Decoy Painting / touch ups

B

Bill Gass

Active member
Good Day

My nephew just had a dozen old (comercially made plastic) decoys given to him. They are in need of painting and touching up badly. I've seen the decoy paint kits at cabelas, but for the price that they want you may as well just go buy some new ones. Can you just go to a hardware store and pick up some flat paint and go from there using maybe a picture or newer decoy as a guide. What about UV light, I've heard that some paints reflect this more than others is this an issue. Any thoughts or ideas?

Bill Gass
New Brunswick, Can
 
I've never painted a plastic decoy..but if I was so inclined...I'd spend the time to clean it really well..get some of that "Fusion" paint to prime them with and then use a latex house paint....or... just paint them all flat black as coots and use them. As cheap as new plastics are and as good as they look...I find it hard to justify the time and material to repaint them.
 
As cheap as new plastics are and as good as they look...
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Boy Lee, I'm not sure how to react to this, but I'm sure someone else will think of something whitty. Chuck
 
I had to choke back the bit of puke that came up when I typed it....butt.....I watched some Greenhead gear blackducks and wigeon from a boatblind last year that really looked good. At the Delta show in Kalamazoo last Saturday, they had some full body dekes on a stick that looked great..and when the breexe blew they looked like live ducks from 15 feet away. If someone doesn't want to carve..I'd say right now in history that they can buy the best looking plastic dekes ever available...cough...cough...
 
I painted them as all drake mallards using auto primers. Gray primer for the bodies, red oxide for the breast, flat black for the butt and high lites, yellow primer for the beak, flat white for the neck ring and Toyota metallic green for the heads.

Paint has stayed on for 5 years so far.
 
Being just a poor plastic store bought decoy hunter I must say that I agree with you Lee. Greenhead Gear has some damned fine looking decoys. These ones were free so far so I can't complain, I thinking that they will just be used to fill out the spread on the outer fringes. You know put them on the far side of the pond where I don't want them to land.

BG
 
I turned a few dozen mallard 2nds (peeling paint) into bluebills. The first season I painted them with rustoleum flat paint after getting as much of the flaking paint off as possible. They flaked again to a lesser extent. I've now redone them with fusion primer and parker (I think?, from Cabela's) decoy paint. They look much better this time, but did work last time. As far as mallard decoys, I'd just buy some greenhead gear hot buys and go hunting. If your going to paint them, I'd pick something easier and less available (read more expensive) to paint them. It's real easy to make them black ducks, blue bills, etc..

Good luck! And no, your not the first one to paint plastic decoys!

Gene
 
Bill, depending on the plastic (ie, the company) it will be harder or easier for the paint to stick.

The biggest thing in repainting plastics is surface prep. You have to get the old mud, chipped paint, etc. off of the bird, wash it down, scuff the plastic a little with a scouring pad (so the primer sticks) and then prime and paint. The Krylon Fusion is supposed to be some good stuff for priming.

Easiest repaint is black ducks. Black body, tan head, chocolate eye stripe and crown, olive or yellow bill. You can also do like one of the other posters above and use Rustoleum and use a mix of "rattle can" and brush-on paint to paint mallard drakes. Just do them assembly-line and you can blow through pretty quickly - all of the butts, all of the backs/sidepockets, all of the breasts and tertials, all of the heads. Get a white paint pen or a brush to paint in the tail feathers and neck rings and then paint the bills.
 
Bill, I don't know how many you have to paint but go to a auto parts store that carries paint and get a quart of primer for plastic. Our cars or trucks are half plastic now days. After you have washed and cleaned the decoys prime them. I think you can use any paint you want after that. I have never tried Fusion on decoys but its the cats meow on lawn chairs. The Ace hardware store in my town has the best selection better than Wally world. They have some flat colors.

Back in the dark ages I painted some syro foam decoys. I used shellac as a primer and water proofer and then used a flat black deck enamel for the first coat and other colors after that. I used them for ten or fifteen years and never had to repaint them

I have some Greenhead gear decoys. Bluebills carved by Frank Peeters a member of this site. They are the sweetest plastic decoys out there.
 
I had to choke back the bit of puke that came up when I typed it....butt.....I watched some Greenhead gear blackducks and wigeon from a boatblind last year that really looked good. At the Delta show in Kalamazoo last Saturday, they had some full body dekes on a stick that looked great..and when the breexe blew they looked like live ducks from 15 feet away. If someone doesn't want to carve..I'd say right now in history that they can buy the best looking plastic dekes ever available...cough...cough...
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They are a heck of alot better than they used to be. A guy I used to hunt with offered me my share of a bunch (300+) of plastic decoys that we bought almost 20 years ago (Paint not included) I figured as long as I was going to be painting decoys, might as well carve some of my own to make it worth the effort. I have always been a quality before quantity person anyway.

Bill, if budget is the key, I would follow Lee's advise of the fusion primer. Make sure you clean and prep the surface well as well. Otherwise it always seemed that the paint pealed faster than it dried.

Chuck
 
If your OLD,life's too short to carve decoys.THINK Plastic
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Hey, I'm old and I'm carving up all I can get done in the years I have left.
Actually if you're old and have socked away a bundle, you can buy decoys from us geezers who still have a houseful of kids to feed.
 
Haven't socked away a bundle after raising a house full of kids,so can't afford the beautiful wood, hand carved decoys that you and many others
have shown here.I'll work with a 3 doz decoy spread of plastic GHG decoys and hope for the best.If it doesn't work out,I'm back to strickly upland bird
hunting in my back bird patch,with my two Britts.
 
Haven't socked away a bundle after raising a house full of kids
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I hear that, Joe. How many? We have seven. Five still here. What were we thinking?! Well, I know what we were thinking....
 
Lee,the shotgun goes with me,in the Wigeon,with a Viking style funeral.No human divers allowed for 24hours.LOL
 
Bob , after the 2nd you should have figured out what was causing them.................after the 5th you should have been sure........but I can see 2 more tries to verify !

on another note

My birthday is in Sept and my wife asked what I wanted , a MLBob Blackduck was 2nd to a Shelby cobra ;)
hopeing for both, of course I have asked for the shelby every year........
 
I would be happy with that.

When I was in my 20's there was an older guy in town here ( JXN MS ) that had a Shelby with personalized plates that read " DNT TRY " (dont try) . Watched some chump in a chevel(sp) taunt him at a light,( think of the 2 guys in the HEMI commercials), guy kept shakin his head no , chump does a burn out, light goes green, chump floors it , gets 3 or 4 lengths out and Shelby comes flyin past him ,brakes and lets him past ,then flys past him again and stops at next light and waits for chump to pull up!!!! Old guy just looks at him like " you want to try that again?" I was cryin at this point from laughing so hard.
 
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