Self Righting Decoys

Weighting a block is almost an art and can vary on how you want to use the bird along with the actual design of the bird. A bird with a heavy head needs weight in the back. You can also add buoyancy to the front by using a wood keel that is made from a lighter weigh wood and keep all the lead weight in the back. Probably the easiest way to start is to take a heavy piece of wood and taking a Forstner bit and drill several holes in it. Use these holes as a mold to pour molten lead into it. Hit the thing upside-down to knock the lead out and just make a pile of these various thicknesses. Then when you make an actual keel, drill holes slightly larger in the top of the keel. Use rubber bands to hold the keel to the bottom of the bird. Drop in weights and keep on adding them till the bird floats and flips the way you want it. Mark the keel's position on the bottom, dry the keel out, epoxy the weights in place...then screw and epoxy the keel in place.
For gunners, you can simply get the new plastic tred-deck made out of recycled plastic and cut it to the size desired. It usually has enough weight to it to flip a bird with no other weight on it. You don't have to get too fancy with your designs. An inch to 1.5" is wide enough for most birds.
 
Is this for that swan? My gunners are just weighted enough to ride the water, but I did a rig for the pool that had ginormous hardwood keels with 4 pounds of lead to insure they didn't DQ.

If not...carry on...
 
re your birds: cork? solid wood? hollow wood? (and some guys hollow cork birds, too)

I usually carve hollow birds (White Pine) and make them light by getting the walls about 3/8" thick (thin, really). The head is relatively heavy because it is solid but so is the tail section - because you cannot easily get the walls as thin there as you can over the rest of the body - and so they are a little low up forward - but ballast toward the rear of the keel can fix that. I draw "waterline" marks on my birds (about 3/4" up from the bottom) to see how they trim. A lifesize Mallard or Canvasback weighs about 1 - 1/4 or 1 - 1/3 pounds before the weighted keel goes on.

I like shallow keels - less than 2" deep. I usually use 5/4 pine. I pour lead into the aft third of the keel. I drill a slot about 1/2" wide X 2 or 2 1/2" long - with repeated plunges on the drill dress (about 1 1/4" deep) and then I clean it up with a chisel or knife. With a smaller (1/4") drill, I drill forward and rearward within that slot so that the molten lead will move into these cavities and, once cooled, these "ears" will prevent the lead from dropping out. Finally, I pour the lead a little proud. Once it cools, I sand it flush.

I am guessing that the ballast in my keels is usually about 2 ounces. I try to get it so that the bird just barely rights itself - no more lead than necessary. On the other hand, you will see that some poses will right more easily because they are inherently unstable when upside down - highheads are good examples of this. Low heads (bullnecks) or sleepers might be perfectly happy upside down unless they are in a chop or current. A good trick here is to fasten the keel very slightly off-center.

A good approach is to make some keels of the proportions you want, then tank test them with the keel either rubber-banded on - or even use screws a bit shorter than the screws you will use to permanently fasten the keel. Play around with different weights and positions until they work.

When I permanently fasten the keel on a gunner, I use an adhesive caulk like 3M 5200 (expensive overkill - but I'll use it if I have a tube open in the shop) or phenoseal. I use a caulk rather than a glue because I want to accommodate a little shrinking/swelling movement of the keel.

BTW # 1: Before I tank test the body or the keel, these pieces are sealed so that they don't absorb any water. Usually, the body is fully painted and the keel is sealed with 2 coats of varnish.

BTW # 2: I fasten the line to a 3/8 hole bored in the forward end of the keel - with a chamfered or rounded edge to minimize chafe. I also round the fore and aft ends of the keel (in profile) so they do not beat up other decoys - and I knock off the hard edges with coarse (80 or 60 grit) sandpaper.

Hope this helps,

SJS
 
For years I hunted the saltchuck of Puget Sound, where the tides uncover an astonishing about of muddy real estate in their fluctuations. I came to hate keels of any kind; tipped to one side or the other waiting for the tide, usually in boot-removing mud. So instead of keels I added substantial bottom boards to my cork decoys--best were from the drawers of an out of business hotel that sold their desks and such for junk. Desks from back when things were made with good wood...didn't use plywood, salt plays havoc with layers...anything from half inch to one inch lumber from wherever I could scrounge. Decoys weighed a ton but sat flat on the mud so the ducks coming into the grass to feed did not flare at all--the old hemp rope of my toll lines blended perfectly with the mud too--and the bottom weight ensured they were self righting. And stayed upright in a gale. Swam through breaking waves like a real duck. And on flat calm water they moved with the slightest breeze. Drawback was weight but I had a 16 and then a 17 foot boat to lug them and never saw a reason to change my rig. Then I got old and had to wade instead of boat and that was the end of use of my corkers...but that's another story.
 
Really Bob??? all I get is some log in page saying I'm not cool enough to read what's there (I am liberally paraphrasing)

Opens right up for me. Maybe you need do the log in/registration process? You're definitely cool enough to figure that out. After all, I wouldn't have known how to begin to post the link thingy that you found, let alone look it up. ;-) (Anyway, the thread I referenced is specifically about keels & self-righting.... far too much stuff to wade through on that pintail thread before one gets to the bit of info the guy wanted).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
First off, is to try to design a decoy that doesn't need a Big keel, and a heavy chunk of lead, but that is easier said than done. Contest decoys require self righting, not all hunting decoys do where hunting conditions, and the birds are the only judges. But the self righting deal is something we all go through, cuz it's drilled into our heads from the get go.
 
the only birds I worry about self righting are birds that are long lined. all my puddle ducks are weighted if needed just to float nicely. Puddle rig gets set by hand. Of course if I enter a contest those birds are self-righting birds using lead inside the keel dependent on head position.
 
I don't worry about self righting decoys.....I diver hunt more then anything and my decoys are all longlined. Just pull the end a couple times and they will flip over :)

Jim
 
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