BobP

John, both the new water reducable DN (WRDN) and the solvent DN are urethanes that cure after application. WRDN crosslinks via oxygen exposure. Solvent DN crosslinks via moisture exposure. Cured and dry, they are indistinguishable from each other and, without a calibrated scratch resistance test, they both seem at least as scratch resistant as epoxy. In my experience building and fishing hundreds of baits, solvent DN is actually more scratch resistant than the epoxies I've tried (Devcon, Etex, Flexcoat). And the solvent DN has proven just as waterproof. WRDN failed my test because it re-hydrated and softened after significant time underwater. So in real world fishing conditions, I would agree with you that WRDN it is not as durable as epoxy. But would disagree about the solvent DN. I choose either epoxy or solvent DN based on aesthetic choices and ease of application considerations rather than performance. They both work great.

Mike, it doesn't matter on which axis the bait is turned at 6 rpm. All points on the bait will rotate through 360 degrees in either configuration, and that's what counts. While a bait spun at long distance from the axis will move faster, it's not much of a factor at a 1" versus a 6" diameter. My 6 rpm turner works nose over tail and the baits clip to the turner 1" from the axle. I can clip bass baits on as I coat them without turning off the rotation, which is convenient. Tip: put a piece of blue painters tape on the lips if you use alligator clips, for a better grip and so you won't scratch them up.

Epoxy hardens by a chemical reaction between the resin and the hardener. Heat can speed the reaction but it won't be any harder than epoxy that has cured at room temperature, so there's no "baking it on". I've read of putting a lure turner inside a box lined with foil containing a 100W bulb to raise the temp and speed the cure process with Devcon 2 Ton epoxy. How something like that would work with Etex, which is much thinner when brushed, is an open question. Heating an Etex covered bait immediately after coating may cause the epoxy to drip off the bait. Etex also contains solvents. How would that mix with the heating element of an oven? Not well I'd guess.

I used alligator clips. I put blue painter's tape on the lips for better grip and so the clips won't scratch them. The clips I bought at Home Depot fit perfectly on a piece of 1/8" dia dowel rod. I just drilled the axle, stuck dowels through the holes and pushed clips on the ends of the dowels. A little epoxy made everything solid.

Like many custom wood bait makers, I'm offended by the misrepresentations by many sellers of cheap KO's. But in the end, all you can say is Buyer Beware. If a guy want to dude up some crap KO's and buyers are willing to bite at the idea of getting a Lucky Craft or Megabass lure for a few bucks, you just have to write it off as bottom dwellers eating other bottom dwellers. If they're lucky, the eaten will eventually wise up and realize there's NO FREE LUNCH.

If you do a search on Dick Nite, you'll find a long thread on the results of tests that a number of TUers did with it. Some guys reported good results, others reported failures similar to what you are experiencing. I'm not sure anyone can say yet what specific circumstances cause good vs bad results. For myself, I stick with Dick's original moisture cured solvent based topcoat.

If you think the glue is the problem, I suggest a solvent based aerosol glue like 3M General Purpose #45. If you are foiling wood, another possibility is the air in the wood expanding when you heat the bait. It has nowhere to go except under the foil, causing bubbles. To prevent that, you need a solid durable undercoating on the wood before you apply the foil. I put on a coat of epoxy before foiling or painting to avoid that. Personally, I only use a hair dryer to dry paint so I can shoot the next color sooner. Many guys say they use a hair dryer or heat gun to "heat set" Createx but I think real heat setting is melting dry acrylic paint into fabric like a T-shirt and requires lots more heat than you want to apply to a wood bait. JMHO

IMO, a .3mm tip should shoot any Createx paint. I shoot it at 20-40 psi for non-detail work and go down to 10 psi or less only when trying to shoot details with very thin paint. I've tried a few Auto Air colors and to me, it shoots no better than regular Createx. The reason I buy it is to get a particular color not available in the regular Createx line, not for other attributes. It may be better in terms of adhesion or durability but that doesn't seem to be the reason you're considering it. BTW, Createx says Auto Air should be thinned with their 4011 Reducer. Your home made reducer may be similar since the 4011 also smells like alcohol. I have started using the formula using water and Pledge floor polish, which seems to work OK. Better or worse? Not enough experience with either to judge yet.

I started out with a small 60 psi airbrush compressor with auto on/off. It was rather noisy and didn't include an air tank, so it also pulsed air rather than providing a steady air stream. Moved to a small "brad nailer" tool compressor with a 2 gallon air tank and 100 psi. That works OK and the air stream is steady, but it's very noisy and cuts on more often than I like. Here's my bottom line: Next time I'll buy a tool compressor that has the largest tank and most powerful (and quick acting) motor that will fit under my workbench in the garage. It will turn on much less frequently than my 2 gallon compressor and give me more peace and quiet while I'm trying to paint. I'll also be able to use it more often for secondary jobs like airing up tires, driving air tools, etc. Everyone has to decide for himself how much is "enough". Lots of compressors will get the job done, it's mostly about how convenient, quiet, and reliable you want it to be versus what you have to spend on it.

JMHO, life is too short and catching fish is too important to waste time on plastic crankbaits that don't work. Unpainted plastic cranks are SUPPOSED to work properly when painted and hung with appropriate hardware - but you are finding out they don't always do that. I doubt putting oval line ties on them will do anything. Probably the only thing that will is to drill the baits and try varying the ballast weight to see if that's the problem - and that fix depends on whether the baits are otherwise "straight" and were not warped or misaligned when the halves were joined at the factory. It's worth checking to see if all the ballast is free inside the baits and whether they all have the same number and positions for the ballast balls. Predator is good about customer support. I'd contact him about the problem and see what he proposes.

Never heard of Harbor Freight epoxy. I'm surprised you could get 5 min epoxy on the lure fast enough, and I'm surprised it leveled out. Most 5 min epoxies cure too fast, have zero leveling (maybe because it cures so fast) and will turn brown very quickly when exposed to sunlight. While it's true that most liquid epoxy resins are similar, the hardeners can be quite different. Etex has an excellent reputation for durability when used in multiple coats and it is waterproof. Most "30 minute" epoxies, most "rod thread" epoxies, and most "pour-on, bar top, decoupage" epoxies have been used and all of them seem to work well. If you get the right epoxy on the bait, the finish will stay on even if soaked in water for long periods - if the epoxy is not cracked or chipped through to the paint.

X2 on getting rid of rattle can primer. Most are designed to etch metal so solvent based auto enamels will adhere to them. Crankbaits aren't metal and we're not using solvent based paints, except for guys who shoot lacquers. Also, if the primer has not completely out-gassed all of its solvent, that will blister the finish. If you feel the need for something, check into "adhesion promoters" like Bullseye. I don't use it but some do, especially on plastic crankbaits. A thicker epoxy topcoat - e.g, multiple coats of Etex - will go a long way toward preventing damage that will delaminate the finish. I think you will have fewer problems if you try using an epoxy or propionate undercoat/primer/waterproofer (whatever you want to call it) on wood baits.

Assume you're buying the solvent based moisture cured polyurethane DN and not the water borne or the plastic coat topcoats. That's the one that needs help to keep from curing. I order DN by the quart and am still working on the qt I got a year ago. First, don't store the DN in the can it came in. Decant it into several jars that have tops that seal really well and which you can reseal many times. My current favorites are Ball canning jars. The smaller the surface area of DN exposed to air, the better and the less air in the storage container, the better. Buy the Bloxygen and use it religiously - a brief squirt of gas into every jar, every time you close it. Other gases like nitrogen welding gas may work but I haven't tried them. I dip baits exclusively. A couple of tips on that: dip them, take them out and don't hold the baits over the jar to let excess drip back into the container. Just hang them up immediately and all the excess will drip off the tail of the bait. Don't rotate the baits as you would if using epoxy. Letting it drip back into the jar after exposure to atmospheric moisture is not good. The DN on the bait immediately begins to collect moisture. The drips that fall back into the jar may encourage the DN to begin curing, and once it does, it's ALL toast. Yep, you will "waste" some DN that way. Be content that if you "saved" all that DN, you would just be wasting it because the whole quart would probably cure in the can prematurely. It's still very cost competitive with epoxy or auto clear coats. Yes, the moisture cured DN is a pain to store. But it's fast, easy, and the best crankbait topcoat I've ever used.

I remember Tim Hughes (Hughesy here on TU) of Hughes Custom Lures posting that his shop used a blast cabinet with ?walnut shells? to remove finish from lures before repainting them. If it's good enough for one of the best in the business...

To thin or not depends on whether your airbrush can shoot the paint in the right density without clogging to get the effect you want on the crankbait. Your particular airbrush, the air pressure you shoot at, and your skill level all enter into it so there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Createx says you can thin their paints up to 50% with plain water. The paint will lose its ability to form a coherent film on the crankbait if you thin it too much. Many guys find that thinning paint helps them get better effects. And many prefer to use a thinning solution that will also reduce tip drying and make paint flow smoother. You can buy thinners like Createx 4011 Reducer or you can mix any of several "home brew" reducers to do the same thing for less $$$. One excellent and very simple formula is 50% Createx paint, 30% water, and 20% Pledge acrylic floor polish with Future. Another formula that emulates many commercial reducers: * 3 parts Distilled Water * 1 part Denatured Alcohol * 1 part Ammonia Free Window Cleaner (Clear is best) * A few drops of Glycerin Createx is one of the most consistent brands in terms of viscosity and chemistry, but whatever the brand or specific color, thinning is about the particular bottle of paint you have in front of you. I don't always thin Createx or any other brand. That said, I expect to thin opaque colors more often than transparent colors. And I always expect to thin paint when trying to shoot more detail at very low pressures.

Short answer, you don't. I dip mine so the nose of the bait is covered and that leaves a short section of the lip covered too. If we're talking about the moisture cured solvent based version of DN, it has good adhesion on Lexan or other lip materials and is very clear so that's not really much of a problem. In fact, I've dipped repaints with scratched up lips fully into DN to make the lips transparent again, and it works very well. I haven't used the water borne version of DN on crankbaits so can't comment on its adhesion to lip materials like Lexan.

Createx sells a dark blue called Iridescent Electric Blue, if you are looking for a very strong blue color. Personally, I prefer the Lucky Craft MS-MJ Herring pattern for blueback herring. It is a chrome pattern with light blue shoulders and a dull camo green back. A foil finish with Createx Caribbean Blue and a brownish green back would come pretty close. Lots of ways to add glitter to a bait. I prefer painting cheap hobby glitter, thinned with a little water, on the bait before topcoating. That lets me get the right amount of glitter only where I want it. Not many crankbait painters use powder paint - you'd probably get more info on the wire bait forum. But I wouldn't discount info from model car painters; airbrushing a hard surface is pretty much the same for a jig or a model.

The Teflon packing in the a/b is an upgrade that makes the packing resistant to solvent based paints and cleaners - so you can use any 'normal' cleaning procedure you want, including rinsing the cup and fore-end out with solvents like acetone or lacquer thinner.

Ed, I find that ballasting at the MC tends to make a lure with an "X-ing" swim style with rotation at the MC and little if any roll.

I also use a toothbrush but some guys use a popsicle stick - hold the stick at an angle so the paint from the airbrush bounces off of it onto the bait.

Where and how much to ballast depends on many things - type of wood, size of bait, what size hooks the bait will carry, whether the bait is a lipless glider or will have a lip, etc. I recommend you take another look at the jerkbait plans on the site I referred to in your post about wood types because it contains build plans including amount and placement of ballast weights for an array of pike baits. If you build your first baits according to tested plans offered by experienced builders, you have a much better chance of producing a fish-catching bait. Then you can experiment with later lures to tweak the bait's action to suit your particular design aims. Building crankbaits is a continuous learning process and the plans can give you a "leg up" on the learning curve.

Jed nailed it. If you are working in a flat and there is a concern about air quality, a slow cure epoxy is a great choice. Epoxy doesn't out-gas volatile solvents while hardening and it makes a very durable topcoat when brushed on lures. However, it will drip and sag unless you rotate the lure long enough for it to reach a non-liquid state. That varies according to the epoxy chosen. Here are some popular epoxies used for lure topcoating here in the U.S. They tend to break down into 3 categories: Glues, Pour-On Finishes, and Rod Thread Epoxies. They, or similar products, may be available in your area. Almost all epoxies harden fully in about 24 hours but how long they take to reach a non-sag state varies according to their formulation. All of these can be brushed on and their slow cure time allows the epoxy to level out to an attractive finish. Quick cure "5 minute" epoxies do not brush well, do not level out, and will turn brown quickly. Devcon Two Ton - a slow cure epoxy glue. Rotate for about 45 minutes, hardens to touch in several hours. The fastest epoxy with a viscosity low enough to brush on a lure. Other slow cure glue epoxies advertised as "30 minute" epoxies may also work. Pour-On table finishes, also sold for decoupage crafting. Contains some solvent. Rotate several hours. Low viscosity, often requires multiple coats to build up a sufficiently thick coating on a lure. Envirotex Lite and Nu-Lustre 55 are examples. Fishing rod thread epoxies - Flexcoat, etc Many brands available. Rotate 1-2 hours. These also usually contain some solvent. Do a search in this forum for more specific info on these brands and how to apply them.

Dick, if you came up with catchy short names for these topcoats from the get-go, we members of the horde wouldn't have run around inventing ways to confuse each other.... or you. I see a lot of "industry folk" refer to moisture cured urethane as MCU; is WRTC therefore "OCU"? Guess that depends on whether it's a urethane or something else. MC, WRTC and LP are OK with me but sure as shooting, guys reading WRTC will be asking "well, what the heck does that mean?" Most of us can barely type so like to use abbreviations rather than explaining what a Water Reducible Top Coat is (to the extent we even know!).

http://www.lurebuilding.nl/indexeng.html Check out the above site that concentrates on euro pike crankbaits. It contains build plans for an array of different gliders and includes the suggested wood variety.