Good showing at Maumee Bay Decoy Show

Last weekend was the Maumee Bay decoy show (formerly the Crane Creek show) in Ohio at Magee Marsh. I entered a few birds in the Lake Erie Singles division and had my best show to date. I took second best of show with my hen mallard. First best of show....you guessed it...Gary Hanson. I'm going to get him one of these days! He really does deserve it though.

I'll post pictures in the awards section a little later. One of the ribbons was temporarily lost over the weekend, but it's been located and I'll get it in a couple weeks. 

St. Clair Flats show update

Well, August 8th was the St. Clair Flats decoy show here on the east side of the state. I had nine decoys to enter in the market gunner category this year. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I did get a couple yellow, red and blue ribbons. I was beat by Gary Hanson in every category I was up against him in. I certainly can't blame the judges for that. I did have a really good time though.

Here's Gary's mallard drake that beat all three of my mallards and eventually went on to win the best of show award.

Drake Mallard

Here's a drake mallard I finally finished up this past weekend. I've been out of town for the past few weeks so I haven't spent too much time in the shop. I had this only about 95% complete before the family and I went to Texas, and I was able to put the finishing touches on it this past weekend. The body if made of tan cork and the head is white cedar. It's painted with acrylic paint.

You can view full size images in the mallard gallery of my decoy page.



Poor-man's shaving horse

Here's a "poor-man's" shaving horse I whipped up tonight. This is the true sense of function over form. There is nothing pretty about it, but it doesn't rack at all, and only took me about 30 minutes to complete. It's nothing more than a single 10' 2x10. I cut a 3' section for the seat, 2 2' pieces for the legs, and a piece about 33" for the stretcher to tie it all together. I assembled it with nothing more than 3" deck screws.

I also installed my new hydraulic work holder.

With a simple twist of a knob, I can move a swivel the decoy 360 degrees or move it up and down from 90 to 180 degrees. This is the perfect holder for using traditional hand tools such as a drawknife, spokeshave, rasps and files. Here's a couple pictures to give you an idea of just how positionable the work-piece is.

I've wanted something like this for the longest time. It's a far sight better than what I was previously using.

I've been getting by on this vise for so long now I have to wonder why I waited so long to upgrade.

 

One Completed Hen

Here is one of the completed hens. I ended up repainting the head and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I've really enjoyed painting these hens lately. Each one gets a little bit better, and I have a little more fun painting.

The feathers on this bird were done utilizing a scrubbing or drybrushing technique that I was inspired by Tom Christie to try. Tom Christie has a reputation for making spectacular hens. I had the honor of spending some time talking to Tom at the 2009 Westlake show in Ohio. I had to update the technique a bit to better suit my style, but his method was a primary influence for me, is the basis of all my hens.

This one is a fancy gunner. I've added some touches such as raised primary feathers, but they are fully supported and not undercut. This give it a bit more of a gunner feel, but adds a nice flourish that I often like to be part of my decoys. This bird definetly has more paint on it than I would put on a rig of six that end up getting tossed into a boat. I spent a fait bit of time on the head playing around with a ticking pattern that I liked. I'm happy with the results, but time really got away from me. I may end up trying a spatter method on the next head for a different look. 

Hen mallards, 95% complete

I made quite a bit of progress on these two hens this past weekend. I'd estimate they are about 95% complete now. I just need to finish up the heads and bills and they are done. The bird without the raised primaries has been on my bench for several months now. I've actually repainted it three times now and I'm finally happy with it. I'll be happy to have it complete as well.

In-process mallards

I spent the weekend away from the workshop with the family. I did bring a few heads to carve and some almost finished birds with me though. This is a mallard that I needed to really spend some time giving a good sanding. At this point it's ready to seal up and paint, unless I decide to undercut those primaries.

The brown filler isn't really a mistake. It's more of a correction. I carved the edges of the primary feathers as a straight line tucked right into the side pockets. My friend Gary Hanson suggested that it would look better if I broke up that long, straight line by having the tertial feather hang over the edge of the primary. I agreed with him.

Here's a cork hen mallard I mounted the head on recently. This one just needs to have the neck cleaned up, and then a final sanding before it's ready to paint. I use a marine epoxy called WEST, which squeezes out of the neck joint and makes a mess when I clamp it, but it's super tough stuff and is really worth the clean-up effort. My plan is for this to be my first decoy painted in oils.

Saturday Night Painting

Here's a pretty unvarnished shot of the painting area of my workshop. It's a little cleaner than usual because I vacuumed today. It was at the point where I was tracking wood-chips all over the basement so I thought it was about time to clean up a little.

I snapped this picture as I was finishing up for the night on Saturday. I'm currently painting a three bird rig of mallards for a show coming up this summer. The quality isn't so great becuase it's just a snap from my iPhone, but I wanted to show it un-staged. I'll snap some better quality shots of the different areas of the workshop at a later date.

These are going to be detailed gunning birds. I spend a little more time painting than you might when you are painting an entire hunting spread. These are for competition though, so I like spending some extra time making them look a little better.

Over to the right, you can see a couple more mallards that I'm going to do in an IWCA style. The hen is carved and primed, but the drake has a way to go still. the head is about 80% complete. I just need to add the glass eyes. The body is only roughed out and needs quite a bit of work still.