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Math teacher becomes woodcarver
NORTH ENGLISH — A former math teacher is feeding his creative side, creating wood models of birds and mammals under the name English River Duck Works.
Frank Mertz displayed his work and discussed his process during a presentation at English Valleys History Center Sunday.
Mertz taught math for English Valleys Community School District from the 1970s into the 1990s and taught at Kirkwood Community College after retirement.
He used to go to craft shows, he said, but he never thought about becoming a woodcarver.
One day Mertz was setting up for a Ducks Unlimited banquet and saw a duck decoy carved out of wood. The man who made it had been taking a woodcarving class in Amana. He invited Mertz.
Once there, Mertz learned that he was expected to carve. He wouldn’t be allowed to watch. His first project was a female green-winged teal, which he showed his audience at the history center.
“It took me a long time to do this,” Mertz said.
One of his favorite projects was a ring-tailed hawk. It took 100 hours to make.
“I kind of like to think I got better,” said Mertz.
“I really like the shore birds,” Mertz said. One is mounted on a piece of metal that allows it to move in the wind and attract real birds.
Mertz sometimes uses a wood burner to create feathers on his birds before painting them. Other times the feathers are simply painted on.
“I like to do these cause I get practice painting,” he said.
“It takes a long time to paint my ducks,” said Mertz. The paint has to be thin because thick paint fills in the grooves made with the wood burner.
Each layer has to dry before another is added, and the color isn’t visible until several layers have been painted.
Mertz pointed to a northern shoveler. “It took me a week to paint that,” he said.
Mertz carved a macaw after he and his wife began wintering in Florida. “You have to have a macaw or a parrot,” Mertz said.
Mertz made one out of wood. “It was quite an adventure because I never had a real macaw.”
Mertz sometimes carves from a single block of wood and sometimes glues flat boards together to make a block. He creates the heads of the ducks and swans separately and attaches them to the bodies.
Most of his carvings are solid and made of basswood, though he has made hollow ones and he has used other types of wood.
Basswood has very little prominent grain and is easy to carve, said Mertz.
He finds patterns and traces them onto the wood, then uses a draw knife to cut out the shape before finishing the details with chisels and knives.
He has a rotary grinder and uses a lot of sandpaper.
“I will trace the feathers on there and then I take a grinder and I trace around them that way.”
When his daughter got married in Florida, Mertz made a large pair of swans for the centerpiece at the reception.
Mertz showed his audience a mallard pair he carved and painted. He had to make a duckling to go with the pair when his granddaughter decided the couple needed a baby.
Through the years Mertz has taken classes to expand his subject matter. He made a small fish, a buffalo and a statue of three porpoises, which was a long and involved process, Mertz said.
Mertz went to Vermont to take a class during which he made an eagle. He had to mount it in some way or other, he said, and decided to use a slag piece of Vermont green marble he found at the side of the road.
The marble base is very heavy, he said.
Mertz has branched out from wildlife, creating Nativity sets that people sought to buy.
Mertz made more than a dozen of one style and gave them away or sold them. He donated one set to the Christmas silent auction in North English.
“It wasn’t bad for maybe four or five sets,” said Mertz. Then it became tedious, though he liked the results.
“I got done with those, and I was really pleased.”
Another style of Nativity consisted in flat plane carving. “Everything here is a flat cut,” said Mertz. “It’s not rounded.”
Mertz made about five sets like that, he said.
Formerly a resident of South English, Mertz and his wife now live in Washington, Iowa. Mertz used to have a workshop measuring about 20 feet by 20 feet, he said. Now he’s working in the front of his garage, an area about 15 feet by six feet.
Mertz doesn’t have a shop, but he has been known to take custom orders.
