Hem fir for decoys?

V

Vick Brown

Member
After seeing Danis Buffy decoy and seeing how she laminated board to get enough size it got me wondering. The local contractors use a lot of hem fir around here and it seems light weight and softer than DF. Has anyone tried it?

Vick
 
It sucks. Fir WILL check..Hem or Doug. It's rings are hard and it's soft in between them...and it's "chunky" when using blades to shape. For pure beaters it would be ...ok...I'd suggest you try to find Spruce 2x material for carving..it's what I use 90% of the time and is usually a bit easier to find and a little less moohla.
 
Oh well, there is always a bunch of 2x6 scrap laying around new construction home sites and I was wondering if it was worth messing around with.

Thanks,
Vick
 
Vick, try looking for some local red cedar. I have a couple good sized ones here on the place that I want to cut down for decoy making, but there is no way to get them off the mountain or I woukld have already cut them.

I have two 30" dia. by 20 foot long pieces but I can't get much out of them because they are too pecky. As far as I know red cedar works great for decoys, light and soft, easy to carve, makes great heads, but ya need to seal the hell out of it because it absords water pretty good.

I'll see if I can find a big one (at least 30" on the stump) one one of the neighbors places that they want cut down. We could probably get a few decoys out of a 30" X 75 foot red cedar. If I can get one and cut it into 8 or 10 footers, I can trailer them over to a buddy who has a big band-saw porta-mill that would cut them into the correct size for duck & goose blocks. and then I could cut them to length. I always wanted a dozen cedar honker decoys for some dumb reason?

Dave
 
Vick, are you sure the 2x6 is Hem fir? Is it red-ish with a lot of grain? I made some heads out of some when I first started carving..I glued 2 2x6 together for a 3" thick block...got it almost done and it checked from the end of the bill right past the eye and around back.Same thing happened to a body I made..err..pitched.Got it all ready for paint in one evening, went back to the shop the next day and it had 3 splits in the top board and one big one in the bottom piece. This was kiln dried hem fir with straight grain and no knots..sorted the 2x10 out myself.
 
wood for decoys on the West Coast. It was plentiful and readily available to the old timers that carved, an dit was cheap...but then thats the same reason that a good number of the Liberty ships were made out of concrete....and to my knowledge there aren't many concrete boats anymore just like there aren't many red cedar decoys anymore....

The problems with it are tha they slab off pieces really easily, freshly cut logs take forever to dry, they have a lot of resin in them, and that will continue to beleed through seemingly forever. If you use it you definatley need to hollow it and then like Dave says, sela the hell out of it....

Any cahnce that you've got a big ass newly dead standing Sugar Pine on the place do you? I'd guess we could likely put together a logging crew to get that puppy out no matter where its located.

Steve
 
Steve, I just asked Judy and she said there was one on the way up to our rock quarry. but she can't remember how big it was. I'll take the ATV up there in a little while and see if I can spot it. If there are long-ass cones on the ground, I'll know I've found it. The thickest part of our forest is in the area behind the shop. (where the bear trails are) I need to cruise it anyway because there is mass amounts of good timber (including red cedar) in there that I'd like to thin out a bit.

Are you going to be able to make it down in April to hunt with me as well as Mike at the C-2? Judy says she's ready see her roll-top desk you've been baby-sitting for us since last summer.

I'm going to go jump on the ATV and run up to the quarry, I'll let you know what I see in the way of sugar pines.

Dave
 
There is a fair amount of sugar pine at the upper elevations around Redding. This deer season I keep an eye out for one in a cull pile.

Vick
 
before end of June. The desk will come down for me. I've always come the last week of May and I live it then...The Turkeys are never tougher because by that late in the season they aren't as interested in the hens and are they really make you work for them....that said I have had an urge to see the canyons on C2 in the earlier spring and might try to make it down there before the end of April this year.....Thats the neatest part about Oregon and their three bird limit. ....If I come early I can save a bird for later.

If you have a Sugar Pine thats big enough to be milled you're sitting on a gold mine from a carvers standpoint.....there isn't a guy on this site that carves that wouldn't love to have some of it. At one time Torrey was talking about getting a salvage permit for some standing dead stuff over by him. Never heard what came about from that.

Vick....keep your eyes open....I'll take all you can find.....


Steve
 
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