What else can you make decoys from????

I stopped using cork six or seven years ago. When the price of cork went up and the quality went down, it stopped making sense. Our decoy making forefathers used the materials that they had available - cedar, refrigorator cork, life vest cork etc. I've got lobster float decoys that Grayson Chesser made! I don't look down at foam, it is just another material that is readily available. I still use basswood for the heads, glass eyes, etc etc. I run a 4" deck screw with a fender washer through the bottom and into the head. Here is a link to some herters 72s bodies that I used for a group of GEs. A friend had the bodies and wanted me to "carve" them for him. I boobed the tail, cut the side pockets in, rolled the chest back and carved the heads. We hunt over 5 dozen similar blocks with cans, red heads and blue bills. They are great decoys - durable, tough and you kids and shoot them and they don't sink or even look bad after the smoke clears.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/23192335@N05/7467838362/sizes/k/in/photostream/
 
Anything that will float can be made into a decoy. Check that - I've seen cast iron ones too.
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Back when I had a TV, I remember Jesse James' show and that other show with the screwballs building bikes and how they fashioned custom gas tanks...I got the dream to build a decoy of Aluminum, hammered to shape and TIG welded together...went so far as to dream of making it a canvasback and nick naming it "Can-Can" and painting "Michigan 10cent Deposit" on the bottom. That's been years and I'm no further to starting it than when I dreamed it, so I'll throw it out there in hopes someone will hijack my dream and post a picture of it here when complete.

Chuck
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I worked with a guy over by the Mississippi who talked about some old antique tin bodied floater duck decoys that were like 2 halves of a stamped sheet metal duck riveted together and fastened on a board so they floated. He claimed they were a manufactured decoy a long time ago.
 
Mike et al~

I agree completely with these thoughts re making hollow wooden decoys - I think of my own a "heirlooms" when I make them, give them appropriate attention, and hope that someday they are regarded as such. But, I would also add a couple of reasons for foamers. Probably most important is that it can serve a a "gateway drug" into the lifelong carving addition. Put another way, first you row a little boat....

Another reason would be for oversize decoys. Pictured are a lifesize, hollow pine Broadbill and Broadbill Senior. The latter is 9 x 18 x 5 - and yet weighs only 2.5 lbs. And, a few years back I made the wooden master for even larger (23" LOA) Broadbill stool - to be molded with 2-part foam.

View attachment Lifesize and Oversize Broadbill - vs.jpg

Likewise, any hollow wooden goose is bound to be a heavy one.

All the best,

SJS
 
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