Delw

I would love to buy one of those machine. but there is no such machine that I know of since the head will always be at different positions depending on the tool length, holder length etc. plus some people cut on parts right on the table and some people have a vise on the table which is above the table by anywwere from 2-5 inches and in some case's more. Limit switches and over travel alarms are so the ball screw doesn't travel farther than the table, basically ramming the ball nut into the table damaging the ball screw and ball nut. there is no machines that have a limit to stop the tool in head from hitting the table, since you can put in different lengths of tools there is no way to control it. you also can't control that if a head is down in the table cutting and all of a sudden its makes a rapid move 10"s to the right or left hitting the head on the end of a vise. this would be all in programming. BTW even in a over travel the machine will still read the number and fly over there, when it hits the over travel switch it will kill the table, but the momentum will still cause it to hit the table in most case's, luckly most new machines have a clutch system built into it for sudden impacts and not hurt the ball screw's Unfortunatly I can honestly say I have seen the worst crashes in the history of machines, having had employees when we had our areospace shop many years ago. but not to blame the employees for everything, I probally have the best crash in history. a Brand new hitachi seiki machine with every option 3 weeks old valued at around 180k, no one new how to run it, I played with it at night every night when the boss's weren't around. after a big meeting on why no one can run this machine, My neighbor blurted out that I could run it as I ran it every night on some rc race car wheels ( yeah he was doing e a favor), well I got called into the office and was asked/told to finish a job, no problem I did. then was asked to set the next job up. we'll it seems that the owner wanted to see how fast the machine would cut with ceramics ( 1990) and asked me to crank the speed up beyond belief under those conditions. After saying I wasnt to certain about it, he said you don''t have enough experiance to know anything about this machine just do it. ok I was already under enough stress LOL so I did. when I hit the button the machine ran to 5000 rpms instantly unfortunately the bar in the back of the machine came loose by the chuck and went out of balance walking out the back end. this caused the 9000lb machine to go approx 2-3 feet straight in the air and turn side ways, sending the bar through the concrete roof making a nice nick in it. My friend who had a big mouth and told the owners I could run it had just walked by the back of the machine, 10 seconds later he would have been killed. I walked outside never saying a word smoked 2 packs of cigarettes then got in my truck and went home. I showed up when they closed to survey the damage. OUCH Since we were a full fledge machine shop everything from chrome plating to grinding and them some. and it was a 3 day weekend just starting, I decided to have this machine up and running by tuesday morning. I rebuilt and balance the actuator, spindle ,hose ,sheet metal and everything else that was done in the damage. put it all together and had balance problems. monday morning I was working and the owner came in and was pretty shocked. we discussed the balance problems and and figured a service call or a phone call could tell us how to fix it. by tuesday it was running production around 11am. 6 months later we had huge layoffs, I was just a hand mill and lathe guy, dalso doing grinding and plating and all mechanic work. I was the last one called into the office, I was givin a $11 and hour raise and put in charge of the shop unofficially(owners son was officially the boss). Thats was my punishment. Then to make it worse I did service calls for the local company who sold Hitachi here in the valley and some programming training and demos. Delw

rocklinx figure machines shops getting 60-120 bucks and hour. figure 4-6 hours min from start to finish. that will put you in the ball park.

autocad wont generate code for a machine, so a machine can't check it. everything from acad, needs to go through a dxf file,iges ext than exported to a cad-cam program to generate code.

Not trying to knock anyone but cad files from other people are a tricky thing, most machine shops won't trust someone else's cad file to run on there machines. one mistake and you caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to the machines. I personally never use someone else's cad file or cam file to run in my machines, of cource if they gave me a $100,000 certified check I might think about it , this way if my machine crashes I can buy another one fairly quickly. I have had customers send them to me to use for there baits but I redraw everything based off that data, so the time factor doesn't really make too much difference. Am I perfect no, but at least I know that if I crash it and ruin it, its my fault and not someone else's anybody can get and draw a cad file anymore , there are so many programs out there that are easy to use and fairly cheap. They are a lot better to get than a paper drawing as they are all 3 dimensionable. Lastly the other problem rise's that if there is a mistake in that file unless I have the program I can't fix it, also every programmer programs differently and every cad software programs differently.

we didn't get our wires crossed I did LOL yes I wouldnt inject the foam into the plastic, if you get one of those cheese grater type files for drywall you can shape foam pretty good. I am restoring a bass boat and when I shot the foam I found one of the cheese grater type files and it cuts cured foam extreamly fast. thats a very good idea as well. it might be cheaper to cause foam isnt that cheap to begin with and then you have the mess of shaping it and making a molds for it. with balsa you can chuck a nail in a drill chuck, stick the balsa wood in the nail, grab a course file and cut it down to what you want

I didnt mean use it as a mold, use it as flotation, it would never work as a mold as it is too porous. but stuck in the top part of a swimbait it would make it float.

Oh man the possibilities are endless with that stuff. I wonder if door jam foam will work with soft plastic? I think I have a can laying aournd somewere Might have to try it next time I pour.

lead with RTV molds, that sounds dangerous especially for a 2 piece mold. you will never get a RTV 2 piece mold to go together perfectly its to soft and moves a lot. Bondo works good for lead molds

TJ I didnt test it, he just asked me to make one so I did. He hasnt said anything about it yet and I have talked to him a few times. with the line pulling up at a almost 90 degree angle to the insert, it might swim real funny or not at all.. I should talk to him next week If I remember I will ask him. What about a wire frame for an insert and a stinger hook on the top? I tried an RTV baby"e" and couldnt get it to swim worth a darn, I am guessing cause it didnt mold right and was a little lopside I didnt do a 2 piece with RTV is was a single piece the fins were really distorted.

No thats a separate mold, I made on for a guy like that. Your the second person that ever asked for that too.

Heres a link to some swimbait cost http://www.usacproshop.net/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=310 Bass fishing is a big money business, cause if someone thinks they can win they will spend a lot of money to do so.

Pete, Bass guys are far worse than salt water fishermen, I've seen them drop $1000 in swimbaits in one shot. It mainly has to do with the record book guys and the tourny guys. I know guys that buys every basstrix they can, to the point they are ordering every other day and have been for the last 2 months. Will a swimbait catch you bigger fish than a worm? NO! matter of fact it can't even be proven. but when people think they can have an edge they will buy it. Why do you think Basstrix are so popular? A friend of mine has some custom wooden swim baits he paid around $400 each. osprey swimbaits run around $25 each. its all plastic with a cheesy weight and hook in it. Swimbaits are pretty popular here and in CA they are extreamly popular and have been for a lone time. the problem making molds for swimbaits is they take a lot of time and a lot of material especially when your making a 12" trout swimbait, then some guy want scales put in them and thats just hundreds of thousands or lines of code which equals machine time. that one mold cost $1100 and he didn't bat an eye when he paid for it. To justify buying a mold, any mold for that matter you have to look at it as a tool. you really can't count the price of the mold in for the price of the baits. Besides Aluminum molds last pretty much for ever. Look at it this way would you be able to buy a $40,000 - $60,000 used machine just to run molds bait molds and be able to survive? I've been doing this for about 6 years now and if it wasn't for my aerospace jobs there would be no way I could afford to keep on making molds. Thats why machine shops charge very high prices for machine work. Because there "TOOLS" cost a heck of a lot of money, and don't forget there is a big price in material as well.

Jeff, yes and no, yes meaning they are done, no meaning I'm not 100% happy with it. Thats ok I ran out of stock of the weekend anyhow so I have to order stock tomorrow. Bigbass, I don't mention prices on this website, when they are avail. it will be in the store.

Theres really nothing to make a tutorial out of unless you make the bait from scratch. and show a tutorial on pouring the bait. using the mojo weights is as simple as pulling the insert out of the store bough bait and sliding a new mojo in it the problem is it will slip out so the only thing left to do to make it work is to get the weight very hot, dip it in plastic and shove it in the old insert hole. the lead weights from the mold are the same shape as the alum ones, so you can just pop it out of the org. one and slip it back in . since it is shaped the same it will not slip out.

The mojo weight wont make the plastic crack, what happens is that a mojo weight is smooth and round, there is nothing for it to grab/lock it in place. so when you make a cast or get a fish on or even stretch it , it will come out. They work very good if you cut grooves in it, the bigger the groove the longer it will last in the bait. of course a small cut or groove in the mojo weight won't be as good as a big groove,

Bojon, make sure you buff the grinding marks out other wise the plastic will stick to the Alum.

Mike I've used the kitchen knife for dipping, had to grind on a few spots to get the tail right. you might want to use Alum if your going to dip it from start to finish, as the stainless will hold the heat in making longer cycle times in between dips, at least the kitchen knife did vs a alum plate. Also this is very important when you cut or grind your knife/plate make sure you polish the edges and have no shart angles, this will make it a lot easier to pull it out when your finished. Remember that hole in the tail is about 10x smaller than the widest part of the body. also found its easier to pull the knife out when your bait is still warm or in Arizona's case set them in the 100º sun for a few mins. the plastic will stretch much better.

Oh yeah forgot to add, if using a mojo weight you need to cut some grooves in it so it won't slip. a vice and a hacksaw should work. A band saw would work pretty good also just watch the fingers, the grooves will allow the plastic to form around and in them so they don't slip

Get some rc car antena tubbing and use that instead, I posted how to use it in another thread. For weighted inserts have a mold built/or buy one and pour your own out of lead. We have them but they ain't online yet as I am waiting for some more blanks before I put them online the ones I have now are spoken for. if your looking for a different type of insert design one find a machine shop to run a high quanity 500-1000 even 5000-10,000 pcs the price is a big difference. buy in quanity and you cut your price in half Delw

The thickness of a kitchen knife. in all the 4 5 and 6" baits, matter of fact the inside of the bait if you cut it open carfully is pretty close to the same shape as a kitchen knife. for painting stuff your best bet is to talk to the guys on the crankbait forum, they are artist when it comes to painting with detail. Delw

Some of you guys want to dip them, I forgot to mention( in the first page posts) instead of going to a machine shop and getting an insert made for the tail shape, or wasting lots of time molding one you can very easily do it yourself in a few minutes. if you look at the tail you will see its nothing more than the shape and size of a colorado spinner bait blade, fabricate this into your knife , braze it, solder it or what ever and you have it done. spinner bait blades are pretty darn cheap. You can goto the stanima website and look under colorado blades and see what I am talking about, there are a lot of different sizes as well, so if you want a 6" size tail on a 4" size bait just get the right blade. Most of the blades I have on my spinner baits are cupped, I don't know if stanima's blades are cupped. you also can use a bigger blade so the plastic doesnt form around the blade when dipping. the 4" bass trix bait has a tail of about 1 1/16" the 5" bass trix bait has a tail of about 1 1/8" the 6" bass trix bait has a tail of about 1 3/16" these are close but not dead on as every tail varies on the org. bait about 1/16" of an inch and more due to the bait is dipped.

Are any of the vent holes plugged up? you don't really have to heat the molds up. If the bad spots are in the same place look to see if you plastic is steaming. if its smoking or steaming and the bad spots are in the same place then its due to gassing. You can try to tilt the mold one way or another, but generally running a little cooler plastic will fix it. If the bad spots are in different spots every time then this would be The pourers error. you might have to pour fast maybe slower then faster, you might not have enough vloume or too much volume. When pouring baits and having problems try to be specific as possible. The plastic hard soft and med will all pour differently,m and give different results and problems in different molds. always give any additives you are adding into it. be specific on were the problem occurs etc. ( left leg right leg, top nose etc.)

What type of frog is it? what type of mold is it? Alum pop rtv?

yup with the cupped tail too

What sizes do you want ? they will be avail up to 8" long over the weekend