redg8r

Yeah his forum database is corrupted, the rest of the site looks intact.

The only think that I can find that will stick to silicone, is more silicone. I know Devcon wont. heating it in an oven will bring the oils out, but its a limited process, once the oils are gone..... well.... I've been hearing good things about a product called "parfilm" its a professional mold release made for silicone molds. I've never used it, but professional moldmakers swear by it to "revive" old molds. I contacted the manufacturer for a suitable variety, as they make many types for different casting materials. What I've heard is that it soaks into the mold & replenishes the oils lost during time. I'd take Senkosam's advice on using an oily scent for now, That has worked for me. I'm gonna get a can of the parfilm, try it out & let ya know my findings.

MMMmmmm MMMmmmm Mmm. Sounds goooo oood. Yes fellas Remember to stay safe, whether shootin off fireworks or enjoyin some refreshment, take er easy & enjoy the weekend.

what you mentioned woul be what I'm ultimately lookin to do later, hold more plastic, & add an agitator etc. thanks for the info on the wire, I think I'm gonna try woven fiberglass cloth for insulating. can you get inside a lee pot? the element they use, is it similar to an oven element? ya know, thick? like 1/4" dia.? I use a lead ladle/pot from Hilts called "Hot 1" & it uses a thick element directly exposed to the lead.

Dag, howd I miss this post? Very nifty.... thats perfect for somone who needs an extra hand to manipulate stencils, etc. I know an old member who used an old var speed drill to help him tye his bucktails a lil quicker :idea: Very nice jig Coley.

the nichrome I have looks just like spinnerbait wire. it came in an uninsulated coil like what you get bulk spinnerbait wire in. I think its a .36 guage its nearly identical to the wire found in your toaster, but it is round in profile instead of flat. I looked in my toaster & saw the wire wrapped around what looked like a "circuit board" type of material.

Ah..... Luke, Ive lured you to the darkside.... We used to have a member here by the name of XLR8N, we used to talk about injecting hard plastic & he gave me this link: http://www.nhsouth.com/crafts/workbench/injector.htm its a homemade, hand operated injector. but for soft plastic, I was fenagling with air pressure for injection rather than a cylinder or other "physical contact" cause I figured it would be easier to keep clean & maintain, but the site has some good descriptions. I have a question, in the link above, the author spoke about wrapping nichrome wire around a brass or copper tube that held the plastic, then adding current to the nichrome wire. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wont that make the heating tube "live" or would the current stay within the wire? If I could directly add the nichrome wire around my metal heating pot it would make much progress in my project. Hey, Help! Is there an Electrician in the house!!

Well Businesses are charged quite a fee to ship hazardous material (by the government & couriers), so much so that its hard to turn any profit. Theres an exemption on "sample" quantities, around a few ounces, which is the maximum Noel will send. A little goes along way. He uses it daily & said he's still working with the same gallon from a few years ago.

Hi all, Finally got around to trying some soft plastic paint I ordered awhile back. I wanted to give it a try before I posted & well.......... It's awesome I didnt think it would work as well as it did, but it did! I emailed every supplier I could find & surprisingly enough, Stamina gave me a number of the guy who used to supply them years ago, before the hazmat shipping regulations, made it near impossible to profit after shipping costs. The guy no longer supplies anyone, but still uses the stuff, as he is a tacklemaker himself & has been running a small tackleshop out of Tampa for years. It took some conversation, slight begging & a headlock for him to agree to supply the TU community, but he finally agreed to do it in small sample quantities, so you will need to tell him "Jerry" sent ya. I literally tried scraping & rubbing the paint from my pours & I rubbed the baits in two, but the paint still remained. The paint is a thick base, you can get UCD pigments to make any color, he supplies the pigments also. You thin it 3:1 with MEK for doing lines,stripes & eyes, or you can thin it to a milky consistency for spraying through your airbrush. Cleanup is easy with MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) available from your local hardware store. His name is Noel Noggle of ACE Molds, incidently he makes vulcanized rubber molds for those of you interested in molds for lead. 813 948 1461 Mystery solved.... I know this might ruffle the feathers of all those who have been sitting on any sources for this stuff, but hey, This is what TU is about, furthering our skills through communication. Now that a source is out, lets see how many more step forward.

I See..... One more for ya, Realising your obviously an established manufacturer, May I ask if the machinery you use to produce, is it standard equiptment for guys that fulfill your quantity, or is it personal proprietary machinery that you had made somewhere? I'm usin vague terms cause I dont want to pressure ya to answer anything you dont feel comfortable discussing, But I was wondering what the industry standard is for intermediate or larger manufacturers..... I dont think firms that produce larger (than our level) have 100 employees standin over 300 lil hotpots, but I could be wrong just curious as to the basic process & if you had custom machinery built, or if you went with a commercially built system. If that too intrusive I understand, simply ignore the question, were big boys here Thanks,

Well, I designed the site, but only after many requests from the modstaff & involved members you see here daily. Were all kinda refugees from other boards who wanted a place where the community had a voice & if something was needed on the site, it would be implemented asap. I didnt make the site, You guys make the site, I just make it function. So if you wanna thank the guys who come up with the site, you just did, with this post Glad your here, The site gets better with every new member.

Thanks for the heads up Scott, Question though, did they explain why it cant be heated in a microwave? I've been trying to contact em, but with my dayjob I keep missing them & they havnt returned any of my calls where are they located, physically? Thanks again.

Thanks for the info. I can help you with a motorized conveyor, lemme do some diggin through my favorites & I'll get ya some links

Nifty........ Soft plastic ingots, ready to go.

Oh, I see......Thats quite an undertaking, but given your background in HVAC, I dont doubt your ability to pull it off. I'm not much help for timing processes using air pressure, but a piece of plywood on a lazy susan bearing might be the ticket for rotating the molds out to cool. I dont know how you'd drive that using air though. Watch for condensation buildup on the molds from rapid cooling, depending on where your pouring, it might not be a problem. Pretty cool, keep us updated, if you can. Well I have the nicrome wire & thought about adding a thermostat to heat the pot/can like a normal pouring pot' date=' but not sure how to insulate it. I know theres ceramic, but I'm looking for something else "non-conductive" that can take 400 deg. heat to wrap the pot with before I wrap it with the nichrome wire. how bout Fiberglass matting like used to repair boats? has anyone opened thier pot to see whats used inside for insulation? Thanks Glaucus, I've seen that first link, Thats alot of solder on that contraption isnt it The other link has some great tools, I think I'll contact em to see what the max temp is. Thanks alot.

Sweet, Nathan, I'm workin on something similar Maybe we can compare ideas & see what we each turn out. I'm sure your farther along than I & you will probably produce alot more quantity, but I'll share what Ive come up with so far: I got ahold of a few used "HVLP" spray gun paint containers, there used in the auto industry to hold paint under the spray gun for painting cars. its almost exactly like a typical airbrush paint jar, where the gun siphons paint from the jar. Well I'm gonna reverse it & use the carberator hole to attach an air line with 30psi. or less.....this should "push" the plastic up the siphon tube into the mold. PRO's: [1]The container is aluminum & all the fittings are all metal, [2]The lid comes compression fitted & uses a teflon seal, [3]Holds 4 cups of liquid, [4]Travel in the tube is minimal to prevent cooling of plastic. CON's [1]Since it pushes plastic UP the tube, my molds need modified to have a valve to prevent runout, not really a problem though because I mainly use RTV & is flexible enough to mold a valve right in it. [2]Not sure how I'm gonna heat it, I have some nichrome wire, but kinda ac/dc illeterate could always throw it on the hotplate i guess [3] will still have to open it to stir & add plastic. [4] All metal, so I cant see inside it NOTE I havent attempted this yet, just started gathering materials, I'm sure I'll find many more flaws, but hey I love doin this kinda stuff. Hell if it dont work, I can always throw a vacuum pump on it instead & use it to de-air my mold mixes Great idea Nathan, this is, in essence, injection molding. OhioMike send us a tutorial for his vacuum box, which is the same concept using a vacuum instead of positive pressure. I think this topic is gonna get big, keep it coming Nate & thanks for sharing. My Pic below:

Hi The tackle tokens are TU's website currency. Currently, 1 post = 1 token in designated forums here 1 reply = 1 token also. For now you can redeem tokens in the Token Shop for TU promo items, or gift certificates to many popular Tackle suppliers. We can do pretty much anything with it, we might run a few contests, use it for future "pay" areas/services of the site, etc. We might even turn out a few fishing games or something that you can wager with, not totally sure, but they're there for ya. participation is important here & we wanna reward the people that do. Thanks for joining,

Alright, I got the email, Senkosam, I'll put it online this week so you can see it. Thanks again Mike, pretty darn nifty..... & we need more tutorials, I'd like it to be the biggest part of the site.

I can see some Snook & redfish all over that one. good work!

Great stencil work, I'm sure Larry (of Legendary lures) will be impressed.

you have a private message

ok, We can tweak what we have, to run as discussed, but want constant input as questions arise, lets get it out & see what it can do for everyone. We have started a new thread in the "Site Announcements" Forum. Lets get the domain name tacked down. Well take requests, then run a poll, to vote on the domain name. person who "daddied" the chosen domain name gets 20 tackle tokens to keep, or to put forward on getting free credits to list thier stuff.

Not negative, woodsac...Very good points. Lets bring some thoughts to the table & I'll consider pushing this out. I have a few of our moderators testing a system out as we speak, but lets go over what woodsac has brought up: 1.Who is going to maintain the site? TU 2.How do you divy up the costs when you have several people joining and leaving? How bout a credit system, where you can purchase credits to list a product for a predetermined time (say 1 month) 1 credit = item listed for 1 month. What if you could trade tackle tokens for listing credits? 3.If a customer orders items from multiple "shops" how do you determine the shipping costs? Very good point, its nearly impossible to get accurate shipping quotes from different vendors from around the globe, on one cart, unless someone was able to act as a warehouse...(too much overhead & liability) so what if each sale was handled vendor to customer? 4.What if I accept credit cards and another manufacturer does not? What if we allowed each vendor to list thier payment terms, before purchasing from em? 5.How do you maintain integrity as a "business" when you always have that one "loose wheel"? (You know the guy that ships when he feels like it)What about a feedback system (like eBay) where you can rate your experience with the vendor? Thanks for this post, Glad I didnt have to start it Please feel free to elaborate more....this is what TU is for, getting what you want...... to do what we wanna do..... The community comes first here.

Hey, Eric, Glad ya made it. Heres a lil more info. http://www.tackleunderground.com/index.php?c=tokens

Much appreciated, we look forward to it