Chucks Excellent Burlapping Adventure, Duplication Explained

Head model on left with dowel - Outline of blank cutout on right.

Hi guys, here’s the answers to some of your questions from this morning. The process for making the heads from my burlapping process post is as follows:

1. Design or find a head pattern (Enlarge on copier) to fit the body (Herter’s or other manufacturerStandard, Magnum, Super Magnum, etc.) you’ve selected.
2. Layout the head pattern on a piece of basswood etc. with the bill running with the grain of the wood & trace the pattern.
3. Cut out the pattern on a bandsaw
4. Drill a 1/8” hole to mark the eye.
5. Carve the head as you normally would.
6. Sand the head & drill a ¾ “ hole in the top of the head about ¾” deep. See Pic for alignment.
7. Glue a ¾” dowel about 1 ¾” long in the hole with wood glue. (1” should extend out the top of the head, I didn’t do this on my first head model & the duplicator couldn’t get quite all of the stock off some of the blanks)
8. Mark the center of the dowel & the center of the bottom of the head model on line with the center of the dowel.
9. Apply a coat or 2 of wood hardner or varnish. (I didn’t do this on my first head model & my basswod head model ended up with slight marring from the duplicator stylus)
10. The head model is now now ready for the duplicator!
11. Now layout 8 more head blanks including a ¾” piece sticking out the top of the head where the ¾” dowel is on your head model (this I think is called a sprue (sp) like the mark that’s left from pouring lead in a mold when moulding lead bullets) & cut them out making sure to stay well outside the line! Your not trying to be exact here (like you do when cutting a blank out for carving a head) just a rough cutout blank!
12. Mark the center of the sprue to match the head model & the center of the bottom of the blank on line with the mark on the sprue.
13. The blanks are now ready for the duplicator!

The duplicating machine is kinda hard to describe. But here goes, it’s a machine that has 8 router type units on it & one stylus. Four routers are on one end & four routers are on the other end with the stylus in the middle. Your head model that you carved & put the ¾” dowel in is clamped very tightly in the middle of the machine at the stylus, the 8 head blanks are clamped very tightly, 4 on one side & 4 on the other.

The operator of the machine moves the stylus around on the head model & the routers move just as the stylus, but cut on the blanks as they move. This is why it is important that the markings on the head model & the head blanks must be the same in relative position to each other! Originally I believe the duplicating machine was made for duplicating various wood carvings for furniture. So, of course it also works very well for decoy heads. From the conversation I had with Dwayne Mendenhall who owns the machine here in Lancaster Pa., he can do various sizes of heads from geese to ducks.

The prices Dwayne quoted me were Large heads $3.75 each (like the Canvasback Magnum in the post) & Medium heads $3.25 (like the Mallard Magnum in the post). Other size prices, I don’t know.

This machine is truly a work of ART!!!!!! It is balanced so well that it just takes the slightest effort to move the stylus & routers together!

You may want to check with furniture makers in your area to see if there is a machine somewhere close by. If not, e-mail me & maybe we can work something out with Dwayne.