December "What's on your Workbench?"

John Lawrence

John Lawrence

Active member
Hey November screamed past didn't it?

I was very busy with preparing for the Easton Show and with all of the hunting we did. This past Saturday my two brothers and one of my nephews went to a friend's farm and hunted pheasants together. My brother who lives in New Jersey has a male springer spaniel that I bought for him that is about a year and a half old and has been showing signs of gun shyness. So while they were working with him my youngest brother and I took my two female Llewellins to the other side of the farm to look for a couple of birds. At one point my Orange Belton Rosie locked up on point next to a row of small pine trees. My Tri-Color Addie slowly moved in behind her and locked up in a perfect backing point. As we approached both dog's tails stared quivering. I wish that I had that on video to show, it's the kind of thing that guys who own pointing dogs dream about. I let my brother make the flush and out roared a hen. Where we were hunting hens are legal game and when it came by me I managed not to miss. Deer season opened here on Monday and the rain made it very tough, but we are all planning on giving it another go on Saturday.

As for decoys what I have to show you this month are three hens that matched the drakes I've been showing you over the last couple of months.

First up is a mallard hen done in that Toronto style that I have been experimenting with. I tried to concentrate more on the flow and feel of the feather rather than trying to depict each individual one. This decoy is hollowed white cedar from Maine and is painted in oils. She's very light without the pad weight I put on the bottom.

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And here is the wigeon hen I have been working on. I've made over 800 decoys in my life and this is the first hen wigeon I've ever attempted. It was a difficult bird to capture in paint and I struggled with how to handle the colors and at one point got so frustrated that I wiped all of the paint off the rump and started over. This decoy is hollowed white cedar from New Jersey and is keeled with white oak.

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And last up is a hen Ruddy. This decoy is hollowed white pine with a white oak keel.

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Every year I give my son a decoy of his choice for Christmas. This year he chose a Labrador Drake so right now on my bench that bird sits nearly finished. I just have to paint the bill.

If nobody has said it to you yet let me be the first to say Merry Christmas!

What's on your workbench this month?

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Not the Workbench here again. Tailgate of the Truck is getting me by. Can't get as many Decoys made if I go Full-Size, and somebody told me Ducks aren't too good with Depth-Perception, and all that anyways... So I am doing away with big Decoy Bags, and going over to 2lb easy-cast mono line, and split-shot anchors. Carrying Decoys in my Pockets, and under my Hat. Thinking I can bring the Scaup Rig up to mega migration type numbers, and yet keep the weight down. Bluebills aren't exactly Rocket-Surgeons either. You never know until you try, and I sure hope it works.

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Derek,

As long as the size of the ducks they bring in is not in relation to the size of the decoys, you should be alright.

Now if the ducks attracted to you decoys are in direct proportion to the size of your decoys, then you may have a problem with pellet pattern density for the targeted duck.
 
Interesting paint John. The hen Widgeon is real nice...

I'm working on some divers. Hopefully you can pick out the style and species on this one. Jelutong head, white cedar body, and red cedar bottom board.

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Goeff and John, good looking decoys. Now I know what a hen is suppose to look like! Well, with all the drake pintails, I need a hen. This little girl was definitely a practice dance - I think I'll just try again, hahaha. I've never seen an orange hen with white feather tips;O I'm learning...

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Rich,

I'm referring to the regional style of antique styles that were made from the late 19th century into the middle of the 20th century in the Toronto/Dunnville Ontario area. They were very slick yet graceful birds. What I was thinking when I made these were something along the lines of a George Warin/J.R.Wells/Tom Chambers body with one of my heads. As for the paint I did what I wanted because those antique decoys were usually painted fairly simply. I own a J.R. Wells redhead, a Walter Bailey redhead and a couple of as yet unidentified canvasbacks so I have good reference on hand.

There is a real nice article detailing some of the lesser known decoy makers from that area in the September/October issue of Decoy Magazine. You can definitely see a lot of commonalities between all of the makers. Probably my favorite style of antique decoys to collect.
 
Interesting paint John. The hen Widgeon is real nice...

I'm working on some divers. Hopefully you can pick out the style and species on this one. Jelutong head, white cedar body, and red cedar bottom board.

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Geoff,

Cannot wait to get my hands on them. Cannot wait to see the paint. Thanks again....Merry Christmas to me....love picking out my own gifts!
 
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Rich,

I'm referring to the regional style of antique styles that were made from the late 19th century into the middle of the 20th century in the Toronto/Dunnville Ontario area. They were very slick yet graceful birds. What I was thinking when I made these were something along the lines of a George Warin/J.R.Wells/Tom Chambers body with one of my heads. As for the paint I did what I wanted because those antique decoys were usually painted fairly simply. I own a J.R. Wells redhead, a Walter Bailey redhead and a couple of as yet unidentified canvasbacks so I have good reference on hand.

There is a real nice article detailing some of the lesser known decoy makers from that area in the September/October issue of Decoy Magazine. You can definitely see a lot of commonalities between all of the makers. Probably my favorite style of antique decoys to collect.
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Just making sure. This is the region I'm from. I hunt in the Ken Anger's back yard and would love to have one of his decoys one day. My dad was best friends with a Toronto area carver, Frank Schmit, my great uncle carved decoys from the hamilton area and I'm friends with Ernie England's Grand daughter. I'll have to take some pictures of my decoys. I'll show you mine if you show me yours type of thing. Thanks Rich.
 
Rich,

If you like Anger birds I also happen to own an early Ken Anger Black Duck and I just acquired an Anger Redhead hen that was never rigged. It's in pristine paint. Maybe some photos are in order this weekend. Perhaps another thread to show them would be the thing to do.
 
I'm not a decoy expert by any means but I just finished a book on Peter Pringle, who was a contemporary of Anger's and from the same area. He carved some of the most beautiful gunning decoys I've ever seen, are you guys familiar with his work?
 
Big fan of Pringle's work. His work was superior to Angers but his out put was small. As that to Angers.

Here is a early pair of Dunnville birds I have . Attributed to Cecil Anger .
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A Charles Melton from Bloomfield Ont.

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And a Hampton bay bird. Can't really pin point the maker for sure.

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couple of fish eaters I got paint on tonight. Tomorrow I'll try to remove some get them patina'd and look a little older than they really are.

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A bird for a guy's hunting rig in FL. A shoveler / B/W teal mix. Close to a Australian shoveler , but not quite. Hollow cedars and oils.

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Been working on this years diver rig for a little while now. I'm happy to finally have it off the floor and ready to hunt. All the decoys are cast in HD polyurethane foam from molds I built from scratch. They have solid plastic bills and tailboards. Fully flocked. My goal was to do 50 or each but only had time to do 30 of each. I heading out tomrrow to give them a shot. Not many birds around yet but I'm excited to see how they will look on the water.

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Tom: That's an impressive rig and quite a feat to do from scratch. Did you carve the bodies, bills and tails to make the molds too. Tell us a little about your process.

All great work from all. Favorite thread as always.

Mike
 
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