? on Herters Model 72's

Good morning, Mike~

All of Herter's Model 72s (their over-size duck decoys) were made of a styrofoam they called Durlon. It's an open-cell foam that will soak up water over time - and (somewhat famously) will dissolve completely under the influence of gasoline. Because the Durlon is relatively soft, they get beat-up in use. So, many have put a skin of burlap + tile mastic on the bodies. Others put a "Restle Coat" skin on them: sawdust, ground corn cob, ground walnut shells adhered with paint or glue.

Other Herter's Durlon-bodied decoys included the smaller (life-size) Model 63s, the life-size Model 81 Geese and Brant (and they later sold Model 72 Mallard/Black heads on the Model 81 bodies) and the over-size Model 92 Geese. They also made full-bodied Field Geese, Crows, Owls and Mourning Doves in Durlon.

Heads were made of a hard plastic - Tenite Butyrate - and were hollow. The earlier decoys (1950s and 60s) fastened the heads with solid brass screw eyes; the more recent heads used brass-plated steel. All foam floaters had a bar of cast iron molded in for ballast. The earlier birds had flat bottoms but the later birds had a molded keel below the bottom.

Be sure to click on each photo so you can fully appreciate George L. Herter's inimitable prose.....

View attachment Herters 58 cover FULL.jpg

View attachment 2 Herters Model 72 excerpt.jpg

View attachment 3 Herters - Model 72 Bluebill excerpt cropped.jpg


The hard plastic, hollow-bodied Herter's decoys were the Model 50.

View attachment Herters 1966 catalog - p 7.jpg

My favorite photo - etched in my brain since my earliest days - of the Model 50s.

View attachment Herters No 58 page 8 Model 50 - INSET on post.jpg

I own lots of foam Herter's decoys - 63s, 72s, 81s, 92s - but just one pair of Model 50 Pintails. So please do not bang my Model 50s on a fencepost....

All the best,

SJS

 
Those images bring back memories! I Herter's catalogs and wished I'd kept a few.

I did run across some Herter's decoys in a hollow plastic in an antique shop. The paint was gone, and some had been patched where they'd been shot or mice had chewed a few holes. I didn't buy them but thought seriously about doing so...until I realized that I had a large sack of birds that needed the same treatment--paint, patching and whatnot.
 
A hunting buddy runs a rig if the Herter's plastics. From his experience, the keep connection can prove to be a bit weak at the ends, and occasionally he will get a leaker.

I'll try to find what his fix was/is as my memory isn't offering great recall.

On 72s I tested a product called "Foam Coat". It worked very well if you got everything right, but it seemed very easy to get outside of parameters
 
Wow, did that picture of the Herter's catalog and then the page of the decoys get my attention. Back in 55 or 56 I had saved some of my paper route money and bought a half dozen of the Pintail decoys. I can remember when my folks drove me to the train station in Ortonville, MN so that I could pick up that box of decoys. Yes, I wished that I still had them but I don't. However I do know that I was a wide eyed kid of 14 or 15 and could hear the click in the alarm clock before the ringer woke me up. That only happened during duck season, by the way.

Thanks for this post, Steve.
Al
 
Here is my friend's experience:

Use silicone caulk at the keel joint, he hasn't had a problem with 40 years on the birds. After a bit they developed seal cracks at the keel joint. Like others, he bought them when he was 14. He's been hunting them since.

For shot holes he uses a hot glue gun.

Apologies for spelling errors in my previous post, autocorrect is always interesting when it is certain it knows what you really wanted to say :)

Assuming you're looking to add still your rig, would love a pic if you do.
 

Boy, I sure remember that catalog cover. The first decoys I bought were Herters hard plastic black and mallards that were put to use in the shallow back water edge of a beaver pond at the farm. Mostly evening woodies back then in the late 50's but they still worked.
 
Somewhat related to the subject so I'm putting it here instead of a new thread.

I have come into possession of quite a few Herters foam decoys (12 GE & 36 bufflehead). they are all dinged, dented, paint scraped off, in other words, they need to be rehabbed. I won't use them enough to warrant burlapping or major repairs, I just want to prime and repaint a few basically.

Has anybody used the Krylon spray paint for plastic on the foam and did it work or melt it into a pile of goo?

Not sure what else to try other than the Jansen Cork Sealer or if I could find it, GAC700 and the GAC was really expensive the last time I found it.

JimG
 
Good morning, Jim~

Although I typically coat my foam Herter's, you can certainly just prime them with a latex primer. After any repairs, I would lightly sand the heads with 80 or 100 grit, then brush on a coat of grey latex primer -
working it into any voids or imperfections with a chip brush. Then I would finish paint the patterns with latex - my usual Behr sample jars from Home Depot.

I have posted tutorials for both species (sorry - but I cannot make the links live this morning....):

https://stevenjaysanford.com/painting-bufflehead-gunners/

https://stevenjaysanford.com/painting-goldeneyes-tutorial/

BTW: I finish paint the bottoms with a semi-gloss latex grey - so the soft primer does not rub off on other decoys in the rig.
Hope this helps,

SJS

 
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