What's on your WORK BENCH ? - APRIL 2022

[Steve Sanford]

All~


Spring is showing itself every day - but I keep plugging away on several decoy projects in the shop.


These Beans Coastals - Mallards and Pintails - have been repaired and sealed with Spar Varnish. (corker in the foreground is Unknown Maker thus far....)






The beginnings of the flat oil primer coat is on the birds.






Most of the prime coat is done now.







Here is a mix of Beans and Autumn Wings heads in the repair process. Lots of new dowels and eyes were needed.






These Mallard heads - none quite done - are: Herter's Model 72, Autumn Wings, Beans Coastals.







These are all Beans Coastal Pintails.






These 3 Mallards are old (flat bottom) Herter's Model 72 - coated with epoxy + fine sawdust.







These 3 are Wildfowlers from Quogue, Long Island - their balsa-bodied life-size Superior Model.






The 7 "maker unknown" now have their keels and bottoms sanded and sealed.






All the best,


SJS

 

[Bob Mitchell]

On the bench for April im working on a blackduck dead mount..

 

[patrick mccarthy]

Working on a dead hang.

 

[thomas wilkins]

Looking Good Patrick.

 

[patrick mccarthy]

Thomas
Thanks. You still considering a PP?

 

[MLBob Furia]

[size 4] Been drawing up some new patterns.

Did some Redheads in a "swimmer" pose:





And another pair of ringbills:

 

[RLLigman]

Very nice work, Mr. Mitchell! Cork, or wood?

 

[Bob Mitchell]

Cork body wooden head tail and wings .

 

[RLLigman]

Cork body wooden head tail and wings .

Whoever commissioned your work will be very happy when they see it. I enlarged it and could find no seams where two different materials were joined together.

 

[Bob Mitchell]

Thanks here is the duck on display .

 

[Dave Diefenderfer]

I spent the past week on vacation in Florida. We had expected to be hosting Maria's folks but their flight was cancelled 3x and they gave up. So it was a relaxed, quiet week. I always pack some "work" in case of rain or down time. I did't finish it all, but got some done.

The Mallards are Herters 63s that I cast entirely, my body, head and keel weight molds. The Teal are Homer lifesize, a pair for my 8 month old grandson Johannes, a pair for my 4 month old grandson Samuel, and a pair for myself. These are FOS (First of Species) for me.

The Mallards are for Brian Garman's rig, and the feeder is still a work in progress. It was a dud body cast and I next need to work out the counter-balance weight. I plan to drill some holes in wood that are a little smaller than the plastic pipe ID and slide the weight inside.... though I want is much shorter than the "handle" you can see now.

 

[Vince Pagliaroli]

oil paint on driftwood, 16"L x 3 1/4"W

 

[MLBob Furia]

Are you chasin' them yet, Vince??

 

[MLBob Furia]

Finished up the two cork, swimmer-head redhead drakes I was working on. Spatter-painted vermiculation instead of combing.

I have always struggled to get the head color to pop on a redhead, and this time I decided to blend in touches of diox. purple to see what might happen. Well, whatever happened proved to be just the bit of difference in moving the tone of the head away from the more subdued chestnut color of a canvasback without pushing it too far into the apple/brick-red hue I see on a redhead.

Adding spatter paint over the base blends on the head was an afterthought, and all I could think was that it might screw up the color blends, and I'd end up having to repaint. Fortunately. the spatter worked. Got to love it when the painting gods smile upon you!

Here's the picture that inspired the pattern drawing for these decoys:




...and the finished reds:

 

[Tom Whitehurst]

Those look great Dave, very nice paint.

 

[Steve Sanford]

Good morning, All~


Here is some more production From the Bench of George Williams:






Some Spoonbills:








A film crew from a local arts program came by on Tuesday. It gave me the opportunity to 1) thoroughly clean my shop/studio (never did find the time to wash the windows....)....







...and 2) display a bunch of work from over the years. My radial arm saw bench held a few oil paintings:







After retiring DEC I thought I might paint portraits....so I joined the Saratoga Life Studio for about 3 years.









The outfeed bench for my table saw held a bunch of watercolors - all bird or gunning themes.






I painted this Short-eared Owl to support our local Grassland Bird Trust.






My assembly bench held a bunch of decoys and carvings. Not all of the decoys were made by me - a few are Herter's and Wildfowlers that I am rehabbing for my own use. The oiled Canvasback is from Butternut.







I suspect the feature will focus on decoys. About 3 hours of recording will get edited to several minutes for airing - in the next week or 2.



I worked on this Broadie Beak - carved and hollowed the body and glued everything up - whilst on camera.






As usual, there was a South Bay Duckboat in "the bay" - needing my attention.






I carved this Whistler back in 1983. He was the inspiration for my "corporate logo".






Now, back to making everything messy once again...



All the best,


SJS

 

[Tom Whitehurst]

Steve - I hope you will provide a link to view this after it airs.

 

[Steve Sanford]

Good morning, Tom~


I will certainly try.... In addition to the local PBS station, I understand it will be available on Facebook (terra incognita to me). Not sure how else.



Stay tuned (note Old School phraseology)


SJS

 

[patrick mccarthy]

Matching pair of olivewood shaves small and large.

 

[John Ki]

They are awesome. They are like sculptures.