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So I picked up some cheap mallard dekes from walmart of all places … clearance $15 a dozen… I'm planning on repurposing them and changing them into diver decoys. New paint and rigging them for long lines…

Here is my question… has anyone spray foamed the inside of their hollow ducks. I'm worried their going to get shot to hell… I know they were cheap but I don't want sinking dekes in the spread.

My idea is to drill two small holes in them… one in the bottom and one at the base of the neck and spray in expanding foam, allowing it to expand and seep out the holes if need be… then clean out the holes epoxy them and paint them up…

Any tips… suggestions… ideas would be great… thanks!

DukMan wrote:So I picked up some cheap mallard dekes from walmart of all places … clearance $15 a dozen… I'm planning on repurposing them and changing them into diver decoys. New paint and rigging them for long lines…

Here is my question… has anyone spray foamed the inside of their hollow ducks. I'm worried their going to get shot to hell… I know they were cheap but I don't want sinking dekes in the spread.

My idea is to drill two small holes in them… one in the bottom and one at the base of the neck and spray in expanding foam, allowing it to expand and seep out the holes if need be… then clean out the holes epoxy them and paint them up…

Any tips… suggestions… ideas would be great… thanks!

This will make your decoy super heavy. Don't worry too much about sinking your decoys if it happens drain, then hot glue the hole shut and keep on trucking.

The expanding foam in a can is open cell foam. Therefore when they get shot your extra effort has created super sinkers not battleships.

The Duck Hammer wrote:The expanding foam in a can is open cell foam. Therefore when they get shot your extra effort has created super sinkers not battleships.

This. I tried it on a couple of wood duck decoys. they took on water and sank like the Titanic.

ohioduck wrote:

The Duck Hammer wrote:The expanding foam in a can is open cell foam. Therefore when they get shot your extra effort has created super sinkers not battleships.

This. I tried it on a couple of wood duck decoys. they took on water and sank like the Titanic.

expanding foam bad. Hot glue good. Don't waste your time. Mine sank faster than a fat girls prom dreams.

My hot glue must be defective, because all of my hot glue decoy repairs have eventually lost their grip. If I can't "weld" a hole closed with a soldering iron, I 3M 5200 it.

Rick wrote:My hot glue must be defective, because all of my hot glue decoy repairs have eventually lost their grip. If I can't "weld" a hole closed with a soldering iron, I 3M 5200 it.

I usually heat the area up with a hair dryer before filling it with hot glue. 5200 is also a great way to do it and probably better than hot glue in the long run.

Rick wrote:My hot glue must be defective, because all of my hot glue decoy repairs have eventually lost their grip. If I can't "weld" a hole closed with a soldering iron, I 3M 5200 it.

Rick I don't know where you are located at but I hunt east and northeast Texas and the hot glue has worked good for me. I could see where really cold temps could affect it or maybe even salt water but all of my hot glue plugs have always held.

Knock on wood.

Bad17 wrote:

Rick wrote:My hot glue must be defective, because all of my hot glue decoy repairs have eventually lost their grip. If I can't "weld" a hole closed with a soldering iron, I 3M 5200 it.

Rick I don't know where you are located at but I hunt east and northeast Texas and the hot glue has worked good for me. I could see where really cold temps could affect it or maybe even salt water but all of my hot glue plugs have always held.

Knock on wood.

Rick lives in Coonass country.

And it be more hot than cold here. I've not tried preheating the area to be glued, as Olly's suggested, but I've hot glued dozens of decoys and ended up redoing was sure seemed the most of them.

A trick I've not tried but that's interested me is sticking a sliver of plastic oil jug in the shot hole and lighting it to burn and melt down into the hole.

Rick wrote:And it be more hot than cold here. I've not tried preheating the area to be glued, as Olly's suggested, but I've hot glued dozens of decoys and ended up redoing was sure seemed the most of them.

A trick I've not tried but that's interested me is sticking a sliver of plastic oil jug in the shot hole and lighting it to burn and melt down into the hole.

I tried that with shotgun hulls but it always just melted the decoy too. Course I was trying to fix some of my dads old beaters he used in high school so they may have just been the thin plastic they were made from.

I haven't done hot glue but find that the 3M 5200 marine epoxy works like magic... Haven't had to redo any of the patches.

I will pass on the foam in the dekes and just stick with repairing them.

Patch with 5200 and don't shoot the decoys! On my buddy hunts we have a pot, 10 bucks every time you shoot a decoy. Now I guide some and I try my best to explain to my sports about that but it does happen.

blockmaker wrote:Patch with 5200 and don't shoot the decoys! On my buddy hunts we have a pot, 10 bucks every time you shoot a decoy. Now I guide some and I try my best to explain to my sports about that but it does happen.

I've hunted with a few people that were a beer/decoy.

That's one thing I don't do is drink when I'm duck hunting. Know plenty that do.

Bad17 wrote:That's one thing I don't do is drink when I'm duck hunting. Know plenty that do.

Oh, I didn't mean while hunting. Most of my hunts ended with food/beer when back to someones house.

If you do that's what you do. I'm not judging. I just don't. I live to duck hunt. I know 2 things ducks and baseball. That's my loves.

Bad17 wrote:If you do that's what you do. I'm not judging. I just don't. I live to duck hunt. I know 2 things ducks and baseball. That's my loves.

I will. If you dink and hunt that's how somebody gets shot and hunters look like jackass rednecks. Don't need any more of that.

Good God, they buy the beer afterwards.

I have used silicone and being still pliable after it dries, holds up pretty good. Btw, once you hit the hole with it, whatever you chose, roll the BBs onto what squeezed inside the BB hole and it'll dry in place for no more rattley decoys.

The Duck Hammer wrote:

Rick wrote:And it be more hot than cold here. I've not tried preheating the area to be glued, as Olly's suggested, but I've hot glued dozens of decoys and ended up redoing was sure seemed the most of them.

A trick I've not tried but that's interested me is sticking a sliver of plastic oil jug in the shot hole and lighting it to burn and melt down into the hole.

I tried that with shotgun hulls but it always just melted the decoy too. Course I was trying to fix some of my dads old beaters he used in high school so they may have just been the thin plastic they were made from.

Good to know, as I was thinking of trying it with some of my Flambeau coots that are too thin for the soldering iron. Perhaps with really thin slivers of plastic it won't get too hot...

blockmaker wrote:...and don't shoot the decoys! On my buddy hunts we have a pot, 10 bucks every time you shoot a decoy. Now I guide some and I try my best to explain to my sports about that but it does happen.

Two guys in their 80's, one of whom is gone now, set the long standing bar at my commercial blind with 13 in one morning when I was landing teal for them to swat. Would do it again if they were able to.

I try to limit such collateral damage by keeping most of my good duck decoys either under or out of likely fields of fire. The exception that takes the brunt being my poule d'eau/coot raft. And when it gets hit by out-of-staters, I get to tease them about coot shooting. (Local boys would just say, "Damn right!")

Have had good luck using 5200 as Rick mentioned, and also some "2000" silicone product as well as "Goop" I think. Also think I have a tube of Liquid Nails that's worked if I'm not mistaken...have a variety pack of goopy substances that are go-to when needed. To my knowledge only had one teal deke take a few pellets last season as a GW was trying to get out of the fray and bro-in-law caught (them) on its way out.

Patched and back in the game, never tried hot glue though.