Restle coating?

[Andy Johnson]

Hello,

I have made several bodies out of 2 part foam from a mold. I have burlapped a couple of them using tile adhesive and wrapping them with burlap and they seem incredibly durable now. I had a thought, has anyone tried doing a restle coating from tile adhesive and sawdust? do you think it would work? I know the standard method is water-downed Tite-Bond, but isnt the burlap/sawdust basically a binder for the glue/adhesive to the body? Your thoughts will be appreciated.

 

[Cody Williams]

I can't see where there would be an advantage to using tile adhesive over Titebond. My first batch of foamers I burlapped, all that I have made since then have been restle coated and I've never looked back. I think that using Titebond would be better than tile adhesive since the sawdust bonds so well with the wood glue. I use full strength glue on the tails and bills and water it down a bit for the rest of the body. 2 coats of sawdust and glue, a coat of spar varnish and after 2 weeks or so your decoys will be harder than a rock, and pretty lightweight as well!

 

[Lou Tisch]

Andy,
The decoy is called the Restle Decoy but the coating is called "Trestle coating". The coating is actually ground up corn cobs that are embedded in a latex binder. We got this info from the patent search when we had looked at buying that company....long time ago.
Lou

 

[Andy Johnson]

The only reason i was thinking of trying sawdust with the mastic inlieu of glue is because i have a huge tub of it. I have a near endless supply of sawdust as well since my father runs a lumber yard. (free basswood for me)

Thank you for your responses, i still might give it a shot on one of the bodies that did not fully expand, just to see what happens.