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Yup. I think the Hinkle Shad weighs around 5.5oz. That blank is smaller, but it is one of the closer ones I have seen to a Hinkle Shad. The blank weighs 3.9 oz for floating and 4.1 for slow sink. The shape is close too. As you go up in size, there tends to be less of a variety of blanks. I have not bought that particular blank yet. I bought 6 of Alternative Lures other blanks to have some stuff to paint while I reorganized my shop area. The Crucian Carp blank is very heavy. I forget the weight on that. I have not tested any of them yet. I lost my primary winter bait testing water when the door on the spillway failed and that section of river drained. It was one of the few spots that doesn't freeze over. The lakes look like they will open in a week. The Hinkle Trout is 11" and 9.5 oz. I don't recall see any blank close to that profile with that size.

4oz of plastisol mixed with the microbubbles doesn't make a whole lot of baits. Of course depends on what you're pouring. I have reheated the mix quite a few times. Yes color will deteriorate. I find this especially true of chartreuse. But if you reheat GENTLY you should get a few reheats out of it. Heat Stabilizer helps. Keep in mind after each pour the volume of the mix is less requiring less heating time.

For my 1/4 and 1/2oz mold I found that the loop formed on my twistech (think it is the magnum) made the loop eye too big to fit in the mold. The Hagens small die did a better job but I had to do some adjusting with pliers. If I remember correctly I think I was using .030-.032 wire from a 1/4 pound roll. The nose wire I was never able to find the exact length of it so I eyeballed it best I could. As for the blade the #2 French blades in my opinion looked better than #3 on the 1/4 and 1/2oz weights. I will attach my cheat sheet for the wire form in case it might help. I did 2 wraps on each loop.

No it is not.... Just use a size 0 SS sinker insert with a spinnerbait hook.

I have made hundreds of floating baits using the floating "bubble" additive, and have never experienced the baits being too soft. If anything, they were hardened up using the additive. I use mostly soft plastisol. And yes the additive does wash out the color. One color I've made a lot of floating baits with is black. That should be the easiest color to make, but even black requires a lot of colorant to make it truly black, or you end up with grey of a washed out black. I'm using a lot of additive to make baits that will float high on the surface to float over lily pads and such. Some other bait makers just make their baits float enough to suspend. Either way plan on using a lot of colorant. And if you want your biats to float. test the first couple of baits in a bucket of water with a hook in it. Once on the water with floating baits it's too late to find out they don't float.