October - What's on your Work Bench?

Steve Sanford

Steve Sanford

Well-known member
All~

Here are a few I've been working on of late. I have to deliver a couple tonight for the local farmland conservation fundraiser and I'll be bringing a bunch more over to Orvis this weekend. Then, back to boats, blinds and decoys for the upcoming seasons.....

This Tundra Swan is half-size - hollow pine. Wish I got to see this species more often....

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Love that little tear drop!


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This Bluewing is hollow pine and oils. I actually saw a few yesterday - pretty uncommon here in eastern New York in the fall.



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Here's another Whimbrel - with a different approach to the paint.






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This Oldsquaw's tail is limb wood from Shagbark Hickory - grown to the curve.


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For the first time - on this Killdeer - I finished a base with gloss varnish.




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All the best,

SJS
 
Very nice Steve. Since I did my graduate work on tundra swans, I would say you captured them wonderfully.
 
Nice work Steve...I love watching a flight of Tundra's flying high over head. They remind me of a squadron of B-52 bombers. You can usually hear them way before you see them.

Steve
 
Oh and I think I'll play along this month too. This one isn't quite finished up yet, I still need to make the insert for it. For all of you trappers out there...it's cherry burl with a real beaver tail leather wrap. I'll be keeping this one for myself for a change. I just couldn't keep it under wraps any longer. I have a couple of other different calls in the works too.

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Great work steve. Saw my first swans this past spring at Strongsville. We were standing out in the parking lot, heard them first and then watched a pair fly over the hotel. First ones this Georgia boy had ever seen. It was pretty cool.
 
Steve, very nice swan and oldsquaw!

Three years ago I was working under contract with a forestry company, doing bathymetric mapping of 24 remote lakes on their land holdings in the central U.P. and doing stream cross-section surveys on the lands within the Sucker River watershed. Nearly all these lakes held nesting loons, but three had nesting tundra swans on them, I assumed these to be offspring of the orginal Tundra was introduction on the Seney National Wildlife Refuge pools. Beautiful bird to see on a water body seldom seen by humans.

We also found tracks indicating the first evidence of cougar reproduction in the U.P since their extirpation in the early 1900s. Oh, that's right, when you find tracks made that morning, following a heavy overnight rain, on a mud flat of a large cat over 100lbs. and a smaller set of tracks roughly half that size, it is not evidence of natural reproduction-at least according to the MDNR! Their personnel never made it to the site despite being supplied with lat./long. location data taken from my handheld GPS.
 
Larry~

Thanks for the kind words about the Bluewing. He is one of my "mantelpiece birds" - not only fancier paint than a gunner, but also a round bottom. I like the round bottom for birds that live on a shelf but my gunners have flat bottoms - and usually keels.

All the best,

SJS
 
Steve, That is SO cool, I love the pose of the Swan, very nice shape.

It is funny how each month seems to have a theme! (Last month there was a ton of Teal)

I also finished up a Tundra, but not quite so Curvy in the neck, more of a Greeting pose.

Full sized and Made as an Urn to hold the Ashes of A buddies Labrador.


 
Good morning, Jode~

Beautiful bird! Those long necks sure are fun to play around with. And, these Swans offer a painting holiday.

In the early 80s, I had about 30 land right in my rig on Great South Bay - before shooting time. They gave me a flyover later the same morning and I can still hear the music of their calls....

All the best,

SJS
 
Good morning, Jode~

Beautiful bird! Those long necks sure are fun to play around with. And, these Swans offer a painting holiday.

In the early 80s, I had about 30 land right in my rig on Great South Bay - before shooting time. They gave me a flyover later the same morning and I can still hear the music of their calls....

All the best,

SJS
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Thanks Steve! That must of been some sight to see them on the water. We get a few Tundra's here in NJ, the feral Mute Swan run them off though, its ashame as the tundras are part of the natural system, the mutes, well they are like like a big bothersome rat.
 
Thanks you to both captains. Unfortunately we dont get many black ducks here unless extreme cold weather north of us. So carving a rig wont do me much good. I do like to throw out 2 or 3 just for the dark silhoutte on the water, shows up well
 
Thanks you to both captains. Unfortunately we dont get many black ducks here unless extreme cold weather north of us. So carving a rig wont do me much good. I do like to throw out 2 or 3 just for the dark silhoutte on the water, shows up well
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Pat come to NJ you put that out 100 percent you'll get your black duck with that beauty.
 
Gorgeous Gorgeous Gourgeous. All of them are simply gorgeous. Though "simple" doesn't apply.

Being a WIND BIRD guy the Whimbrel keeps requiring that I "look again"......stunning.

And like the last couple of months something new.....who knew that beaver leather would be so cool. Been a long time since we've been able to say....NICE BEAVER.....so yaaaaayyyy for Steve.


Steve
 
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