Chicken wire and fiberglass

(car body repair material)

  from K-mart!........

  What a combination!

The wire is only a skelleton, the fiberglass holds it all together.   Its kind of like a giant paper mache project thats permanent.

Start with a cylinder of chicken wire about the size of a deer's body.  I leave a large oval section open in the bottom.   This reduces weight and allows access for adding a tail-wagging unit.

  To this, add another (smaller), cone shaped cylinder for the neck, wider at the base and more pointed where it attaches to the head.

NOTE:  Its best to hang the frame from the ceiling of your workshop for easy access.  The body sections can then be tied together with short pieces of wire.

  Pretend your an ARTIST...shape up four legs and attach them to the body with wire.  Shape out a head and attach it to the cone (neck).  Now add some ears.

  Now for the hard work... Cut pieces of fiberglass material.  Try to cover as much of the body as possible with a single piece of fiberglass material if the container your dipping the 'glass into is large enough.  Otherwise; you must use strips as I did, and it is harder.

For sculpting around the legs, ears, eyes and face...DO use strips a couple of inches or so wide.    When you've finished covering the wire structure with fiberglass and its dry, spray paint it dull camo paint to match.  Let it dry and use black paint for detailing.

THE EYE's are the MOST important part of the whole decoy.  Deer will "look" at the eyes upon approaching. They should be "reflective or shinny".  Don't buy any from a shop.  Instead, get a 1 liter of COKE, Pepsi won't work ;-)  ...and cut out 2 of the "feet sections" on the bottom of the bottle.  Paint them black on the INSIDE so the unpainted reflective plastic is on the OUTSIDE.  Use fiberglass strips to "paste" around the eyes, fixing them to the head.

I add a tail-wagging kit to all my deeks.   For $40.00, they are a pretty cool option.  

USE TIDE LAUNDRY SOAP TO CLEAN UP!