Any carvers out there?

[efgh]

A old decoy carver I knew used to go into the woods and look for bass wood limbs that were about 2-3 ins around and had a curve where the tail of the decoy should be. He would cut that limb and take the section home to dry for next years carving. He must have had a 100 sections of limbs ready for carving. The whole body of the decoy, tail and all was hand carved in his early years, in his later years he used a small belt sander to shape the decoy. I asked him why he looked for curved limbs and he said the grain of the wood bends to form the tail and it won;t break off from dropping ect. For fins he used sheet copper,about 1/16 in or smaller. He cut these fins with a fine tooth coping saw. He drilled holes in the bottom of the decoy, 3- 3/8 in. close together and cut the space out between them. He usally used two sets of swim fins on his decoys, the front set a tad higher. Using a knife he cut slits in the side of the decoy that went into the drilled area The fins were inserted in the sides of the decoy thru the slits. A corner of the fin that was in the drilled area was bent up to hold the fin when lead was poured into the cavity. When balancing the decoy you want the decoy to sink slow, if you have too much weight in the drilled area he used a 1/4 in. drill and drilled some of the lead out till it balances, he replaced the lead with wax. He made some relistic looking decoys that really looked nice.

[fishcarver]

Hi, I been carving for white now here some pic.