Hollow Head Stem repairs

[Dave Diefenderfer]

Several years ago, I make up half a dozen goose decoys using Herters bodies and some field shell heads I happened upon. These had no stems to secure to the foam decoys so I came up with a way to use them, that I have extended to repairing dozens of broken stems on Herters heads as well.

I snip off the remaining/damaged stem first.



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I then bore an over sized hole in the base of the head, keeping a flange at the perimeter.



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I try to collect a bunch of heads so that I can be efficient with both the spray foam and then any extra epoxy I mix up.
I load each head with cheap spray foam. It's only purpose is to be a backfill for the epoxy slug that will be the mounting point for the heads.



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I use a sanding drum on my dremel tool to excavate back about an inch of the foam from the base, then as I have extra mixed epoxy, I thicken it with either wood flour or cabosil, whichever is handy and stuff the heads with it. After it cures, I sand them flush, drill my mounting hole for a eye screw and have repaired heads, stronger than the originals!



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[Joe Friday]

well done!

 

[Capt Rich Geminski]

Dave, check with a autobody shop, they have new epoxies for the new plastic cars.