Decoys out of dimensional lumber?

L

Lee L.

Active member
Who all here uses lumber from the big box stores to carve decoys? I know there are a few.
Post up and post some pics of your work please.
 
I use cedar 2x4's from the fencing section to carve heads from and pine 1x8's to make the frames for my canvas goose decoys. I've also bought some cedar 4x8 beams that I have drying in my shop that I picked up for decoy bodies. I like to use common and sometimes even salvaged materials for my decoys. I think it adds a historic aspect to the craft. Ill try to get some pic's up of current projects using these materials.

Mike
 
there are a couple birds on the workbench thread i did out of dimensional stuff. Have done others that are gone and turned out well.
 
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I've been carving a bunch of scotors and black ducks as of late. I'm making the bodies really simple. Just cutting out the top view and leaving them pretty much flat on top. I use two pieces of 1x and a piece of 2x for each body. I cut out all three boards on the band saw. Then I cut the center out of the 2x with my jigsaw. Glue a 1x on top and a 1x on bottom. Let dry, then grind and sand it smooth and add a little character. I make the heads out of a 1x glued to a 2x. Trying to add a little more detail to the heads, no eyes. My objective here is spend as little time and money as possible while making a usable not so duck looking decoy rig. So far I'm pleased.
 
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I carved all of these decoys out of 2x's and 1x's. Not the best decoys in the world but I enjoyed making them and they didn't cost me much.
 
View attachment Canvas Canada Goose3.jpg
While not a full bodied decoy, all lumber here is from Lowe's or “found” scraps. The head and neck are cedar 2x4 found in the stockade fencing section. If you pick through the boards, you can usually find a few that have very few knots and good straight grain. The body frame/center board and tail are white pine (or it may have been labeled "whitewood", I don't remember) and the bottom board is recycled pine I saved from some shelves I tore out of my house years ago. The keel in the foreground is also from Lowe's and is 1x2 red oak. The wire ribs are 9 gauge wire from Lowe's as well. Canvas was bought at Hancocks's.

This goose was actually completed over a month ago and presented as a retirement gift for a friend of mine. I painted the entire paint scheme using Rustoleum oil based paint. Other than the glass eyes, brass canoe tacks and the West System Epoxy used to hold it all together; it's pretty much all common, everyday "big box" type raw materials.
 
Thanks for posting! Decoys look good. Looks like I will buy some lumber from the local lumber store and start carving some decoys out of it.
 
Here's a teal and hen mallard. The teal is two pieces of laminated red cedar from deck post cut-offs. The hen is a laminated 2 x 10. The pintail is a foamer. All the materials were salvaged out of a dumpster. I like making decoys out of salvaged materials. I also have some 150 year old barn beams and a bunch of black cork I salvaged from an old 1940's passenger rail car I haven't gotten to yet.




 
I started with Western red cedar 2x10's and 2x12's that I could get down here at the one lumber store very inexpensively...then they quit carrying WRC in everything except fence pickets (not even 1" thick).

I just broke down and spent the bucks on going and getting a load of white cedar, but the "tooba" decoys as Harker used to call them are fun as hell to make...
 
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