Delw

Yeah I was assuming he was trying to save money for personal use, Thats why its not really feasible. for the 13-20 bucks for each bait that size is cheap compared to the cost in making one and the learning curve to make the molds. Not to mention the amount of plastic to make the bait and supplies you would use to make the mold, these baits take up to 3 cups of plastic to make 1 bait depending on the size. a gallon of plastic cost 30-45 plus shipping 10-15 bucks depending on location. for starting out your wire harness and hooks would cost probally over 5 bucks each do to low quanities then you have your cool down time, on a mold this big in pop fiberglass or anything else your looking at about 45 mins-1 hour and 30 mins I believe the new size I made him takes up to 4 cups of plastic for one bait, its around 16" long weighs over 2 lbs with out wire harness and weight. I would show pictures of the molds compared to a 5" stick mold so you get the idea of how big these baits are, but there are a few things I developed in the mold that make it work and to be pourable and that gives Andy the advantage of selling these baits..... Delw

its best if you put the stuff you need to remelt into all ready cooked plastic, or cut it into shreds and slowly heat up. leaving alot longer than 30 seconds in between heats. this will give the hard plastic time to heat evenly. on the next one , hardern wont work in most cases of commercially produced baits due to they use a different type of plastic AND there are many additives that are also used (scents formulas etc etc.) Its best you dont remelt and reuse commercially produced baits

the bait is poured all at once, they use a type of jig to hold the top wire/hook steady, then they pour. Some of my customers use pretty elaborate set-ups others just use a bent paperclip. in some molds that dont have the hook coming out from the bottom( which would be the top from were you pour from) the hook is cut into the mold and is held steady that way. The seam line is do to making the bait mold easier and cheaper to make. they cut half in one side and half in the other, this also makes it easy to pull the bait out. for example the bull dog you would never be able to pull out of the mold with out breaking it do to the tail and bottom fin, plus the hooks on the top fin and nose are supported in that mold between the 2 halfs. the smaller baits don't need the paper clip trick to hold the wire in.

You dont you buy them from him as the molds are very expensive, and its much cheaper to buy those baits then to build them. but I am sure if you came up with 8-10k andy would let me sell you one if I split it with him. I designed those baits for him off a picture of a sucker fish, one mold weighs 47lbs on the really big one

just take a piece of flat stock and clamp it to the one piece mold. if its a vent problem use a hacksaw to cut vents into the mold.

Naw it doesnt bother me that people post ,everyone is entitled to thier own opinion comments. doesnt butt hurt me at all as long as they are truthfull like the above is. I would never cover up the fact that I am late on some molds, as we do them as fast as we can with the one machine we have. we have no clue what will sell and when. we make molds 7 days a week just when you think you have stock something else sells out. bottom line if in doubt call my shop number 623-931-9405 April always answers if she isnt on the line. or you can get ME by emailing del-mart@cox.net For the record, I dont believe in deleteing anyones post especially off topic posts as off topic posts are usually the good informational ones. Rules are Dumb on a forum except for porn.

Lots of people do that with pretty good success. You might get a dimple in the plastic on the flat side, however if you do take a piece of scotch bright and some wd-40 and scuff the flat piece up a tad. the reason for this is plastic shrinks when its cool, on something flat it has nothing to hold it from shrinking( really mean "keeping it stuck to the flat surface). when you scuff up the side you give it something to addhear to. Now its not going to stick were you have to pull it off so don't worry about that it will be kinda like a stick mold with ribs in it were the plastic can adhere to every groove/scuff mark in three places were as if its smooth it will slide off the top. Hope that makes sence. if not look at a stick bait and imagine every rib is a scratch see who you have more surfaces to grab/hold on to the side.? I have made molds with a mirror finish, basically polished them every groove every knook and cranny, this is fine for injection but hell for hand pouring, as you see dimples in wide smooth areas. Like a stick molds egg sack is a good example. polish to a mirror finish and you will get a dimple every time.

Best guess the backing line is too thick, (happens on bait casters also) the power pro will foolow inbeteen the gooves of each wind on the back. if the backing ist exteamly tight and even the braid will dig in causing the power pro (braid) to fill in there pushing to one direction. I havent had good luck with backing on a spinning reel unless it was 10lbs test or less. and I have used 20lb test but it is sunline sniper and its very very thin.

Bondo molds work the best for most beginners ( for 2 piece and even one piece molds). you can start pouring after a couple of hours instead of waiting a day or 2.

Try del-mart@cox.net or you can call the shop that always works best I didnt check the email yet today and after 12noon yesterday, just getting ready to. I been on a custom order for 2 weeks ate up lots of machine time. delw

Yes you have to use the hand injector, That janns net craft sells for around 9 bucks.

Gunny you have to attach the skirt just like they do at yamamoto. dip the head into hot plastic and hold for a couple of secs. orfuse them with a hot knife/soldering iron. Now these are single skirts not doubles. I only have 5 double skirt molds out to one guy and he got them a week ago. the singles are everywhere, someone should pipe in on how they work a double skirt is what yamamoto has, when you cut it in half its a single.

There pretty simple actually (some of them are) the ones from reaction inovations are very difficult as they use a different type of plastic and its injected. for the most part the scum frog is also injected if I remember correctly. we have some hollow ones and some other cool hollow baits you can pour, that will more than likely be online around december january. pouring them will never get them as thin as injecting them however.

If your using a 1 cup pan(whatever size pan your useing), only fill it a 1/4-1/8 of the way. Rather than typing out a lengthy responce to the reasoning run to your kitchen grab a glass. fill it to the top with water. try to pour a small stream. then fill it 1/4 full and do the same. I made a pos about it before. somewhere

you can reheat as many times as you want. the whole key is that you dont reheat the plastic by itself. the proper way to reheat plastic is to break it in small chunks and put it in a fresh batch of already cooked plastic., doing it this way you wont have color change problems.

Unless you have a sta-warm pot or a good pot with a good wrap around heat band prefferably digital you will get hot spots in the pot. Lee pots, presto pots all heat in a certain area only the thermostats are cheap and dont really work on these that good. believe it or not a microwave will give you better results on white with the exception of re heats as long as you mix every 30 seconds.

The problem with white is unless you have a good heating element and pot your going to pretty much have problems. if your white is coming out bad then all the colors are burning you just dont realize it until you run white. heres some things you can do to help. add heat staiblizer every 15-30 mins( thats the smoke your seeing is the heat stabilizer burning off) make sure you have a automatic mixer ( very important) as it will constantly mix the plastic that is touching the elment parts. if your using salt lets say in stik baits DONT use worm oil or scents, the UV inhibators that they put in worm oil doesnt last like it does in the plastic. it will turn yellow after a while. no scents if you still have problems or can't do the above, ad 1/2 to 1 drop of black or dark blue to the pot. the dark color makes the white stand out better and longer. bottom line if your while baits turn color and you are just using plastic(no scents) your burning it.Turn DOWN the heat There is no other reason.

what hurt basstrix is basstrix themselves with the way there sellers were making you buy them. guys in AZ said screw basstrix cause they way there sellers treated you and bought other similair baits. tackleshops here sell basstrix style baits 10-1 compared to basstrix brand. not due to being cheaper as they arent that much cheaper. The basstrix style baits is heavily used in tourny's here in AZ, everyone has one tied on, most tournies are won using them in AZ. like most baits you will catch all sizes of fish, the basstrix style will get you bigger fish but not as many. Remember in a a tourny you only need 5 fish =5 bites, your not fishing for the most fish. Reaction fish will generally get you bigger fish. ( with the exception of carolina rigging) swimbaits at least in AZ are the number one bait for big fish and tourny wins, it use to be jerkbaits but for some reason the swimbaits have taken tat over bigtime.

exactly what riplip said, with that thin of material good luck, use a jig saw/saber saw or a band saw. if you use a hand held jig/saber saw sandwitch the metal between 2 pieces of wood for a better cut

use a burr bit, go at a slow speed and you must saturate the bit and the mold with oil or a coolant. Wd-40 works very well on alum. less flutes the better however you will get a rough finish and a bumpy ride alot of flutes will give you a better finish and run smoother on yoru hands. rememeber GO SLOW like half speed or less and lots of oil

Gary every screw has a certain drill size that is used. most can be found on the internet. searching for drill sizes for screws or screw drill sizes drill size charts etc etc one thing to keep in mind is always have the size of the drill no smaller than the minor of the thread, maybe 10% bigger. when your drilled hole is smaller in dia. then the minor dia. of the screw thats what cause splitting A minor is the part part on a thread that doesnt have the cuts in it. or the bottom of the "V" of the screw. hope that makes sence.

think about it just in rent and utilities your looking at about $20 bucks per hour for most rent places. if someone pouring baits can't charge $45 an hour labor the system isnt working and your better off working for someone. too many times people discount the fact that they are using ther own time, property, electrical etc etc. what happens is eventually it catches up with you, you will get tired of doing it cause your not making any money, or you will start to see in 3-5 years that your just getting by but barely. I have seen this happen to way too many guys over the years, they charge way way to little for baits, yeah they are selling a ton of them and are real popular with everyone except there wife trying to pay bills. what happens if you decide to take the next step and rent a place cause your really busy and teh wife says enough. if your not charging at least $45 bucks an hour, you wont be able to pay your bills. so now your back to the house and making a mess. its always easy to lower your prices its hard to raise them. plus dont forget you need to invest money to make money, so why give it away for free cause when that tool your using breaks or wears out will you have the money(from the bait pouring business) to buy a new one or will it cut you short? remember the worst thing you can do is going into business to make friends/people happy by selling stuff cheap. your friends don't pay your bills. one of the other things to consider is DONT pour for friends unless they pay full price, as if they don't pay full price or always want a deal they are not friends they are just useing you cause you have something they want.

Bountiful Waters I see what your saying, your already counting in shop time. yeah you don't want to put that on top of hourly time also. lots of people forget that you have electricity costs, parts that wear out clothes to clean, space to make the product in etc etc.(over head) if you sell at exactly what it cost to make them then your already loosing money and wasting your time. I was assuming most guys dont have a shop rate for pouring. I wouldnt pour anything for less than $45 per hour shop time + plastics scents etc etc and if its your own product and your selling add %30 on top of that for profit, thats what you sell them for. then you look at the market, if lets say yamamoto is selling a bag of senkos for 7 bucks you should be at the same price if not with in a dollar. its foolish to sell something at %50 less than what others are selling as your just ripping yourself off. custom colors should be same price or higher. when selling to shops that sell your stuff then you need to come down from the public price.

Bags are the biggest cost in making baits and so is advertisement. buy enough plastic that you will use in 1-2 months at one time buy enough colors that you will use in 6 months buy enough glitter and hilites that will last you a year buy everything in bulk. if you dont charge you own labor for making baits your basically screwing yourself why should your labor be free? no one else's is. you aso have to look into things like. more molds thats a really easy one to miss. look at it this way you have one mold, you pour let it sit to cool, take out baits, reheat plastic, pour again. for someone using a 2 cup pryrex its a few molds, for someone using a gallon or bigger plastic holder its more molds. if you had enough molds to pour and by the time your last pour is finished your first pour is ready to take out(cooled) thats esentually how you want ot be set-up. think about it. its takes 1-10 mins for a mold to cool, you can mour how many baits in 1-10 mins if you had the molds, then look at getting a pouring something to hold more plastic to pour faster. its a never ending dilema on what to to.

Scents work just as good. the only problem with scents is if you have a scent that has a tint the worms wont look bright and shinny