# Foam Blocks for home made Decs



## ridgeknight8 (Apr 21, 2008)

I'm getting to excited for the season to come around so i need a new hobby to keep me occupied until it open. So i was wondering where I could find foam or cork blocks to make my own decoys? Thanks


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## JuniorPre 360 (Feb 22, 2012)

I'd like to know as well. I want to make a few great big swan decoys for my spread.


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## hotspot (Jan 12, 2009)

Get your foam at home depot or lowes. It's just regular 2" thick foam in the large sheets. Cut out body shape and glue together two cut outs. Then carve. Start with foam it is a much more forgiving medium to learn with. Cork is pricey!! However it's great when carved up right. There are some good instruction videos out there on foam carving.


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## Pumpgunner (Jan 12, 2010)

All my foam blocks are out of the 2" blue house insulation foam. I glue together 2 layers for duck decoys and 3 for geese. If you look around you can often scavenge foam offcuts from construction site dumpsters, but don't say that I said you could! I usually use a strip of white oak for keels on mine, and for heads I cut a profile out of 1/4" masonite and glue foam to each side, or use the heads that you can order online. My decoys are finished with what is called trestle coating, which means that once your decoy is carved you thin out some wood glue a bit (I like Titebond 3 because it is waterproof) with water and coat the decoy with it, then roll it in sawdust. Shake off the extra sawdust, I usually do 2 coats of sawdust before painting the decoy. The sawdust coating is nice because it looks like feathers from a distance and isn't shiny, and it holds paint very well. Trestle coated decoys are also durable, hard as a rock once the glue sets up. You can also wrap your decoys in burlap and tile mastic, this makes a very durable decoy but in my opinion it's too time consuming and harder than necessary to make gunning decoys. I hope you guys try out some decoy making, there's nothing more satisfying than shooting ducks over your own decoys!


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