Confession time: those posts gave me the confidence I could restore these! Belated thank you for all the incredible resources you post on your blog.
Handy quick links also very much appreciated!
Duly noted on the tail boards though. The one intact one appears to be some sort of fiber board, not plywood. That one I am going to attempt wicking in an adhesive (probably a high quality CA) and then clamping flat to repair the "bloom". On closer inspection, I'm having a hard time determining if all 5 originally had tail boards. Some of them have a distinctly different undertail pattern from the one intact one
There's actually a few little fun restoration details on these. 4 of the decoys have a simple head-turn mechanism with a pin in the back of the head behind the main dowel, allowing the gunner to choose different head positions when placing the decoys. I know I've seen pictures of it elsewhere, but it's a really sweet little detail I didn't expect. Of course the pin holes on the body are totally deteriorated, resulting in wobble heads. Looks like the original head collar thing was wood on top of the cork, so a new wood insert is in order. I am thinking I will probably inlay brass tube to prevent exactly the same thing from happening again if I have the clearance between the main dowel hole and the pin holes. Decoy number five looks like a different pattern with no fancy head antics.
Out of curiosity, do you prefer the phenolic or glass based fillers? I'd rather go with phenolic if it's a comparable performer cause of the whole "glass dust and lungs don't mix well" issue. Can't always avoid respirator work in the shop but I don't necessarily want to add to the list of things I do in one!
Heh, maybe I should spin up a new thread and stop cluttering up the monthly workbench post
