Delw

med plastic is best, I personally think saltwater aka hard plastic is too tough for frogs. the easy thinest to pour is as follows, the vis gets thicker as the plastic harness changes, burning is also easier on harder plastics make sure you put in heat stabilizer, Calhoun has enough heat stabilizer to not need any added unless you are in a pot for more than 30 mins. all 3 brands need to be stirred constantly on the hard plastics this is very important to keep the plastic from scortching. super soft ( lc and MF) thin soft (calhoun) thin regular/med (lc calhoun and mf) thicker hard/tube aka saltwater (calhoun Lc and MF) thickest remember all three brands have different durameter (harness's). Delw

hollow swimbaits and solid swimbaits are like fishing a crank bait and a worm its your choice no one is better than the other, they both have there purpose. for solid swimbaits its best using calhoun med/hard, or lc 500 or mf regular. for hollow ones I like soft to med. again its a personal choice. remember a softer bait will move the tail faster the faster you reel it in, if you want to reel it in very slow but the tail to wiggle very fast use a softer plastic, want to burn it in on a 7:1 reel and the tail to look life like use a harder plastic.

Are you talking about 221? with the purple flake, just use nightcrawler. the skirt is a 221 skirt from yamamoto, the bait is nightcrawler with nothing else added

I need to correct that April told me its 2-3 oz per gal of calhoun soft to make it super soft. ( not per 8oz).

Jt all plastic settle/ seperate, they ALL must be shaken and mixed extreamly well before use for consistancy, they also all do the same thing in the end result. some have different characteristics of others. plastisizer is heavier than dinp (aka softener) so they are going to settle over time. Delw

Yes I do, I would rather have someone buy something they want then get on the phone and complain cause its not as soft or as hard. If you been around this website very long you would see that people commonly think when ordering that calhoun soft is the same as supersoft or 536, and they are disapointed when they get it. All it takes is about and oz of softner and you have the same duarometer reading. Delw

calhoun soft plastic is NOT softer than Lure craft 536 or MF super soft. it is between the regular lurecraft and 536 or between Mf super soft and mf regular. in order to make calhoun soft like lurecraft 536 or mf super soft you must add softener. if I remember correctly the amount of softener needed is 1.5oz per 8oz of calhoun soft. Delw

Make sure you either pin them down very good or glue them as they will float to the top if you don't

Calhoun sells 5 gal buckets direct from them, they even process credit cards, sometimes they send out 5 gal of samples

calhoun soft plastic it neutral buoyant, meaning its the same weight to just under the weight of water. Supersoft plastic is more buoyant med and hard plastic are heavier. Plastic comes in a liquid form basically as 2 parts a plastisizer and a softener(dinp) the softener is lighter than water so its buoyant, the plastisizer (aka Hardener) is heavier than water so it sinks. depending on what mix they are mixed at will mean how the are buoyant. Calhoun soft does float. I havent seen a dropshot worm sink unesing calhoun soft plastic, or even medium plastic, heavy plastit it sinks. other things that come into play are the size and shapes of the worms/ surface area. adding glitter or anything else will make plastic sink. if you want to add the 3m glass bubbles it only takes a very few, I mean very few. just a 1/4 teaspoon will make it very buoyant in a cup of plastic.

I don't think I microwave is a good thing to cure anything with, reason being is a microwave is concelled, it works off mositure. the molucules in water go into a rapid movement and thats what causes heat. so evaporation won't be happening in a microwave like and oven. if there is no moisure in something and you put into the microwave it won't get hot. In an oven the water is kinda drawn from the part through evaporation from the heat in the elements. Dave could probabally answer this better

how its made is one of the best shows I have seen, its quick and to the point on manufacturing. if you look into how the machines make things and work for various applications its really a good teaching show. the other one is mydth busters. only because they show how the staff is creating a certain project to get something done. believe it or not dirty jobs also has some good tibits of info from time to time.

I didnt see that part of it, that will work. have you tried to glue a piece inside the valve? That may help also, kinda split the valve in 2 so to speak. good idea you have.

heres a quick one, basically a double ball valve, the handle is on the left. the divider goes to the 2 seperate chambers. doesnt even have to be a ball valve this way the valve won't mix the plastic or at the end were it pours as its all divided the whole way through.

thats a really good idea, to make a valve instead of the typical ball valve make one that is from the front. I will try to explain it. heck BRB I will draw it up and post it. it would be fairly simple. Delw

I would set it around 300

I like the gallery Idea , won't be any work for anyone and takes about 2 mins or less for a user to input stuff. admins can set it up in 3mins, plus its 100% searchable by color flake etc. people can post under the color if they have questions. thumbnails are easy to scan to get a brief idea on what color your looking for, click on the thumbnail and you have a med size pic, click on the med size pic and you have a fullsize pic(org). people wont have to resize there pics the gallery program will do it automatically so everything will be semi uniform. the best part is it is 100% searchable just by adding key words into the picture options. all can be done by the user. so lets say someone wants red flake, it shows all pictures with red flake, someone wants black it shows all pictures with black. then they could look at the tumbnails and easliy pic the color they want. this will also keep a thread like the current color thread we have no from haing comments in it then to the next color and more comments. as all the comments for each color is on that one picture. modem users won't be bogged down at all by the list as they will just get a thumbnail when the view the gallery like they do now. when they click on a color then the picture will come up. right now on the current list you have to read alomost every page to find out what color you want, with it this way you dont nor do you ahve to read through all the replies as they only show up on each picture. as far as modem users(back east) I am going to bet about 30%-50% of the people on fishing related forums still have 56k or less, more so back east do to lots of people live in places were fast connections are not avail.

for small amounts of colors like tails and stuff, get a electric pancake griddle heat your plastic up then set it on the griddle this will keep the colors hot until your ready to pour them. dont set pyrex on the griddle just a few 1 cup metal pouring pans

if its virgin teflon heat nor accetone wont hurt it. I would try just med heat to begin with. med heat will not generally hurt virgin teflon( thats pure teflon) or other teflons. its used in alot of seal applications for that very reason. if you have a heat gun that should do the trick. Delw

I think the single color start up ones will run about 15-17 k. a good one minus molds 25+ they are really cool people and if your interested call them up they will help you and answer all your questions. Delw

A picture is the best thing for a color chart. maybe you could bend the rules and at the title say MAYBE SLOW FOR dial up users? if someone has thier own hosting service great it doesnt eat up bandwidth on this site if they link it and show there pics. the problem with have a small size window for gallery pics is that MOST people Don't know how to crop a full size pic and resize it. and its just to darn small if someone takes a picture of a bait on there bench normally it will show everything on the bench and floor. so when they resize it it shows the same but the bait is tiny. they have to crop it at full size to make it small enough to show the bait it self. with the new cameras out and the huge pixel amounts pictures are huge, again leaving those that don't know how to crop and or resize pics at a loss. I personally think a color chart like this would blow away almost anything( other than having the baits in front of you). I also believe an exception to the rule should be made. just put in the title of the thread that it may be slow loading for dial up users. if dial up users don't like it ( which I highly doubt you will find any dial up user complaining) they don't need to click on the link its that simple. Years ago I modified a VB product for vbulletin forums for a color chart which would also show pics. while getting ready to upgrade software for 8 sites I been playing some new things and a new way to do a color book with pics and with out custom coding. The newer software versions and its already in there. Photopost (the gallery we have here)would be a good one to use just make and name a seperate catagory to color chart. also Allow FULLSIZE images and keep Org's make a standard image( the one it resizes automatically) to 800 pixels wide 600 would be the smallest I would go. thumbnails make a 200 wide allow posts allow replies this will allow slower modem users to view them and if they want to see a fullsize pic then so be it this will also allow users to scroll through thumbnails to see the color they want this will allow faster dsl and cable users to see the pics in full size and even the org one. with out causeing any problems to anyone. no noticed would be necc. make a sticky so when they click the subject it brings them right to that section of the gallery. Delw

Jim I figured the guy knew what he was looking for when he asked about the sta-warm and didnt mention any other pot. we get people all the time and ask about them, I just point them to TU and my forum as there are guys using them. Other than what I am told by my customers and the conversations in the past with sta-warm for a customers project , I don't have a sta-warm pot, when I am asked about quaility pots I let them know about them ,yes even about presto and lee pots.They all have there place. Naw its just common sence Delw

it doesnt compare nor is it harsh. look at it this way. chinese tools vs snapon tools pop molds vs alum molds rtv molds vs alum molds hand pour molds vs injection molds pressure pot vs zorn injection machine yugo vs porshe cheap cutting tools vs expensive ones canoe vs Ranger theres a huge difference. if your looking for quality and a temp sensitive pot then presto pots dont hold a candle, if your looking for something inexpesive then yes presto is the way to go. I know guys that have 5 gallon( they are actually a little smaller I forget the quart size) sta-warm pots and they did have preto pots while they cost a heck of alot more like 6 times the cost of a presto pot they say they are far far better. they never have to worry about temp from one day to the next or one batch to the next. Anything will do the job even a lee pot, nothing wrong with a lee pot/ or presto pot if you understand how they work and how to make them work. Theres another company ( I forget the name)that makes a pot like a sta-warm pot they are in the same class as a the sta-warm and have some better features. I have one customer that has 4 in the approx 2.5 gallon size. heres a good example: I have a 16x 40 hand lathe here in the back of the shop I rarely use, I think I paid like 15k for it. I wouldnt use it to run threads( that requiered a thread guage for checking dims) nor most aerospace stuff, if I was going to use it for that I would have boughten a cadillac lathe or something in that class for 30-40k (yeah hand lathe not cnc) . Why did I buy this one? I needed something decent that I could afford way back when for little odd jobs that I didnt want to set the cnc lathes up on. it fit my budget at the time and got the jobs intended for it ran freeing up my 4 cnc lathes for other work. I never knocked a presto pot nor did I intend to ( don't tell anyone but I have one ), you more than likely just read the thread wrong. Delw

I have serveral customers using them, they are the best commercial pots on the market a presto pot doesnt come close to comparing. your plastic wont burn or scortch. everythign is heated evenly. if your doing this professionally and want the best this is the way to go. but remember there is also a cost involved just like anything else you do or buy. they do offer mixers however they will tell you that you should by them elsewere ( I forgot the name of the place they reccomend) as they are expensive and for the needs that hand pourers need it isnt justifiable. I have also had customers make there own mixers using the motor that I listed a while ago on a page, I believe broggie1 is using that same motor or was. one thing to remember a presto pot heats from the bottom no where else 90% of your plastic is not on the bottom. The sta-warms have heat on the side. I have been told you can leave a stay warm on a pourable temp. with out a mixer all day and it will never burn plastic. one of my customers changed from lee pots to sta-warms last year and he loves them. the lee post were costing him alot over a period of time and the sta-warm will last for a very long time. I believe he said with the new thermostats they put in the lee pots last year or the year before they were junk and burnt out quite often, the onlder lee pots had a better thermostat.

no thats not normal, usually 24-48 hours in room temp will cure them. are you adding anything to the plastic? Salt, scent, oils ??? salt and straight plastic I would say 24-40 hours tops. is your plastic cooked fully? over cooked? on over cooked plastic it will desinagrate over time but you would notices a yellow color first. if you have salted baits and you leave them in a area with moisture you could have some problems as when the salts dries out it will make them harder then they were previous Delw