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Regardless of the brush, shoot at the pressure you need to, even if it does not match the recommended psi. If you get the results you want (like cranking down for splatterbacks, and WAY up for fades and blending) and not hurting the brush then do it. With Createx a fairly high psi seems to help, along with properly thinned paint. Much better to blend in several coats than in one or two thicker coats. For side color to belly, or back to side blends I like to run two brushes (yes, VL or Milennium), one with each color. Use both to shoot and blend the colors rather than expecting to use just one color and get the correct result.

I just modified a Do-It SB mold for this last week. It is the model that features 2 bullet heads, and 2 "arrowheads". Believe it is older and out of production, but you can still find some on e-bay (where I found mine). I modified the 2 bullet cavities. They start out a little heavier (7/16 and 5/16 I believe) than most molds, so you can get away with less dremel work. Results are ok, have some powder painted and built. Plan on going back to "polish" some of the rougher spots in the added cavities.

The large blue and green from LC will also go poof if you are not careful.

Tubing all the way, and also invest in a tubing cutter...makes life much more fun than cutting and flaring with pliers or side cutters. Also use 250 as your pre-heat, but run your cure temp down to 225 and cook them just short of forever. You may still get some distortion of the weedguard, but not nearly as much as you will get at 250. Does not affect the way the jigs fish...most of us flare the guards out to fish anyway. Tubing works best with both ends of the fiber guard fused. Fuse the loose end by holding it against your hot pot for a few seconds. This may cause the guard to be larger on one end. use that end in the head, and leave the factory fused end out. Makes it quicker to fit the tubes on the guards. It helps to hit your molds with a 9/64" drill bit to just open the weedguard slot a little. That way the larger end you fused will fit better, and allow the mold to close more completely.

Familiar with the blades...should be a diamond pattern made by Lakeland. My guess is the stamping and folding of the blade weakens them. Their diamond blades are much lighter than standard blades anyway. You might try slapping some devcon or JB weld around the rattle pocket. I think I would go with some type of underskirt or blade arm rattle (like the Stan Sloan baits).

The Do-It weedless football head mold modifies well to a more "quality" type of head. Just did mine this week and there are a couple of quick fix tricks: 1) Drill out the mold to accept an FG30 (1/8") standard jig weedguard. The FG12 it is cut for is a joke. I used a cordless drill and a 9/64" bit for mine. Also did the same to my Do-It "eakins" mold and may go after som others next. Could also use a drill press but that would have meant cleaning the garage 2) Using a dremel cutting bit, cut the mold to accept a quality jig hook. Mine takes either the Mustad BLN 28 degree hook (made for the bullet bass jig mold) or the Sohumi extra long shank wide gap (an awesome hook). Hook sizes 3/0 or 4/0 both work with this mod (done only to the 1/2 and 3/4 oz cavs as these are the only FB sizes I throw). I just eyeballed mine...put the hook in the mold, and pulled it back until the eye was basically flush with the head cavity (with hook shank in the stock groove). Then dremel it. Very quick and easy. 3) Use a small file or dremel to enlarge the cut for the hook. Easy does it there, or you will get some extra flashing, and may get the hook out of center. That's it. I also cut a larger collar to flare the skirt more, and added a reverse barb below the stock one (with a bit more bite to it). Will skirt some up and get some pics in the gallery if anyone is interested. Makes a sweet little jig. All that said, I still intend to get some molds cut for other baits. Glad to hear the good feedback on those custom molds. They could find themselves being very busy.

One VL, two Milenniums, one V (super fine detail). Any additional will probably be mileniums.

Party Crasher, Have you used their services? Looks like an awesome product. Any idea on the cost (rough)?

Chameleon createx, thinned and extended should do a nice job. Awesome looking bait as well.

But basically...Use spray glue to "stack" your plastic (might have to cut to size & with the film/paper left on), attach your pattern, then cut. I am not brave enough, nor do I have enough extra digits to do this on a bandsaw, so I use a scroll saw with a round blade. Works well, at least for shallow square bills.

Skeeter and all, Guess it depends on how you view a hard cured finish vs a flex finish. When cured FC is rock hard...all you have to do is try and dig a nail into a guide wrap to show this. Most wraps are coated with FC or a very similar, likely cheaper, product. But, and this is the difficult part, it will also allow some flex. Again, a run of the mill $50 rod shows this. If it didn't flex, and occasionally it does not, the thread wraps would crack when you hammered a fish (or a stump LOL). So it does sort of do both. I have had some FC that I mixed improperly stay "soft" (incompletely cured) meaning it would take a mark. Couple of reasons, I think: 1) just bad mixing...either used bottom of pot that was poorly mixed, or all was poorly mixed/measured, or 2) possibly some residual moisture in the paint or lure body. Honestly, it did not really affect the way the baits fished or looked, I just threw them in my "mine" pile. And Skeeter...I was serious about you being the we're not worthy guy on devcon. Most of the positive things I know about devcon came from your posts. My lightsaber is safely switched off Hoss. Now sanding a finished rod on a power wrapper would give me a case of the screamies, esp if it was not my rod.

Made a jig from styrofoam and use a drill press. Just sort of pressed the nose of the bait into it, after cutting a slit with a blade. With brass wire and epoxy, some of the fretting about in and out is really not as necessary as you might expect. I drill a lot of holes from the front and back, as you will widen the area where they meet when making your belly weight cavity. My balsa baits in the gallery were done this way.

You do not know the power of the dark side Skeeter! Flex Coat high build will cure to a rock hard finish if you mix it correctly. Requires a very precise measure using syringes. Makes a great plastic or balsa bait finish, and now using it for spinnerbait heads also. Either finish will add weight. That is not necessarily bad, as it will let your wart run deeper and your rogue suspend longer. I think (IMHO strictly) that Devcon will deaden the action of a rogue a bit more, and both are tricky on spooks and other topwaters. Face it, if you tie a bait on a Loomis rigged with a chronarch and rifle a bait into a chunk of rip rap or a dock edge you will probably break or chip any of the clear coats we are using. Hopefully you get the bait back with the lip intact. You can always repaint. Devcon and FC both hold up well to the normal scuffs and scrapes of trees, chunk rock, bass teeth (hopefully that is a frequent problem). Shoot me some mail if you have issues with FC, Skeeter is the "we're not worthy" guy on the Devcon. Skeeter: How does your rod building buddy change guides if he breaks one. The FC cuts pretty well and quickly lets you remove the wrap. Devcon wrap has to be so-lid.

Q: Should I use the candy cane or the snowman pattern on the Rogues? Actually might be a niche for that kind of thing.

Ok, from May to August I relaxed. Then I stopped sleeping We now have a 3 & 1/2 yr old girl and R.W. is my little guy. Have been eyeballing some of the wife's new foil christmas wrap. Pretty shiny and would look way cool on a rogue. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all my fellow TU'ers. May the next year bring you nothing but the best.

Spent more time fishing this spring and summer than I had in several years. Built some rods. Wife had a baby. Generally relaxed. All of which = no painting, pouring, etc since May or June. Did make a limited number of nice spinnerbaits and jigs, but that was mostly to combat attrition. Like Homer Simpson says (and I paraphrase) "No bait making make Dave go 'something something'...CRAZY...don't mind if I do". Yeah, I'm starting to feel it again.

Some things really are like riding a bike hoss. Am in about the same boat myself as spent more time actually FISHING and less painting this summer. Oh and we had a new baby. Haven't painted since May or June and the itch is coming on with each below 40 degree night.

Completely cool. Thanks for sharing the pics. If interested we are trying to grow the hard bait color sticky, am sure some folks would be interested in your color steps and mixes.

Start by switching to a fluorocarbon line like Seaguar...line is heavier than water and sinks, should get you an extra foot or so. Definitely works on warts and rogues. After that go to weights...start with suspendots, usually on the belly between the lip and first hook hanger. When you have about the right amount of dots and the bait runs the way you want, remove the dots and weigh them. Then drill out the bait and replace the dots with the same weight in lead (or just less) and epoxy in place. Remember the epoxy will add weight, the hole will remove weight, and water temp will affect the amount of weight needed. Generally you want to add a little less...much easier to slap on an additional dot than remove weight. Manns used to make a bait called the 30+ which was popular in TN/AL, you might check some shops in that area. It is a WAY big crankbait. Generally, I would much rather c-rig or vertical fish bass holding that deep.

Right on guys...it is the lead. Goes against everything you see about ease of pouring, but it needs to be hard lead if using any kind of exposed insert.

Yeah, that's about it. Not a significant world issue, just wanted to make sure it was not just me. Jerry: FYI I just posted some color recipes before replying to this, hope we can get something put together like the plastics forum sticky. Or maybe the hard baiters won't part with the colors. Anyway hope it does not become a problem to manage for you.

Never heard back from Jerry with a thumbs up or down on this, so let's just jump in and hope we don't cause too much trouble. 1) "Norman/Thundershad Rootbeer (yellow/green)" -prep bait and spray white basecoat -Belly color...Createx Flo Sunburst (lightly sprayed and with extender and water added for transparency) -Sides...Mix Golden Acrylic Titan Buff, C-tex Tinting White, and Golden airbrush medium to produce a very light (in terms of "yellow-ness") opaque bone color...shoot sides and blend with the belly as needed -Back color Rootbeer (yellow/green type)...Mix C-tex Leaf Green 10:C-tex Lt Brown 2: C-tex Golden Yellow 2 (10:2:2)...thin and extend with water and C-tex airbrush medium -Splatter color...whether shot at low PSI & high viscosity or done with Hughesy's toothbrush method...C-tex Dark Brown, possibly with a little Tinting Black to darken the color. -Clearcoat and add green or red flake (fine or ultra fine) at this point. -Eyes...C-tex Red, Opaque Red, Scarlet, or mixes of similar 2) Some other mix ratios: -Green Pumpkin...C-tex Leaf Green 3: Lt Brown 1 -Flo Red Craw...C-tex Flo Red 3: Opaque Red 1 -Pearltreuse...C-tex Flo Chart (yellow by name?) 4: Pearl White 1 + water and extender or medium...a neat color to shoot lightly over a pearl or hi-lite body. -Pearl Green Craw (38 Craw)...C-tex Pthalo Green 2: Pearl Copper 3: Pearl White 1: Leaf Green 3...may have to adjust slightly if using Auto Air pearlescents... *** If this is useful or interesting to you please add your own recipes as time allows.

Here's a couple: 1) "green fish" - Add LC green pumpkin to plastic until the color is a very light green (not the darker, more opaque green pumpkin produced by more color) -2 sizes black flakes...fine and med -LARGE white flake...a more natural scale look than silver or holo flake 2) laminate bb -LC green hi-lite powder added to plastic until color is opaque with green transference fo light/color...no flake, poured as the belly color -Add black color until plastic is a "medium" smoke then a drop or two of watermelon or one of the "green" greens (emerald, etc)...fine green flake (lots) and medium black flake, poured as the back color ***can also pour this color as head-tail-belly...think I have a pic of this in my drop shot baits in the gallery...does a nice job of imitating the prominent black tips on a largemouth or kentucky tail Hope it helps. ****Sorry for the lack of quantities but I mix colors by eye, not by count. Anyway, as soon as I start counting drops sure as the world I get that glob of color that inevitably squirts out. Or I drop the whole jar of flake in the pot LMAO.

K&M's sticks look nice. Problem with teh LC molds is not so much the flat side, but rather the general lack of similarity in size and shape. They make some very nice molds, the stick molds just do not happen to be in that class. Best by far is the Del-Mart mold, hear good things about the mold from Bob's...runs about 1/2 the $$$ or so. Next would be a home made...have fun.

Wow...if the pages stay this wide I will have to move my chair back to keep reading LOL. Is it just me?