clear what the pencil doesn't and even shape the eyelids. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092CQSW1Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1

Here is a collection of eyes I've painted for my decoys from cabochons. where are you going to get a 25mm yellow eye for a giant goldeneye. The wigeons with that goldeneye are oversized. The goldeneye is as big as my swan pattern. in the eye picture there is a light almost white eye for scoter, a yellow orange eye for redhead and ringer, a yellow eye for bluebill and goldeneye, red for wood duck and canvasback, a beige/carmel for oldsquaw and a 14 mm blended eye for crane, as well as the brown for a lot of the puddlers. I do straight up black eyes for some scoters.

My first foam decoys had wood heads, but I didn't like the weight and balance which made for a heavier keel. I started right where you are with no one to ask. The process continues to evolve and upgrade. Just about any decoys you see me post are foam. There aren't very many of us carving foam.

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Thanks. I’ve added a pack of 12 mm to my order along with the Apoxie sculpt.
 
Don the Amazon man brought me the eyes and Apoxie sculpt yesterday and I did my first set of eyes today. Much better expecting some eyes. Will be some trial and error but I made my first head that has eyelids today….
 
Excellent. There is a learning curve with just about every new thing we do. I started using apoxie sculpt back in my fish taxidermy days and find all kinds of applications for it. The cost of the cabochons is so inexpensive for glass and they are durable. I scrap the overspray paint off of them with an exacto and never scratched them. Just think of the cost for the 300 plus decoys I make each year at the typical $5 per pair for taxidermy eyes to the dime a pair these cost.
 
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