Delw

The preston pot heats from the bottom, you will have to mix the plastic no matter what you use or do. Your best bet is sand from what everyone tells me that has used it. anything that you put in there for a media will need to be a very fine grain like sand. alum brass metal of any sort will not pack right getting air into the media allowing it to cool faster and not keep a constant tempature. it will act as a big giant heat sink drawing heat away from what you need to heat. DONT use mason jars they are not a tempered glass and will/ could explode. in all honesty get a few pots and have a mixer for each one, that will be your best bet.

those are really cool

Nature of the best, a few things you can do is add less salt use a coarser salt maybe some fine sand add less colorant. one other thing and I only bring this up cause another customer told me it worked too recently. A few years ago on this forum I mentioned a trick I have learned from a manufacturer. and that was to cook you plastic with salt let it harden up , then shred it in a shredder and recook it ( cook the salt in clear plastic). seems when you recook it the salt weight stays there but its more dissolved. like I said I had forgot albout this and really didnt know if it worked until recently when someone told me it did. mayeb someone could try and it let us know what happens?

we put the dipping stiks on hold for a while early last month, tied up the machine and couldnt get anything else done. we do have a mold for them that you do pour in through the nose. just like a stick mold and other 2 piece molds. Has the cupped tail and is hollow through the tail. pretty much looks just like the real thing. They don't have a slit through the belly that you have to redip to close. you can paint them and redip them if you wish or you can just pour them and use them like what comes out of the mold. They are not on the shopping cart yet because I don't have enough stock yet. Delw

Jd i believe they draw the line at 750 bucks a year you would have to double check however. I know there is a limit just dont remember the exact amount. it has been posted on this forum in the past

look at the sticky just above this thread there is a whole list of colors Delw

A oven on a flat rack is always best so you don't get warpage and it doesnt mess the alum up( if you get alum too hot the baits will stick to the mold). if you must use a hot plate put a piece of steel or alum on it first then teh mold on the top.

I wouln't advise it, an residue from the detergent will oxidize the alum. get a can of mineral spirits and a tooth brush and wipe them down.

I would be interested if I could swing it, I will be just getting back from a gathering of sorts in tx at Lake amistad march 26-30

Dropshotting on the west coast is very popular with 6-10" fat worms, flukes, 6+ " inch senkos. I alway have a dropshot rod hooked up with 17-22 test line 1/2-5/8 oz weight and a 3/0-4/0 hook. in tourny fishing I found you catch more smaller fish with smaller baits then you do with the bigger baits. Still hae caught some pretty small ones but for the amount of time spent its etter to go with really big baits and hit all the spots you can. it only takes 5 fish to win a tourny and sometimes you can do it with 3 fish if the fish are big.

its best if you place it in the mold beofre you pour. then after you pull the cooled bait out trim the ends. then get a nail and it it hot with a ligther. stick it in the hole about 1/16" of an inch. this will flare the ends. if you can get a chamfer tool it will be even better.( single cutting edge chamfer tool is the best for the rv antena's

there are a few ways to do it, depending on the bait and the size,it can be anywere from a wire harness to just a piece of plasic tubing. for example: 316 minnow run a piece of small dia tubing through the nose and out the botom at an angle, this tubing is simply the stuff taht goes on rc car antennas. you run the line through it then attach your treble hook. baby e molds us a insert vs the tubing but still the same concept. line goes through and connects to a treble, the treble has one hook buried into the belly. other molds use a weighted wire harness with an eyelet sticking out the bottom top or both. the trebles are fixed on the harness via a split ring like a crankbait

sta-wam pots will cook your plastic, just most of the guys I have talked to like to precook there plastic in the microwave cause its faster. the pots come from 3 quart to 15 gals, even more. these pots cost around 1k and more,$585 for the smaller modle and thats with out a mixer sta-wrm will advise you to get a mixer from another company I have the name of them somewhere. the reason being is thats all you need for the type of work your going to be doing and its about 30-40% cheaper. but you will have about 1k into each pot and mixer easy going with a sta-warm. Like I said earlier you can go cheaper with a pretone pot. and a mixer is alot cheaper that way also, you could probally build 3 pots and mixers for the price of one set-up from sta-warm. All that being said your going to end up with sta-warm pots if you do this for any length of time due to the fact that you won't have to deal with burning plastic, just leave it and let it set for a few hours if you want and it will be fine. its kinda like any profession you can get buy with the cheap stuff but eventually you will realize the good stuff cost money, snap-on vs chinese tools etc. On the mixer( you could use them on the sta-warm pots as well) the one mbrodie(sp) gave in a post recently is the best for the money, sure it looks crude but you saved 200-500 bucks easy. with pyrex you can pour quite a few baits the only problem is you need to constantly be reheating plastic as you will burn through it very fast. lee pots won't work for high volume and need modificatins to make them work good with glitter and salt. the whole key to pouring succesfully is keeping that plastic mixed, if you buy a pot and not a mixer your wasteing your time as the baits will be all different and you will burn your plastic. buying or making a pot for each color is also a great thing to do, that way you don't have to clean out the pot every time. of course you only do this as money allows no need in breaking the bank to save some extra time. Edit: I forgot to add the stay warm pots have different fittings you can put on the pouring spout for different levels of flow. As far as adding componets, the best way is to premeasure every component you use. for example lets say you have a pot that holds 2 gals. and to make your formula it takes 1 cup of green glitter 1/2 cup of red glitter 5 oz of green pumpkin. make sure you have them in the containers ready to go before you start pouring. make a few containers of red and green glitter and green pumkin. also have you salt and plastic ready to go in the same format. so if you buy items by bulk when you get them divy them up into containers you will use. it boils down to organization

I assumed he wanted to know how to do it, the amount of production he wants is the whole Key, High volume for one could be 1000 baits a week and for others it could man 10000 baits a week, then there are others that it could me 3000-10,000 per day, with quanitiies change the process of doing such a thing.

A couple thousand a week is no problem for hand pouring, on stik baits there are a few things that will make the difference. Stay warm post with mixers are a good idea even prestone pots with mixers will work obvisouly the prestone pots are much cheaper than sta-warm but you get what you pay for. Personally I would go with the prestone pots and use the profits from the baits to buy better equipment. the sta-warm pots won't burn your plastic. I have been told by people doing this that its faster to have someone cook the plastic in the microwave then toss it in the pots to keep it warm while your pouring. then your other expense is the molds, you need enough mold so that from the time you pour you keep pouring till the first mold you pour is hard enough to take the baits out. depending on how fast you pour will depend on how many molds you need. it could be anywere from 30 cavities to 500 cavities. some of my customers do it with one person and others have 2-3 people helping. one cooking plastic one pouring and one taking out the baits. always start off slow and at the least expence then build up as you can. sure it might be more work involved in the begining as you get organized and more equipement it will be much easier Delw

I like it, big legs to keep those kicker paddels in the water, should make some nice water movement.

the tail is about 1/8 - 5/16 thick, very easy to pour

WTP is the place. witch craft tape products I think it is. Delw

your right, it does curl in towards the top fin however if you take a 3-5" dia circle and put it right on top of the bait between the back fin and the back of the body. Then you cut the tail with a razor or sissors from the front not the back. thats what gives the tail the action. so if the bait is 8" long for example it has a 5-6 body with a tail that is 3-4" taller than the body give or take. the dim of the mold are 7-8 long 5 inches tall and 1.5 inchs thick thats just for one half, making it with the tail separate the mold would only be about 2-2.5 inchs tall. then you would fuse the tail on the same way you do skirts on grubs(hot plastic).

thats pretty cool, Now I understand the o-ring deal. couldnt you get a piece of copper pipe that the bait would fit into? Mike. sure a o-ring can be machined into molds thats not a problem., people could even mold them in with pop and Silicon molds as well. I dont know if an o-ring would melt or not when pouring. I think o-rings are pretty high temps.

Woody I have heard this term before what is a wacky tool? do you have a pic or a link? Delw

I forgot all about the text on the shoping cart Thanks for the heads up., we made some small ones (same size as the 5 1/4") when we first did them, then we made them all bigger. about a year later when we started putting eggsacs in the stik baits. we only make the smaller ones if requested. We actually make them in 3 dia the 3rd being a super skinny one. guys at the delta have been using the 7" -10" ones and the 7" t-stiks

those are really cool I saw a post on westernbass a while ago and was thinking of picking one up. WOW the price went up fast and out of my range. your right they are ART , I do know a guy that buys the 300+ dollar ones and actually uses them for fishing. he has quite a few of them also. I personally can't wait till he looses one so I can get it LOL

mine is .450 which shrinks to about 7/16 .437

One of my Friends has been using lee pouring pots for many years. This may or maynot help some of you. (I don't know as I don't use them anymore) Using Lee Production Pots Pouring plastic with pots can be effectively accomplished, providing one simple rule is followed: The user must control the heat in each pot to keep the plastic at the correct temperature without over-heating. To accomplish this, the user must understand how the pot works and what accessories are needed for proper monitoring. How the Pot Works Production pots are heated using a heating coil similar to an electric stove element. This coil is located inside the casing of the pot, about one inch from the bottom. Power to the heating coil is controlled by a thermostatic switch which is located in the case behind the pot, and attached to a user control switch. A common misconception is that the thermostat switch adjusts the power level ( and thus the heat ) supplied to the heating coil. It does not. It simply turns full power on or off to the coil. The control knob on top of the thermostat is used to find the point at which electrical contact is made to supply full power to the coil. The numerical level of the knob for electrical contact can vary from pot to pot. The thermostat senses the radiant heat of the pot and opens or closes the electrical contacts depending on this radiant heat. This is important to understand if the pots are located in a very cold or hot location, as the surrounding air temperature can affect the temperature being sensed by the thermostat, and cause power to be supplied or turned off at incorrect pot temperatures. Having wind or a fan blowing directly on the pots can also affect thermostat operation. The biggest problem facing the user is that he has no way to tell when full power to the heating coil is on or off. Thus, he is always in danger of over-heating the plastic and burning it. With this in mind, I have developed several accessories and procedures to help keep plastic at the correct pouring temperature. Temperature Control Accessories Thermostat Power Light Adding a light to the thermostat power wire will enable the user to always tell whether the pot