castmaster

Hi, my name is Brent, and I am an addict. Its been many years since my last confession... 39 years old from Hastings MN. Do a lot of fishing for walleyes and smallmouth on the Mississippi River and Muskies wherever and whenever I can. Build topwater wood musky lures under the name Musky Maven. I love handcrafted wood musky baits and have been fortunate enough to learn things from those that have come before me. Try to share when I can, and am always happy to do so if I am able.

Bob, Do you think dipping in water based Polyurethane instead of oil based Poly would make any difference? Baits are painted with Createx and Auto Air. I've only used Createx and Auto Air paints, what would be a brand of clear acrylic that should be compatible with those that I could spray over the lettering? Thanks!

Each year I do a limited edition numbered run of Musky topwater lures and always sign and 3 them with a gold Pilot ink/paint pen(one of the ones where you have to shake it up some and then depress the tip 3-4 times to start the ink flowing) In the past I used D2T for a topcoat but have since switched to dipping in polyurethane. Now the lettering on some of the test lures is running from the poly, while other test lures are jsut fine. All were lettered at the same time so have had the same amount of drying time. Has anyone else had a problem with Pilot pen running when dipping in poly? Does anyone know of a way to seal the lettering that wont make it run and will be compatible with the poly topcoat?

The Auto Air seems to dry better for me. With Createx some of the colors seem to stay somewhat tacky even have they have been thoroughly dried. Also seems to spray a little better at low psi.

"When you

clothes pins or those spring clamps work great. Anotehr option is to get a cheap embroidery hoop and stretch your netting/lace whatever over that. If your doing a whole bait or full side etc it's easiest to wrap your netting around the bait and secure with clothes pins/clamps. If you just want to add teh scale to small areas for highlighting its best to use the embroidery hoop. At least thats what I've found.

I've been spending the extra $$ and buying at my local hardware store. Costs me an extra $1.50 a pack, but its much better/fresher stuff. The ones at my local Wal-Mart are already VERY yellow in the syringe and end up wrecking any baits with light colored (especially pearl) paints by yellowing the clear coat. The ones from Wal-Mart also seem to mix up thicker and not go on as easy.

Any of you ever tried one of those Cri-cut stencil cutting machines? How about using a laser printer with special film to "print" stencils?

Q tips will be on there way this week Mark. Your more than welcome

Mark, Shoot me a PM with your address. I've got a couple hundred of the hollow plastic q-tip shafts lying around here. I cut off the tips to use as hook guards when I ship baits. I use them for stir sticks when mixing small amounts of paint and epoxy, but have far more than what I'll use. Would be happy to send you some for free so you can see if they work for what your trying or not.

I guess someone got something warm and yellow instead of cold and white in their cornflakes this morning!!

Is the Nu Lustre 55 something thats available at hardware stores or does it need to be mail ordered?

Etch, I'm using D2T on my topwaters now. Is there enough advantage to the Nu Lustre to warrant switching over? I havent found any problems so far with my D2T coated lures, but I've only been making/fishing them for 3 seasons now, so maybe there will be longer term issues? Just so much about topcoats out there hard to know what is needed, whats overkill, whats "Ford vs Chevy" etc! D2T has worked well for me and so I am hesitant to change something thats been working.