BobP

If you have access to a blast booth, that's the best way to remove old finish. If not, sanding with 400 grit to prepare the bait for new finish is good. On wood lures, be sure NOT to sand down to bare wood.

Needle in, needle out. Either way. I backwash between colors so leave the needle in, but take the needle out at the end of the session before backwashing. Solvents like lacquer thinner, acetone are fine for metal parts but they will damage the small rubber O rings in your air control valve and they can harm the packing in some older brushes do not use solvent resistant packing in the barrel behind the paint cup.

When I'm finished, I spray plain water through mine and then "backwash" it by shooting water while holding a finger over the tip of the brush so it is forced out of the mix chamber and into the cup. Backwashing gets paint out better and faster than simply shooting water through it. I also backwash between colors to make sure the tip is free of the last paint. After backwashing, pull the needle and wipe it down with solvent, then use a Qtip to clean the nozzle cover and tip cavity. That's all. I occasionally take the brush apart and soak everything overnight in an airbrush cleaning solution. Lubricating - I often put a drop of oil on my fingers and lube the needle before storage. You can also put a drop in the trigger hole. I don't know how if it helps but figure it doesn't hurt. Airbrushes are pretty simple machines. If you don't bend the needle or the nozzle, it will work for a long long time.

Confess I had to look up what a fibett was! If it's made from natural hair, the best way to color it is probably with dye. You might check with a fly tying site to find options.

Guys say heat setting acrylics makes a more durable skin than air drying. I don't know if that's true or not. In any event, I depend on the topcoat to make the bait durable. Nonetheless, I heat set with a hair dryer after every color until I'm sure the paint is dry. Why? Because I want to get on with painting and don't want to shoot new paint on wet paint, nor do I want to chance smearing wet paint. I also don't use tape or adhesive templates. You never know when adhesive will lift paint off a lure, no matter what precautions you take. I'm gonna assume your silver paint wrinkled under a solvent clearcoat? If the paint was dry, I doubt it had anything to do with the acrylic paint per se. I had occasional wrinkling and bubbling problems with Dick Nite when I used a lure turner after dipping baits. If you just hang baits up to dry, all excess DN will drip off the tail of the bait and there will be no problem. Turning it doesn't allow excess to drip off - it just sloshes back and forth under the forming skin of DN and wrinkles the paint. It's one of those instances where more simple = more better.

It's not always easy to diagnose problems but two questions I have: what do you use to apply the Etex and why are you torching it? Etex is formulated with a solvent to make it flow and level at room temp. I've had best luck with epoxy when I applied it with an artist's brush and then put it on a turner until it was sag free, with no heating. I've tried heating epoxy before application and when it's on the lure. IMO, there are just too many ways to screw up! When you heat it, you make it temporarily liquid again but you greatly accelerate its cure rate at the same time. I suspect that's why yours is not leveling properly. I usually coat with Devcon and mix the devil out of it, until it's milky with small bubbles. But the fine bristles of an artist's brush pop all the bubbles while brushing it on and you end up with a perfectly clear topcoat.

For smallies, spoopa's recommendation of pearl/chartreuse back is a good one. I don't where "Up North" is but most topwaters have a white or silver belly, which is mostly what the bass get to see. Foiled sides with neon yellow, green and blue accents are also good. I think it's mostly about catching fishermen. Take a look at some of the more popular models like Yellow Magic, Iovino Splash-its, Pop-R Zell Pop, Lucky Craft Sammy, etc and you'll get ideas that you can adapt to your line. IMO, don't even think of marketing them without feathered rear trebles on the poppers and walking baits.

Airbrush Set Menu l BuyAirbrushes.com or http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-AIR-PRO-PS900-DUAL-ACTION-MAC-AIRBRUSH-GUN-KIT-FINE_W0QQitemZ280407402774QQcategoryZ28111QQcmdZViewItem Check out the above. I haven't used one so can't comment about quality.

When building baits from scratch, I use a piece of scrap lip material with a hole drilled in the end of it as a "false lip" by which to hold the bait while painting it, then hang it up via the hole while doing the next bait. I wrap a piece of blue painters tape over the false lip if needed to get a good friction fit in the lip slot. Epoxy in the real lip later, just beforeI topcoating the bait. On repaints and plastic lure blanks, you have to tape off the lip. It takes as long as it takes. I use thin strips of tape near the nose of the bait, then larger pieces to the tip.

I use 5 minute epoxy to join balsa, then dip 5-7 times in acetone/prop. I haven't had any problems with bubbles during later finishing steps (like when you heat cure acrylic latex paint shots), and the baits have been durable. If water gets in the bait it's toast anyway, so water resistant vs waterproof epoxy seems like a moot point. Plus using a slow glue is a PITA. Gorilla glue expands as it cures and its instructions say to moisten the surfaces first to activate the glue. IMO, black Gorilla glue seeping out onto the surface of the bait as it expands and adding water inside the bait are not good things for a balsa bait. I tried it. Once.

Lots of airbrushes are on Ebay but they are mostly retail sellers. Airbrushes do wear out after lots of use and have parts like nozzles and needles that are easily bent or damaged. IMO, you're better off getting a moderately priced new brush instead of taking a chance on buying someone else's troubles. I also think the Iwata Revolution is a very good brush for the money. I use a Revolution B model with the .3mm tip and like it.

Sorry, I was referring to the "Parks" finish you cited in your post. Everyone would like a tough, hard-as-nails, waterproof, non-yellowing, one part, water based, fast drying, cheap, easy to store, dippable/sprayable topcoat. Me too! But after checking with guys who try various candidates and trying a couple myself, I keep coming back to epoxy, moisture cured polyurethane like Dick Nite, or high solids auto clearcoats requiring catalysts. I hear good reports about them and not so good reports on other coatings. JMHO, for striper lures that are going to be trolled for hours and hopefully gnawed on by big stripers (and maybe bluefish in saltwater), I'd choose one of the 3 options above if my priority was keeping the finish on the lures.

Since you have multiples in each pattern, I'd be inclined to coat a few with the poly and fish them to see how they hold up. Durability means a lot, especially if you fish for stripers in saltwater.

I reduce pressure to shoot details, down to as low as 15 psi for some shots. That doesn't happen a lot - maybe 2-3 times during a session. I use an Iwata that does not have a MAC valve but my compressor sits on the table so it's handy to adjust pressure and look at the pressure gauge to get the right air flow. I don't know how guys who use a MAC valve do it exactly - maybe adjust the MAC and shoot a little paint to see if the pattern is right. I usually shoot details with painting templates and don't want to be blasting paint because the paint can get blown under the template at high pressure.

I use inexpensive square, flat artist brushes, the 1/4" wide mostly. Clean them vigorously with acetone or lacquer thinner on a cotton towel after use and they'll last a couple of years. IMO, the fine bristles in artist brushes make applying epoxy faster and more accurate, and they pop bubbles better so you get a better end product. I don't worry about air bubbles when mixing epoxy - in fact my Devcon looks entirely white because I mix it so hard (poorly mixed epoxy is the #1 reason for failure to cure!). All those bubbles disappear when brushed. Keep enough epoxy on the brush that you're never dragging a dry brush over the surface of the bait. You want the sense of "laying on" a smooth coat from the head to the tail and you want every point on the surface to be "wetted out" or you will get voids and "fisheyes" when cured. I ignore epoxy in the line tie and hook hangers. Let it cure and drill it out with a micro drill bit chucked in a Dremel tool. I don't want to worry about anything but a nice complete coat when I have an epoxy brush in my hand and the clock is ticking.

A MAC valve is a feature that allows you to adjust the air pressure going through the brush. It's redundant with the pressure control on your compressor but it's a nice feature if the compressor pressure control knob is not handy to reach during airbrushing.

Polytranspar Superhide White. It's a very good acrylic white basecoat that will cover any underlying pattern in max 2 shots. It also has good adhesion and forms a durable base.

I don't know about tips except to say the Eclipse series comes with .5 or .35mm. Whether a smaller tip assembly from another Iwata model will fit is a ??. I suspect not, but it's worth asking an Iwata rep to explore possibilities. The small nozzles for the HP series brushes, like the .2mm are quite pricey, in the $40+ range. As the tips get larger, they get cheaper.

It's mixing colors to get secondary colors. Blue and yellow mixed make green. The popular Sexy Shad pattern is a case in point. It has a blue back and a yellow stripe below it. If you look closely, a thin gray "buffer" is usually present between the blue and yellow to prevent them from overlapping and making green.

Player's choice: The most popular clearcoats are epoxy (brushed on), automotive polyurethanes (usually airbrushed), and moisture cured polyurethanes like Dick Nite (brushed, dipped, or airbrushed). Not many clearcoats have the high durability that bait makers want. Use the Search feature in this forum for countless threads on the pros/cons of each and tips for using them.

If you're shooting detail, keep 3 things in mind: thinner paint, closer to the surface, and lower pressure. Double action brushes shoot a cone of paint. If the brush is painting a 1" wide stripe from 2 inches away, it will paint a 1/2" stripe from 1 inch away. Using thicker paint is moving in the wrong direction because you can't get it to flow properly unless you use high pressure, and high pressure will bounce paint where you don't want it. You spent lots of hours with the single action. The double action will be a better tool when you get more hands-on time with it.

Ace hardware sells Devcon Two Ton epoxy in a 30 ML double syringe. It's sold as a glue but is one of the favorite topcoats among crankbait builders. Brush it on, reverse the bait as it hangs every little while for 45 minutes so the epoxy doesn't sag. Do Not use Devcon 5 Minute epoxy. It cures too fast and will not work. Search on Devcon for tons of further info.

Etex contains solvent and may have loosened the adhesive on the tape. Next time, you might try an epoxy that contains no solvent, like Devcon 2 Ton. There is often a problem with any adhesive detail such as 3D eyes or tape becoming unstuck because they are flat and the bait is round. They want to go back to their flat shape and though the pressure exerted is slight, it can lift the edges. In my experience, this ALWAYS happens after you apply the epoxy but before it hardens.

"Improving plastic blanks" - There's not much you can do within reason to improve a plastic blank. "Can't make a silk purse out of a plastic sow's ear". I check the hardware to make sure it's straight and lines up. If not, bend it straight. If the bait has insufficient ballast, you can drill a hole and add more if the internal cavity permits - but that's a big hassle and can result in stuck ballast beads, making the bait float lopsided. Best advice is to listen when somebody reports that a particular blank is especially good, and buy that one. You gotta pick and choose.

I copied this from airbrush.com, which has lots of tips re airbrush use: "reduce tip dry by adding glycerine to your paint ,this is an additive that has been used for many years in the paint trade to retard drying times dilute with water first then add a little at a time ,don't use too much or your paint wont dry glycerin or glycerol as it is also know is very safe in fact its a common food aditive and medicine you can also use Propylene glycol which is a non toxic form of antifreeze it is also used as a retarder in acrylic paint and used in the food and cosmetics industry WARNING!! DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH ETHYLENE GLYCOL WHICH IS EXTREMELY POISONOUS WARNING!!"