tim atkinson
New member
Got the email thanks Steve.
First Head
- Thread starter tim atkinson
- Start date
uncle mike pierce
Active member
A nice looking gunning head.
Where do you want to go with it, and future decoys? Stylized gunners, or more realistic gunners, or????????
Where do you want to go with it, and future decoys? Stylized gunners, or more realistic gunners, or????????
tim atkinson
New member
That is the same question I have been pondering today. What's next? Where do I stop? I don't know. With every bit of instruction I want to take it further but I fear the next thing I change could ruin what I've already done. I like the realistic look but I know that these are going to be hunted over and once it gets in my boat I know that it will stop being "art"(I use that term loosely) and start being a tool. I know myself all to well and that means that it will get abused, shot, thrown around and beat up like the rest of my equipment. I am hard on my own equipment cause it is just that...mine. Pops always taught me that if it's borrowed return it in better condition then you received it and I've always tried to live that way but when it comes to my own stuff it gets used...hard. As I type this I am beginning to realize that I should probably slow down on the details and get some good working gunners pumped out and save the artistic stuff for another day and a steadier hand that understands the process a little better.
What type of progression should I be looking for? You guys have seen alot of carvers come through this site and all have way more experience with this then I do. I know my artistic side is screaming for realism and I think that has alot to do with why this head has not been deemed complete and at the same time I know with a coat of paint it will do the job it was intended for just fine. I may be spewing currently so I will stop and post this up and take the conversation from there. As always this is a great site and thankyou for all your help, ideas, examples, emails and everything else I have gotten from it.
Tim
What type of progression should I be looking for? You guys have seen alot of carvers come through this site and all have way more experience with this then I do. I know my artistic side is screaming for realism and I think that has alot to do with why this head has not been deemed complete and at the same time I know with a coat of paint it will do the job it was intended for just fine. I may be spewing currently so I will stop and post this up and take the conversation from there. As always this is a great site and thankyou for all your help, ideas, examples, emails and everything else I have gotten from it.
Tim
Rutgers
Well-known member
Tim, have a look at these sanders. You will be much happier with them than a padded sander. The abrasives are way easier to change and better contact when sanding. They are adjustable from very soft to pretty stiff. Main advice is keep the Roma low. Get a flex shaft from garret wade and put it in you drill press and sand sand sand!
uncle mike pierce
Active member
You will struggle with balance and vision probably as long as you carve decoys. At least a lot of the carvers I have known did.
If you truly do gunners, the struggle will be with the number you want to get done, the time you have, and the quality and detail you can put into those decoys in that amount of time and effort. When you are done, you will probably see a few details you could have added that wouldn't have added that much time, but which would have made the decoys better. When I made some gunners last fall, I intended to do 3 hour paint jobs on each decoy, but as I painted, it kind of grew, but at the same time, I knew when to quit.
There will always be the artistic considerations too. When you reach the point of being able to make and paint high quality competitive birds, will you be content to take some speed off to make usable gunners? And when you become infatuated with some of the older decoys and want to do decoys honoring those carvers and their styles, will you be able to keep the paint and carving to those simpler styles?
The answer I have come up with for me is almost oxymoronic: carve what you like, put in as much or as little detail as you want, and in whatever you do, do your best. When I overthink it, I engage in mind screw instead of artistic creation..........
You gotta find your own answers..............sometimes it works best when you have a vision to set the destination, sometimes the vision develops on a journey with no determinate destination, and sometimes the journey becomes the vision..........keep carving and painting, sooner or later it will make some sense, kind of. I am pretty sure the giants of the past, who carved actual gunning decoys, like the Ward Brothers, Elmer Crowell, Shang Wheeler, Charles Perdew, Thomas Chambers, John R. Wells, Ben Schmidt, etc. "just did it". They might have had a vision and style, but they didn't obsess much about them or a lot of the stuff we worry about. They just tried to make the best decoys they could and meet their customers' demands and orders.
If you truly do gunners, the struggle will be with the number you want to get done, the time you have, and the quality and detail you can put into those decoys in that amount of time and effort. When you are done, you will probably see a few details you could have added that wouldn't have added that much time, but which would have made the decoys better. When I made some gunners last fall, I intended to do 3 hour paint jobs on each decoy, but as I painted, it kind of grew, but at the same time, I knew when to quit.
There will always be the artistic considerations too. When you reach the point of being able to make and paint high quality competitive birds, will you be content to take some speed off to make usable gunners? And when you become infatuated with some of the older decoys and want to do decoys honoring those carvers and their styles, will you be able to keep the paint and carving to those simpler styles?
The answer I have come up with for me is almost oxymoronic: carve what you like, put in as much or as little detail as you want, and in whatever you do, do your best. When I overthink it, I engage in mind screw instead of artistic creation..........
You gotta find your own answers..............sometimes it works best when you have a vision to set the destination, sometimes the vision develops on a journey with no determinate destination, and sometimes the journey becomes the vision..........keep carving and painting, sooner or later it will make some sense, kind of. I am pretty sure the giants of the past, who carved actual gunning decoys, like the Ward Brothers, Elmer Crowell, Shang Wheeler, Charles Perdew, Thomas Chambers, John R. Wells, Ben Schmidt, etc. "just did it". They might have had a vision and style, but they didn't obsess much about them or a lot of the stuff we worry about. They just tried to make the best decoys they could and meet their customers' demands and orders.
Chuck J
Well-known member
Paul, you've got spoons on the mind me thinks...that or your spelling autocorrect is "helping" you.
Tim, I think Paul was trying to tell you about these (we spoke about them on the phone yesterday, I really don't have ESP, but I am thinking of ordering one myself):
http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=45190&cat=1,42500
That or he was going to share a recipe for tomato soup...and I catch grief for my sewing habits...
Chuck
uncle mike pierce
Active member
I use the pneumatic drum sanders with abrasive sleeves that were recommended, and they work great, on rounding large areas. the smallest of those drums is still plenty large in terms of radius, and the smaller pneumatic drums are really touchy in terms of getting the right amount of air to hold the sleev on, and yet have some give when sanding. The best pneumatic sleeve sanding device I ever saw was a large abrasive sleeve that fit on an old airplane tire. The tire was threaded on a shaft to about a 3/4 horse electric motor. For rounding birds fresh off the duplicator and finishing heads that had little detail, it was the nuts.
To put in, or to preserve detail, you will still need to use the padded sanders (or hand sanding on tight areas like the eye groove, the curve under the head, the transition of head to neck, transition of head to bill, etc. I have also used the padded drum sander to "flatten" or adjust the spot where the head sits on the body (when needed). I also know of carvers who, after gross roughing with carbide burrs, do almost all the rest of the carving using padded drum sanders. A few, who do gunning decoys, do no sanding on the body or head other than with the padded sanding drums leaving the little hills and valleys as a form of texturing.
To each his own. I use 'em all, pneumatic drums with sanding sleeves, padded sanding drums on the foredom (large and small), various hand sanders with foam padded bases, and cloth sandpaper held in hand, over my fingers. But, no matter what you use, think about a form of dust collection and/or a respirator mask, especially if you are going to use power sanding. Cedar sawdusts are toxic, as are a lot of other sawdusts to varying degrees, and all sawdusts, even the least toxic sawdusts, can cause decreased lung function and long term respiratory problems (like COPD) for people who have regular, unprotected exposure to sawdust............
To put in, or to preserve detail, you will still need to use the padded sanders (or hand sanding on tight areas like the eye groove, the curve under the head, the transition of head to neck, transition of head to bill, etc. I have also used the padded drum sander to "flatten" or adjust the spot where the head sits on the body (when needed). I also know of carvers who, after gross roughing with carbide burrs, do almost all the rest of the carving using padded drum sanders. A few, who do gunning decoys, do no sanding on the body or head other than with the padded sanding drums leaving the little hills and valleys as a form of texturing.
To each his own. I use 'em all, pneumatic drums with sanding sleeves, padded sanding drums on the foredom (large and small), various hand sanders with foam padded bases, and cloth sandpaper held in hand, over my fingers. But, no matter what you use, think about a form of dust collection and/or a respirator mask, especially if you are going to use power sanding. Cedar sawdusts are toxic, as are a lot of other sawdusts to varying degrees, and all sawdusts, even the least toxic sawdusts, can cause decreased lung function and long term respiratory problems (like COPD) for people who have regular, unprotected exposure to sawdust............
uncle mike pierce
Active member
I don't use one anymore. Owned a Laskowski single station duplicator that I used little. I gave it to my son years ago, and I don't think he uses it. I found that with single station duplicators, it took almost as much time to set up and reister, and duplicate as it took to carve it with power tools. The only advantage was that I could achieve consistency of result/cookie cutter status. For carving gun stocks or other precise inletting they might be great, but for decoy bodies and heads, a good carver can give a single station model a run for its money in terms of speed and efficiency.
The pneumatic sander (based on a plane tire mounted on a shaft with an abrasive sleeve) I saw used in conjunction with a duplicator was owned by Dave Frier, in Macomb, Illinois and he had a two spindle duplicator from North Star (??). I was more impressed by the sander than the duplicator....
There is a company in North Dakota that bought out the Laskowski design and still supplies parts. It was a great duplicator for hobbyists and those who wanted to do "one of" duplications.
The pneumatic sander (based on a plane tire mounted on a shaft with an abrasive sleeve) I saw used in conjunction with a duplicator was owned by Dave Frier, in Macomb, Illinois and he had a two spindle duplicator from North Star (??). I was more impressed by the sander than the duplicator....
There is a company in North Dakota that bought out the Laskowski design and still supplies parts. It was a great duplicator for hobbyists and those who wanted to do "one of" duplications.