Repairing Plastic Decoys

C

Capt. Frank Miller

Active member
I have some older plastic decoys I want to repair. They have some larger holes in them, say inch by inch. I was trying to find some plastic that I could use to fill the the holes and attach it with a hot glue gun. Any ideas that might work?
 
Those are some big holes to patch. You could use the worst decoy as your donor decoy for plastic patches. Either glue or take a soldering iron and do some plastic welding. I believe there is actually some kind of plastic welder on the market. I wouldn't use hot glue it will fail. Use some kind of epoxy and make sure the area is clean to get a good bond. Roughing up the surfaces to be joined will help also.
 
Something I have done to repair busted up blockes like that is to fill them with some foam in a can. Ya have to strap something to the bottom or the expanding foam will blow them up to football shape! It is expensive doing this& WAY too much rolling in waves with the bottom pushed out& round! UV in sunlight& excessive heat can make then brittle when in storage. I think best to plan of making or buying some more.
Dennis
 
How about 5 minute epoxy for plastic ? Or maybe something like they use to repair platic kayaks ? Just few thoughts



Dave M
 
I've mostly gotten rid of my plastic dekes. I found it hard to keep paint on them and some get really brittle.
I do have 3 or 4 plastic geese floaters where the keels have broken off, I was palnning to just use them in the fields but if there is a strong plastic epoxy to weld back the keels that would be awesome as I dont really want to deal with the weight of cork or foam goose floaters.
 
Hot glue wont hold to plastic decoys, it has almost zero adhesive qualities. It basically only "sticks" to pourous material.

I have not found anything to reliabibly repair holes that big other than filling them with expanding foam, like great stuff. For little holes, like shot, a good glue like Goop or Aquaseal or other high end adhexives work. But big holes are tough.
Hate to say it, once they get big holes or cracks, it is cheaper in the long run to scrap them & start over with new dekes.
 
get some flexible plastic, like a milk jug type and cut some "patches" a little larger then your hole. Poke a hole in the middle, and insert a toothpick, crochet hook, etc. into it so you can hold onto the patch. goop up the edges with black or brown silicone, bend and insert the patch through the hole in your decoy and pull the patch with your holder against the inside of the decoy. when that sets, goop up more silicone around and over your patch.

Takes longer to explain then to do the job. from 50' you can't make out the patch as long as you use the dark silicone.
 
try 4200, it is basically 5200 designed to be used on plastic,,,I've fixed some major holes in plastic things with this stuff,,,,I've been gluing my plastic decoys together with it and it works better than silicone (which I've also used) However I've never tried to patch a hole that big in a plastic decoy,,,You should probably buy new decoy's,,,,for the price of a tube of 4200 you could buy several nice plastic decoys,,,
 
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