Fixing old Herters Decoys

[Scott Gilliland]

I have about 3 dz old herters divers. They been well used and I'm thinking of patching them up and repainting. Most of the eye-bolts have rusted and a few heads are broken off at the base of the stem. I would like to replace the eye bolts (I'm calling them bolts, but they are leg screws) with stainless and reuse some for the broken heads. It's hard to find stainless eye bolts - I've found a source of 1/4" by 5" bolts. For the bolts they do not indicated if they are 5" overall or the leg is 5".

• Does anyone have a suggestion for re-attaching heads that the stem has ben broken?
  • Steve Sanford has a great how to repair these decoys and uses resin and fibreglass to attach the heads. I might do this, but I do like to be able to turn the heads.
• suggestions to the remove rusty eye bolts?
• I'm looking for 6" eye bolts and cannot find them - 5" eye bolts long enough?

Thanks
Scott

 

[James Boyd]

There are several ways to still use the heads with broken stems, the simplest being to simply glue the bottom of the head and the shelf together. You can then put expandable gorilla glue in the hole for the eyebolt and glue the eyebolt in.
Another method I have used is to cut a circular piece of 1/4” aluminum into the shape of the bottom of the neck. You can glue and screw or rivet the aluminum to the decoy head. Lastly drill and tap the aluminum to accept the threaded eyebolt. Most I’ve used are generally 1/4-20 which is a common size. This keeps your option to still turn the heads as you like. I’ve also used this method to attach other heads to herters decoys in the past