robalo01

Would want to use a solvent based substance in an oven? As I understand it ou are painting and then baking is that right?

Google these: "D&J plastic fishing lures" They have a website, but they also sell some stuff that's not on there. They might make them. Great people. or "Southern Plastics" Doesn't have a website, but they make a lot of varieties of fishing products. Good prices. Service is ... well you eventually get what you order, just be patient.

I go to local print shop that has a color lazer printer and print 12x18 sheets of sticker paper (used for posters). The background is a dark color and I leave tiny white blocks next to de diferent models (7.5" ribbon tail, 4" craw, etc) and larger block to write in the number of pieces. One label works for everything. Each page costs me about $.80 and I get 27 4"X3"(more or less) lables out of each sheet. M

Un update oin what I've learned so far... 1. Dave was absolutely right about the mixing issue. It does much better when you whip it up into a lather. The texture is more consistent and the final product is much harder. 2. I made a couple new molds and this time I parted the lure on the horrizontal axis so that when I pour the foam, it is in the same position that i want it to dry in. It makes it easier to hang the ballast and set the wire harness when you can just close the top when finished pouring. you still have to share the mold around a little bit to get the sides coated before it begins to expand. We'll see in the long run if i'd rather deal with the set up or with the line it makes across the sides. 3. I tried paining the inside of the mold before adding the foam and seeing if it would prime the lure as suggested in a thread about 5 years ago, but I wasn't really happy with the results. The paint didn't adhear the bait very well and ti craked in a few places. I tried it two or three time and gave up. Then I tried adding some white pigment to the A part of the foam before pouring and it turned a light bone color. Better than the brown color it normally turns. It's drying now. I'll see how it turns out in the morning. 4. From the beginning I've wanted to cast a lure that had the bill integrated in the body -- where the bill is made of the same foam as the body. I had just about given up on the idea since the buills kept snapping off without much effort. Then I asked the question here about "blades for bills" and got a few ideas. Since I hadn't made a mold for integreting the blade-bill yet, I just stuck a #2 colorado blade in the cavity of the bill thinking I would just scrape off the foam and give it a test before making a new mold. Tha foam actually swallowed up the blade. The blade is imbedded in the foam and it streagthed it enough where I think it's going to work. Then I thought about cutting off o piece of the popsickle stick that I'm using for mixing and fitting it into the buill cavity. It works pretty well. The foam adhears extremely well to the wooden stick and the stick provide the streagth I needed. So, if you can imagine, the bill is a piece of popsickle stick coated with foam. 5. Another thing I wanted to do was to make some torpedo-type lures. The problem is that you really need to use screweyes to attach the propand screweyes don't hold well in foam. The solution that I am testing is imbedding a couple of plastic faceted beads in the tail of the bait, alligning them in the mold with a screw eye that theards well in their hole. The screweye holds really well in the beads, I just don't know who well the beads will hold in the lure. I'll let you know how it turned out in a coupl of days. That's all for now. Stephen Robalo01

This is great excample of how the rules keep everything clean and the discuccions stay on technical issues. Thanks, rules!

I think I'll try it this weekend with a silicon mold and polyeurothane foam.

Anyone ever tried using a colorado or indiana spinner blade for a bill? It seem like it would help a little with the ballast, it is reflective to give a little sparcle to bait and it's perferated so it could be held witha screw or the hole would help the glue hold it in place. It would have to be flattened out I suppose.

After about 19 attempts I reached a density/hardness that I'm happy with. The next step is to add the vent holes starting as small as possible and continuing until the bait maintains the consistancy and doesn't deform. I did think about the split shot thing. I just thought I might circumvent a step and at the same time lower the center gravity of the bait. It worked. I just don't know if I can consistently place the balast in the same place. Anyway, I made some good progress. I'll have to put it away now till next weekend.

Thanks for info. You guys always come through for me. I did some more tests this morning and each time, the results get better. I made a pretty hefty RTV mold with a wooden box to hold it tight. So far I'm not venting it. I'm trying to determine the right amount of foam to put in. (reducing the number variables) I'm measuring the mix with a seringe. I have produced a couple of products approaching the density that I want. It still seems a bit light. I'm going to try to add some buck shot and let the lure cure in a strategic position to se if I can weight it al in one step. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, the silence speaks volumes. Nobody uses this stuff?

Well, I bought some polyurothane foam today. Pretty cheap. about US$40 for a two gallon kit (1 galon each part). I did a quick test with a old RTV mold I had liing aroung and I'll have toi say, so far a little disapoiunted. The samples I was shown were picture frames and crown molding and they were sturdy and had tight cells. What I tested is brittle and has larger cells. I plan on calling for support in the morning, but does anybody here have any experience with this stuff? All the threads I found on it were pretty old and are probably out dated.

Chamberbaits, I tried to PM you but you're full. Could you send me the FM baits info to noladdlang@yahoo.com. Thanks.

Yes. The top 10% paying 72% sounds more reasonable than top 2% paying 98%. It's still high though. I know I pay my part. You think matbe high profile people (the very rich) are targeted more by the IRS more and would be less likely to get away with flying under the radar?

I think that particular statistic is skewed a bit. It refers to only income tax. So many people don't pay income tax due to deductions, low income, unemployed, or they simply skip it, that those who do pay disproportionately. I would think if you factor in payroll tax (there is a cap on that, so I would assume it would have to afect the stat), excsize tax(nobody is exempt from this) gasoline, sales, property, etc, the number would be very different. However, the entities that pay the most taxes are businesses, because they are easy targets. No one feels sorry for them, you can raise and raise the rates whiout much uproar from the public or politicians getting voted out of office. In many circles raising taxes on business is "looking out for liittle guy". The people on the board are smart enough to know that businesses don't really pay taxes at all. They either raises their prices and pass the cost on to the consumer, cut costs in a way that inevitably results in job loss, reduce investment that leads to less growth, or simply get taxed out of business. The biggest difference between a business and an individual is that we as persons have a survival instinct. We long to live and are willing to keep working under any condition in order to keep out family fed. Businesses can simply fold and sink into our memories. And businesses don't vote.

Well, since the topic has changed to foriegn aide, I suppose the free trade argument is settled. Good debate.

Well, I would have to disagree that NAFTA is the biggest Amercan screw up. I can probably name a few much bigger ones, but talk about hitting nerves... Believe it or not, if you exclude oil, Mexico STILL has atrade deficit with the US. More products are brought into Mexico from the US, that exported to the US. I do some work for the Kansas City Southern (rail-road) and one of their problems is that train cars have to be sent back to the USA empty. The EXACT same arguments made about NAFTA on the part of Americans is being made by the Mexicas. They say they're having trouble competing with big American agricultural congloimerates killing agriculture in Mexico; that more and more farmers are losing their jobs and turning to drug crops because of US subsidies. According to them, it's just not fair that they have to compete with highly efficient, state-of-the-art farming techniques when all they have is a 30-year-old Jonh Dere and a couple of mules. BUT, that's the free market. The people who figure out how to make it cheaper, better, or to the greatet satisfaction of the customer, win the game. Ironic, isn't it? Another argument being made is that big American corporations come down here, take advantage of the cheap labor, resources and then take ALL the profit back the USA. Neither are very good arguments, any more than those brought on the State Side. Bottom line -- competition is a killer, and just claiming "but it's not fair," sounds as empty as the Mexican farmer's John Dere and 2 mule argument. Of course it's not fair! And I don't ever want it to be fair. When you study economics, you learn that all enterprise is based on "inefficiencies". You buy in bulk, sell by the piece. Some may say it's not fair that you get a better price just because you are willing to buy in greater volume, but that's how it works, some people take advantage of their particular positions. Open markets, by their very nature, expose otherwise unpercieved inefficiencies. Competition, in the end, forces innovation, efficiency, and, ultimatly, advances in standards of living for everyone involved; but, this is at the expense of those who had been depending on these inefficiencies artificially prevailing. In the end, more of us bennefit from driving cheap cars than making them expensively. As a society, we have to define what we can truly do better that any other and compete with that advantage. Frankly, cheap labor is beneath us, or should be. We should be competeing in technology products that require a labor force with our level of education, exposure to knowledge and high-tech equipment. It is the American ingenuity that will put us back on top of things. We have to, once again, find out WHY we believe are are better than any other country. Just being born there doesn't cut it. Interesting topic.

From my experience, wages are the biggest factor. I consult for a few international companies that manufacture here, some from the US and most of them are very responsible with environmental standards. You have to undersatnd something about the business environment here. The government is very strict here with all kinds of things from environmental hazards to personnel safety and the like, but only with "fromal" companies. That is to say, when a company like Culprit manufactures here, the government controls very closely their practices. Many smaller conpanies, on the other hand, are very irresponsible, the government has practically no contol over them. The "cottage" industry is hardly regulated at all. Some smaller US operations take advantage of this and do es Del talked about, smuggling things back and forth. But this is just not feasible for large manufacturers.

Well, since you asked a couple of questions, let try to answere them for you. 1. Nobody is sayng that Americans should NOT have a well paying job. but, the fact is that we can't continue to demand high wages for processes that don't require high level of skills and participate in a global economy. Eventually we need to put our education to use. And most of the people on this site do. 2. Actually, imported produts are cheaper than Amercian products in most cases where they require labor intensive manufacturing. Just do a simple comparison. I know. For example Zebco isn't selling its reels any cheaper now that they are made in China. But they probably would have had to raise their prices consierably and maybe gone out of business if they hadn't. 3. I voted absentee in the US election.

Well, guys. I pour soft plastics in Mexico FOR the M

I'm in Monterrey, Mexico, and allthough noone that I know of pours plastics, other than me, for local consuopmtion, there are a few export rigs set up down here. They do a temporary import of the materials, pour the stuff by hand and then export EVERYTHING (by law) that they import. Thay keep ther methods pretty close to their lapel, but, the ither day I ran into a guy that used to work for one of them. I'll refrain from giving out the brand here. He said that when they hand-pour 1-part molds: 1. The mold they use is very large -- maybe 36"X36" and has several dozen cavities. 2. They slightly pre-heat the molds 3. They pour the hot plastic generousely over the entire mold. 4. They use a "squeegy" (SP) to scrape off the eccess plastic from over the cavities. 5. Then, proceed to a different mold while the first one cools. Has anybody heard of or use this method?

Do you need a release for this?

About how much will a zorn injection machine set you back?

I am a registered user. How do I become a paying member?

I use vasaline when making a two-part mold, and silicone oil for a mold release about every 10-12 casts. Seem to work fine, but may not work with that particular brand.