It's March What's on your workbench?

John Lawrence

Active member
This was the most popular thread on the old site. For those that don't remember or don't know it was started by Dave Connolley around a year and a half to two years ago. After a slow start the first month it really took off. I thought since we are all here now why stop the fun? The idea is to show everyone what you have been working on. It doesn't have to be a decoy, could just as well be a boat or a turkey call, you get the idea. It keeps things fresh and interesting to see the variety.

So here is my contribution. This is a miniature Atlantic Brant that I made to be donated to the Cocktail Bird auction at Westlake in a couple of weeks. It's made from cedar and painted in oils. The concept with this contest is that the decoys is made to a size that could float in a cocktail glass. As usual mine is somewhat oversized, it could fit in a marguerita glass though. A lot of guys are worried about showing contest birds before judging but I'm not too worried. I'm just looking at it as a donation that will help raise some money to keep the show going.

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Nice decoy. Those miniatures amaze me.

I just started working on a brant decoy. It's my first brant and it'll be a hollow white pine working decoy. I got the Delbert Daisey brant pattern from Bill Veasey's book. I did modify the pattern a little, making the curves on the underside of the breast and tail a little steeper to facilitate hollowing. I'm taking pictures of the process and I'll post them at some point.

I've also been busy trapping beaver, so there have been a few of the flat-tails up on the workbench as well.
 
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Sounds like a great idea for a thread. My only problem is I can't find my work bench under all the crap that found it over the winter. I guess it's time for a SPRING CLEANUP
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Great idea John!! Love the brant.....I hope they make a ton of money on it, as well they should!!

Well, not exactly what you would view as normal decoys, but they are decoys just the same....to be used in a different land for just a little bit different reason.


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I am jealous of anyone getting any carving/painting done right now. I am in the middle of a complete master bath remodel. I was able to finish painting 10 birds last month though.
 
Keith,

Although your work bench is not as cluttered as mine it does have a touch more eye candy. hehehe
Beautiful work.
 
Great idea John!! Love the brant.....I hope they make a ton of money on it, as well they should!!

Well, not exactly what you would view as normal decoys, but they are decoys just the same....to be used in a different land for just a little bit different reason.


Okay you don't post that up without some details.... I see lots of Quetzals.... I like the quetzal pair with the "hen" in the hole. Guans (or at least Cracids) on the right are?? Hawk-eagle type is? Trogon on the top shelf to the right in the front?
 
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my gosh John, did you use a one haired brush? that is one beautifully detailed miniature brant.
Keith those are some great looking birds.
 
THank you John, Jonathan and Jeff......glad you like my "unusual decoys"!

Jeeezzz Tom, you have been busy!! Love the mallards.

Great eye Tod......I kinda' made a promise that I wouldn't get too far off the track from waterfowling, decoys and boats when I post. John posted (what I think) is one of the most productive threads that I have seen on the other forum....a thread that usually gets everyone to participate. I like the original idea of this thread because it seems to be a good motivator for everyone to pick up their work and get back on it.

So with that in mind (and without getting too protracted)......I am very impressed with your "ID-ing" the birds on my "tropical workbench." My wife an I go to Costa Rica every year, and I am fascinated by tropical birds. I think as much of tropical species as I do ourwaterfowl and wildfowl, and have made quite a few tropical species carvings and decoys for myself and commissions. I started making tropical decoys a few years ago that I use for "photography decoys". Since many of the birds utilize the high canopy, they will often leave you frustrated because you just couldn't get close enough for decent images. Since I carved and used my own decoys for waterfowling most of my life, the idea came to me for my visits to Costa Rica. I made some toucan decoys, as I thought it would be really exciting if the birds actually decoyed to my carved decoys just as ducks did. Well, they worked and worked well. It was unbelievable to sit there in a lowland rainforest with a few of my toucan decoys hanging in a breadfruit tree, and all of the sudden keel billed and swainsons toucans were landing near my decoys and started checking them out!! I have to admnit, at that point I was hooked!

My Tico naturalist guides were stunned by this since they had never seen anything like this......in fact they didn't know what decoys were, and didn't have a name for them or for "decoy" in Espanola.....so they called them " El de mentiros" or "the fake ones" in English. I also made oropendola, aracari, scarlet macaw, and pale billed woodpecker for the lowlands, and quetzals, emerald toucanets, long tailed silky flycatcher, acorn woodpecker, and pygmy owl decoys for the highland cloud forests. It turned out that I have left many of these decoys especially the cloud forest species with friends/researchers in Costa Rica, they are now being used for their studies. My friend Merino is one of the top authorities of the quetzal, and I am honored that he uses my decoys for his studies. They are using the decoys to attract the birds to specific locations to encourage nesting or feeding in trees they planted that are not normally used, and for many other studies. I am glad that many of my decoys are being used for this. The best part is that I don't have to keep bringing them back and forth, I just leave them there, and they are waiting for me when I return.

Some of the decoys on my desk which you commented on are for my next trip in May of '011. Since I will be going during courtship season I will be finishing two or three male quetzals, and the hen you noticed "peering out of the nest hole" will be used for encouraging courtship activity.......the same for the toucanets; a perched pair or males and a female from out of the nest hole. The four long tailed silky flycatcher on the top shelf on the right will be used for the same reasons. Also included are collared trogan, flame collared tanager, a few mountain hummingbird species, and of course the Black guan you noted (a very cool bird species-they were hunted at one time). The top front (hanging by the tails) are more keel billed toucans, two oropendola, and two collared aracari will be used on the Caribbean lowlands near the town of Puerto Viejo Sarapiqui. The flying quetzal is for a sign that I making for my friends who own the lodge in the mountains where we stay. The mottled owl with acorn woodpecker prey decoy will be used to watch and document the reactions from the birds. The ornate hawk eagle with quetzal prey is a decorative carving that I am working on, as well as the decorative quetzals. I am writing a book about the quetzal, and all the carvings I am working on will be a major part of the book. The "montane cloud forest species" that I am working on: quetzal, toucanet, guan, trogan, owl, hawk eagle, etc. are all part of the natural history of the quetzal. THe image below shows Merino my Tico friend putting out quetzal and toucanet decoys in an aguacatillo tree.

Anyway.......thaks very much for asking, I appreciate your "eye" and I hope I didn't go off track on this forum!!

Thanks again,

Keith

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I'm not too worried about getting off track...

Neat, I've spent some time in both the highlands and lowlands you speak of in Costa Rica, lots of good memories for me represented there in that wood of yours. Good stuff there. I haven't been in many years, but my copy of Stiles, Skutch and Gardner (dated, I know), has been with students 3 of the last 6 years. Good stuff, I think I've seen everything you mentioned except the, I think, the Flame-collared Tanager.

Where do you go in the cloud forest, I'm guessing Monteverde or Santa Elena?
 
My first Canvasback head, starting a second one here soon. Gonna get a few heads done and then move on to bodies. Keith I got to use your technique of setting the eyes with clay for the first time on this head. It really allows me to play with the eyes as much as I want without any time constraints.

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Are you going back Tod? We have been to Monteverde, (proposed to my wife there) and Santa Elena, but our favorite place and where we always return is in the Savegre valley in the Talamanca mountains. Savegre Mountain Hotel (or Cabinas Chacon) is a great place (as close to paradise as you can get)....its at the end of a single lane mountain road along the most breathtaking valley (not quite as "interesting" as the road to Monteverde).....this one is less treacherous! With Merino's care and help, we saw so many quetzals in one day, it was difficult to count them all. In one tree we would see as many as a dozen at one time, complimented by visiting toucanets and guans.....and of course the flame collared tanager. Also visit Mirador de Quetzales owned by my friend Carlos Serrano.....great private tours. Its a private little cloud forest with many nesting quetzals.......three hour private tour and return back to the lodge for a typical hot Costa Rican breakfast for about $12.00....the best deal anywhere.

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After seeing some of the other pics, here is the garbage I'm working on. My first two after a 5 year hiatus. The head on the corker is from that previous era and I guess really got dry as I found out when I went to temporarily fasten it to the body with a screw (gotta get me some hot glue instead I guess). Haven't decided if I'm going to epoxy it back together or just whittle up another one.
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And for you guys without bandsaws or no riser block to cut the profile, my bandsaw doesn't live at the same address as I do and really wanted to work the cork. So I just carefully measured the side profile out of top view blocks like the ones shown below, hogged off a few chunks with a handsaw, cut the tailboard slot with the handsaw, holding the block between my knees before rough shaping with a paring knife. Then I got lazy and brought out the Foredom. This box will all be mallards I think.

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Besides the BBSB I have been turning a few Short reed goose calls. This is a picture of the last mallard I just finished and a few calls. The Elsie is on the bench to have the stock glassed.

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Here are a few short reeds from hedge we cut about 35 years ago. It is making some nasty looking calls.

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Got asked to make something to collect the candy fund for a bunch of over the hill chocoholics, could say I was "commissioned", that makes it duck related, right???

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Hollow pine and oils (Rust-oleum primer)

Who knows maybe a pair of Milky Ways will cup and commit. ;^)



George
 
Are you going back Tod? We have been to Monteverde, (proposed to my wife there) and Santa Elena, but our favorite place and where we always return is in the Savegre valley in the Talamanca mountains. Savegre Mountain Hotel (or Cabinas Chacon) is a great place (as close to paradise as you can get)....its at the end of a single lane mountain road along the most breathtaking valley (not quite as "interesting" as the road to Monteverde).....this one is less treacherous! With Merino's care and help, we saw so many quetzals in one day, it was difficult to count them all. In one tree we would see as many as a dozen at one time, complimented by visiting toucanets and guans.....and of course the flame collared tanager. Also visit Mirador de Quetzales owned by my friend Carlos Serrano.....great private tours. Its a private little cloud forest with many nesting quetzals.......three hour private tour and return back to the lodge for a typical hot Costa Rican breakfast for about $12.00....the best deal anywhere.


Great stuff Keith, thanks a bunch for the trip down memory lane for me. Post up some of those decoys when you are done with paint.

I will get back someday, we will probably take our kid there once he gets big enough in a few years (he is 2 now). He needs to see a wild monkey, parrots and toucans before he gets too old and jaded. I will for sure look up the places you suggest, they sound great.
 
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