Inside Decoys from Shelburne Museum

Canada Goose 1952-192.15

This Canada goose made by Joseph Whiting Lincoln was made circa 1923 in Accord, Massachusetts (Massachusetts Bay) by stretching canvas over a frame made of thin wood slats, with a traditionally carved wood head and tail. 

Comparing the process to boat building, Barber describes Lincoln’s and others’ method for accurately designing and laying out the framework to receive the planking. The interior frame is built around three vertical planks attached to a bottom board of 7/8 inch white pine or cedar. The rounded breast was carved from a solid block with recesses to receive the ends of the slats.  The stern board was set at a backward angle to establish the shape of the rump. An additional horizontal board extended past the stern board to create the tail.

The exterior slats were made of slightly less than 1/8 inch bass-wood shaped and sprung around the interior frame and fasted with copper fasteners.  The canvas covering was made from a two part pattern, machine sewn with a seam down the spine and through the center of the breast.  This canvas skin was laid over the frame, and fastened to the bottom board with copper nails. The head was then secured to the body by a ½ inch dowel reinforced by a single screw in forward part of the head base.

Due to the large size of the decoy, it was radiographed in three sections in both the axial and lateral planes. Both the lateral and anterior-posterior view radiographs show the hardware that secures all of the frame elements as well as the numerous tacks used to attach the canvas covering to the bottom board.  In the radiographs of the forward section​, the dowel used to secure the head is visible, as well as eight small tacks surrounding it, that are presumably tacking the canvas in place around the dowel hole to keep it from fraying. The texture and the machine-stitched canvas seam along the spine are clearly visible in the AP view.  
 
The lateral views show three vertical boards attached to the baseboard, around which slats are formed horizontally and nailed in place. In the front section, rather than a flat vertical board, the rounded shape of the breast is formed from a larger, carved block. In addition, there is a horizontal board nailed between each vertical section in the upper back section of the decoy for further structural stability. 

 

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