Stressed Paint

[BEDUCKS]

Hello Everyone ! New Member Here ! I Was Wondering If Anyone Here Knows How Decoy Carvers Like Mcnair And Macintire Stress Their Decoys To Make Them Look 100 Yrs. Old ? Thanks !

[CarverFromNoWhere]

You should take a look in some decoy carving books there are a couple really good ones on doing just this. When I have worked on antique decoys with a friend who carves them we would drop heavy chains on them and drag them around the gravel roads (we received some strange looks, just told them we where out walking the ducks ) we also put the out a ways and took a few shots at them and lit some on fire in certain areas. I hope this information helps to answer your questions.

Welcome to the WCI Board.
Carl

[kenweybright]

"Antique-Style Duck Decoys" by Tom Matus has lot of the answers as to the how tos.

[markken5889]

Hi Beducks,

I agree with Ken. I've learned alot about aging and distressing dekes I've carved from this book, and also from TM's decoy carving forum. In short, bang it up some, scuff up your paint job, give it a wash with burnt umber and them wipe it off after letting it sit about 20-30 seconds, and then apply amber shellac and wipe that off after letting it sit about 20 seconds. Both will settle into the "valleys" in the carving, and you can use artistic judgement in how much and where elsewhere on the deke you remove.

Good luck - show us some pix!

Mark