Steve Sanford
Well-known member
All~
It seems that anyone who knows Herter's knows their catalogs....
Most duck hunters of a certain era know their over-size, foam-bodied Model 72s....
And - we certainly know about the "any position" heads.....
I bought a dozen Mallards when I was 15 - and immediately re-painted them as Mallards and Blacks. The Hens had every feather painted on. When I moved here almost 30 years later, I re-painted the rig. I found my way of painting hen gunners without each feather but with the right effect - at least to my eye. More important - having carved lots of decoys by then - I wanted to vary the heights and angles of the heads - not just the left-right angles. My practical and expedient approach was to point my Bernz-O-Matic torch at the lower necks of about half my rig (which had grown to 24 or so) to soften the plastic enough so that I could squish it down ward. After discovering the "finer points" it worked well - and has held up over many hunts and seasons.
I recently found a dozen Model 72 Mallard heads - all drakes - on eBay. A customer had 6 bodies but no heads. It gave me the opportunity to try a different approach to tweaking the head heights and bill angles. I used my hack saw (band saw was way too aggressive!) to cut through the Tenite and excise a portion of the neck.
My approach was to put excess thickened epoxy (epoxy + fairing compound) into the lower and upper parts of the head - then tape them very carefully together until the epoxy cured. I trusted the epoxy from above - a tablespoon or 2 - would work it way down over and into the sawn seam.
The epoxy oozed out around the new neck seam - ensuring a solid bond. I wiped any excess before it cured. You can see,too, that I had coarsely (60-grit) sanded the entire head before gluing.
I used Bondo to fill the hollow around the new seam - easier to shape and fair than thickened epoxy.
Stay tuned.....
SJS
It seems that anyone who knows Herter's knows their catalogs....
Most duck hunters of a certain era know their over-size, foam-bodied Model 72s....
And - we certainly know about the "any position" heads.....
I bought a dozen Mallards when I was 15 - and immediately re-painted them as Mallards and Blacks. The Hens had every feather painted on. When I moved here almost 30 years later, I re-painted the rig. I found my way of painting hen gunners without each feather but with the right effect - at least to my eye. More important - having carved lots of decoys by then - I wanted to vary the heights and angles of the heads - not just the left-right angles. My practical and expedient approach was to point my Bernz-O-Matic torch at the lower necks of about half my rig (which had grown to 24 or so) to soften the plastic enough so that I could squish it down ward. After discovering the "finer points" it worked well - and has held up over many hunts and seasons.
I recently found a dozen Model 72 Mallard heads - all drakes - on eBay. A customer had 6 bodies but no heads. It gave me the opportunity to try a different approach to tweaking the head heights and bill angles. I used my hack saw (band saw was way too aggressive!) to cut through the Tenite and excise a portion of the neck.
My approach was to put excess thickened epoxy (epoxy + fairing compound) into the lower and upper parts of the head - then tape them very carefully together until the epoxy cured. I trusted the epoxy from above - a tablespoon or 2 - would work it way down over and into the sawn seam.
The epoxy oozed out around the new neck seam - ensuring a solid bond. I wiped any excess before it cured. You can see,too, that I had coarsely (60-grit) sanded the entire head before gluing.
I used Bondo to fill the hollow around the new seam - easier to shape and fair than thickened epoxy.
Stay tuned.....
SJS