Nice Canada goose. The foam decoys I have made are similar to your Canada goose. I get 2" pieces of foam and sandwich with hot glue to get 6" to 8" pieces thick. Cut them out similar to how I do cork birds. The heads I also make of foam. I keep the bills very basic in shape and thicker. Once I carve the body I leave extra foam around the neck area to join the bird. I then take regular wood skewer you would use on the grill. I push one down through the center of the head into the neck and press onto the body with a hot glue gun to hold. I then proceed to push a couple more through the head and cut off the excess. Once the head is in position I proceed to blend the neck, breast and nape area of bird. After complete I then take the same skewer and press from the front of the bill through the head. Some things I have learned is to take a knife and sharpen the tip on the skewer before pressing through the bill. I push at least three into the bill at slightly different angles and clips off the excess. I always push these skewers from the tip of the bill where the nail would be into the head. This adds a little bit of rigidity to the bill. As for how I get the bird to stand I take 1/2" bore saw and cut through the body of the bird at least 3/4 thickness at a position I believe and visualize the bird standing, eating and what ever position looks natural. I then take 1/2" oak dowel and cut into 6" sections. If you have a lathe this is the best time to take and bore on center a 9/32", 5/16" or 7 mm hole to 3" to 4" deep. Take a bastard file on the opposite end of the dowel of the hole and just scrape around the area to rough it up. Take a wet towel and rub around the rough end of the dowel. Apply some gorilla glue to the hole in the body and a little on the dowel and press the dowel into position. After about 2 to 3 minutes I give the dowel a slight turn or two to get the expanding glue a chance to coat all surfaces of the dowel. Prop the decoy on its back and let the glue cure for a day. I have tried as much as possible to find free foam at different warehouse places around the area but the easiest route is to buy through StyroShapes or Smoothfoam in large quantities. I like working with the EPS foam versus the typical rated house foam you can get at any home goods store. Cut the burlap in strips and put a few sections on the bill and neck area with of course the mastic. Do the rest of the bird and if you have bigger tails make sure you leave them slightly thicker and press skewers into them as well in several areas. After strengthening the bill, neck and tail I usually only put one cover of burlap on the rest of body but extra surely will not hurt. If you want at this time the best thing to do is get an old paint brush and dip in water. Paint down the high spots of the mastic to allow the burlap to be seen slightly. The burlap cuts down glare of oil paints. I have tried multiple coats of mastic but did not see any advantage. If you decide to epoxy the birds let the birds cure for about a 2 weeks in a dry place such as your garage or like I did by putting them in a pre-bored with 1/2 holes through a 2 x 4. Place the dowel into the holes and keep in the back of truck ( I do have a topper) before you apply epoxy coat. Now the holes you have in the wood are still open to the environment so painting the hole using a q-tip as well as any exposed wood is how I have protected the wood. The purpose of the holes is to stick a fiberglass rod into to hold the bird upright in the field. I have hunted most of my decoys in rice fields here in Texas so I cut my fiberglass rods from 1/4" diameter x 36" sections I bought through Knutson Decoys. They are about $12 for 25 at 36" long. I cut with a Dremel with a grinding blade at various lengths from 12" to 18" sections. Depending on the soil in the rice fields the 18" sections work great when there is ankle to calf deep water. The rod can be pressed deep enough to hold the decoy upright in the heaviest of winds as well as getting the decoy slightly sitting above the water. In dry fields the 12" works just fine with the birds. In a good wind the birds actually rock slightly and add great motion to your spread. A buddy of mine made all his birds with 15" sections of dowel. He sharpened the tip and press the dowel directly into ground. He also stapled sections of plastic he cut from rubber to look like feet to hang on his birds and then screwed into the foam as he put the mastic on the birds covering the screw. I have shot many of ducks in both dry fields and wet fields in Texas and Manitoba. Though this season was a poor numbers season for birds here in Texas I still bagged plenty of birds. We had a wet early season and then a dry late season. I used my birds in dry fields this season when I throw out my snow goose spread and shot plenty of ducks in the early morning hours before the snows started flying. I certainly am a purest when it comes to decoys and always prefer wood and cork but when you have carry decoys through ankle deep mud in a rice field the body quickly teaches you a lesson to find a lighter decoy. If no one comes down to the club with a Polaris ranger or 4 wheeler I leave my corks in the truck and carry my foamers. You could possibly figure out how to hollow out the bottom or inside of decoy. I have tried and ended up leaving too little of the foam and cracked the mastic/burlap under the weight of other decoys. My recommendation is just keep them solid but it does not hurt experimenting if weight is a conern. I can tell you that an epoxy bird can take some shot just like a cork or wood bird. One of the guys at the club last year bet me that that foam decoy would not hold up to a 30 yard shot from a 3.5" BB load out of his 12 gauge. I told him that if he could not knock the bird over, damage the head or clean shoot the head off that I could shoot one of his full body plastic pintails with my 20 gauge with 2 shot at 20 yards. He did not damage the decoy outside of holes. So after crying for a bit about me getting ready to shoot one of his pintails I finally shot the head off one of his pintail full body birds. Four other guys just sat and laughed while he screamed you ruined my decoy. Well you took the bet. Foamers with epoxy are almost indestructible.
Regards,
Kristan
