Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

Schultz was a hunter. He particularly liked to hunt waterfowl. And for that, he felt, decoys were essential. He had bought dozens of different kinds of decoys. None was exactly what he wanted. They were too heavy or too bulky to transport easily. And most important, none was natural looking enough to lure its waterfowl brethren down from the skies.

Finally Schultz started experimenting to produce some of his own. He conceived the idea of making them out of rubber so that they would be light to carry. Old inner tubes offered a possibility. Through trial and error, after several months he perfected a decoy that seemed what he had been trying to locate for years. They were light in weight. When deflated a dozen of them fit into a medium sized duffle bag twelve by twenty by sixteen inches. And a dozen of them weighed only thirty pounds.

The decoys have proved so successful that they have been endorsed by representatives of Ducks Unlimited. Seeing Schultz's goose decoys in the distance set up in a field, one can easily mistake them for live Canada geese.

SCHULTZ SAYS the decoys are so easy to make that anyone can do it. The cost is small and it takes a minimum of machinery. Needed are three eight-inch vulcanizing plates. One is for the straight seams, one for shaping the duck heads and a third for shaping the neck of the feeding goose. That is all except scalpels, jackknives and paint brushes.

By using the skins saved from some of his shot birds, Schultz worked out his patterns, and came up with one that looked like a real Canada goose. It had nine pieces to it. The one for the mallard duck has only eight.

Taking an inner tube (he gets old ones at garages and filling stations for the asking) Schultz slits it down the center, lays on his pattern, and with a sharp scalpel cuts it out. Then to connect the pieces, in turn, he fits them together and where the pieces meet, he lays over the jointure a one-fourth-inch strip of raw rubber and vulcanizes it. This closes the seams, which are so neatly done that they scarcely show.

The duck heads get special treatment. After the two parts of the head are vulcanized together, Schultz has to shape it, to get that rounded bill and flat-top head. He fits it on a mold that simulates a duck's head—one that he has carved from wood. Then, vulcanizing while on the mold, he gives the head the natural looking contour of the live birds. He found he could not get that by inflating with air as he does with the heads of the Canada geese. He gives them their shape by simply inflating them with air along with the rest of the body.

WHEN ALL the seams are vulcanized, Schultz inserts an inch length of soft rubber tubing—hot water bottle tubing is excellent—in about the same position as the bird's natural vent. Through this, air is blown by mouth to inflate the birds to full size. A cork is then inserted to close the tube and retain the air. Some hunters who use the decoys and return to the same lodge each week-end during the hunting season, leave the birds inflated from week to week, tossing them into the lodge that way when not in use. This relieves them from taking the time to inflate each time they return to hunt. At the close of the season the decoys are deflated and stored in a cool place.

On each side—midway at the bottom of each closed wing, Schultz vulcanizes on a one-inch length of stiff one-half-inch rubber tubing. Into these run the one-fourth-inch diameter iron rods—the twelve-inch uprights that hold the birds in position when they are placed in a grain or a corn field for duty.

The Canada geese can be placed in two positions in the grain field. Some are alerted and others are feeding. The heads of the latter were so shaped in the vulcanizer. The two positions make the flock look more natural, for as in a live flock, some of the birds are alerted as others feed.

WHEN ALL parts of the bird are finally completed, it is ready for the eyes. A pot metal eye mold Schultz made has a dozen or more tiny cups. Into each he places a one-fourth-inch square of raw rubber. He then turns on the heat and as the rubber melts, it sinks into the molds, and the eyes are shaped. When they are cooled, Schultz removes them from the mold and fits them into place by vulcanizing them. Later he paints them to give the appearance of the natural bird's eyes. He usually makes a large number at a time so that he has them handy when needed.

The bird is then complete and ready for the paint job. For this Schultz uses all-rubber paints. In his initial experimenting, he discovered that the all-rubber paint by itself produced a lustre. When the birds were painted with it, they gave off a bright sheen. When placed in the field, they reflected a light that was not natural to wild birds. Hence, as the live birds flew over, they recognized the difference, and shied away instead of coming down for a landing.

Finally Schultz managed to give the decoys a dull finish that is found in the Canadas and the mallards. As rubber paints are very limited in their range of color, he gets the needed hues by adding tube colors. For instance, there is no brown or green in the all-rubber paints. And to get the purplish-blue-green of the mallard necks, Schultz adds tube colors to the white tire paint to get those shades. For the body of the Canada, he uses white and black tire paints to get the exact shades of gray he desires. The lines showing the feather pattern on the wings and on the breast are put on with white tire paint. To get the colors, hues and markings of the live birds, he always has an authentic picture in color of the bird he is painting so that he can follow it.

AS SCHULTZ developed his decoys, he had no idea of commercializing on them. He only wanted to produce decoys that would give him the kind that he had been looking for so long. But no sooner had he perfected them, than friends hunting with him, wanted to buy some for their own use. So he started making and selling them to friends.

"That started the opening up of other markets as other hunters saw those of the friends who had bought them, and they, too, wanted to buy some," says Schultz. "I think it was because they found them so easy to transport."

Schultz then began spending all leisure time in his workshop to supply the demand, and even then he could not keep up with it. At the time he was regularly employed as branch manager of a packing company, but now is retired and can devote more time to the decoys. He does not regard making them as work. He so thoroughly enjoys it that he finds himself putting in longer hours than he did at his regular desk. Working steadily he can turn out at least one bird a day and sometimes more. They sell for $100 per dozen. Six are $50, four, $33.33. Three or less are $10 each. So far no one has ever bought less than four, and the average is between six and eight.

Because of his many contacts with hunters and sportsmen, Schultz gets his orders direct from someone who has seen some of the decoys in action, or through friends. He always has orders months ahead, which sometimes has a tendency to crowd him. But the orders go on file and he gets to them, he says, as quickly as possible without putting undue pressure on himself.