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I just hand pour one side of the mold and then shoot the other color. It is pretty quick. Some molds it won't work with because of small appendages unless you are ok with just the body being two tone and the rest of the bait being one color.

I used to make and sell jointed swimbaits. I soon realized that having to make something was a job, and that took the fun out of it. I already had a job that actually paid. So I quit selling, and began having fun again. I still make the occasional jointed swimbait for a friend who fishes competitively, but he's the exception.

Craftsman.....becomes a difficult one to nail down. I don't view a lot of what we make as being produced by a craftsman. For some it becomes a necessity as they don't have the time to make the numbers they need. If dependent up on or needing the income it becomes the clearest way forward to make the demands. Just the progression of things for some. I find that a lot of guys that end up going production end up losing that something special that made their baits sought after to begin with. They still sell based on the name but all so often if you have a few of the pre production baits you find those are the gems and the new ones are nothing more than the "poor man's" version of big box baits. Others do it just because that is what drives them. For some I don't think making a decent bait has anything to do with it for them purely more of a look what I did, some sort of verification they are "legit". I think I see this a lot more in soft plastics as the barriers ($$$$) to do so are lower. I think it becomes difficult as many can't differentiate the qualities of a crank bait. A mass produced $2.00 crank off the Wal Mart shelf, a well done mass produced crank, a hand made crank from the average guy, and then a hand made crank from a group of "special makers". They all will likely catch fish but...... Bottom line a hand made bait made by a guy that understands (performance, how to fish, etc...) that is hand tuned will almost undoubtedly outperform a mass produced product.

First of all powder paint should be baked( cured) in a toaster oven. If you are not doing that, well that is p[art of the problem. I assume Boss powder paint is the same. Now like mentioned above, all paint will chip or wear off from dragging jigs. To reduce this from happening, again like mentioned use Devcon 2 Ton (D2T) on the entire jig. Now you mentioned using vinyl clear gloss from CSI. If you are referring to the one that really smells bad, than I would be careful, because of the lingering smell along with the fact that, that clearcoat is not compatible with all powder paints.

I have always trusted my eye plus a centre line. If I wanted to go for more accuracy, i would cut a few different U-shape female templates out of Lexan. The tempates would not have to match the lure section, but they would magnify any difference errors. Dave

Explain the reason for the burping. The way I think is that the air is at the top so if you don't use all of it then you won't get air. And most of us know you can't use all the plastic in an injector cause near the end it's just not good. Now if you suck up plastic so fast you get air in it why not slow down? Turning an injector upside down and pushing the air out looks like an accident waiting to happen. Not to mention all that time the plastic is cooling.

The first rod I ever did this way, I used a short piece of broom handle, bored a hole two inches deep and epoxied the rod in. Lasted for years. Taped the spinning reel on Tennessee style. Musky Glenn

I can't tell you how many times I've brought baits to the kitchen sink to wash everything off and start over, so don't you feel like you're the Lone Ranger, it happens to all of us, just keep painting. Jerry