How to Make Styrofoam Decoys

A duck decoy.

Styrofoam is one of the easiest and best materials to make your own decoys from. Hunters have been making their own decoys for centuries, and it is no small wonder that they've moved on to more modern materials to do so. There are many advantages to making your own decoys, one is cost of course, and another is the satisfaction of making something with your own hands and having it actually work.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a styrofoam duck decoy, but the exact same process can be used to make any sort of animal decoy.

Things You'll Need

• Several pieces of white bead styrofoam
• Glue
• Knife
• Saw
• Surfoam Shaper
• Polyurethane
• Paint brushes
• Box or bag of sawdust
• Eyebolt
• Epoxy
• Rubber band
• Wood keel
• Screws
• Screw driver
• Paints in the colors your animal decoy would be in the wild

Instructions

1. Take several pieces of white bead styrofoam and glue them together until you have the thickness you want for your decoy.

2. Using the knife, saw and surfoam shaper, cut the styrofoam into a duck's body shape.

3. Take a paint brush and paint the entire decoy with polyurethane.

4. Put the wet decopy in your box or bag of sawdust.

5. Remove your decoy and shake off any excess sawdust. Then let the decoy dry. This will help to give texture to your decoy.

6. Paint the decoy a realistic color that is representative of a type of duck you might find in the wild.

7. Attach a wood keel with screws to the bottom of your duck decoy.

8. Using the same process that you used to creat the body of your duck decoy, create the head of the duck decoy.

9. When the head is completed, attach the head by putting an eyebolt up through the bottom of the body of your decoy and into the neck with epoxy.

10. You should have an inch diameter hole in your decoy where the head sits, now take a heavy rubber band and attach it to the eyebolt. Put it through the hole and then secure it on the notch located on your wood keel.

Tips & Warnings

• Foam can be poisonous especially when if it has polyurethane on it.

Resources

• Styrofoam Crafts
• Decoy Making Supplies