BobP

I used to use the “equal size pool” measurement. I also used to buy Devcon double syringes for 2 bucks at Walmart. They aren't 2 bucks anymore and Walmart doesn't carry them. I don’t use either method now because when it’s cold in the garage, the resin and hardener in Devcon have very different viscosities and using either method can result in different volumes being dispensed. You can solve the problem by warming the components in a water bath before use. But I’m lazy.

I use regular tack blue tape on lips because I hold baits with locking forceps and the lowntack tape will slip when pressured. If you are using tape over painted body, the low tack tape is better.

There are quite a few cites about the maker if you Google it.

I looked at the Bamboo Baits site cited by the OP and see nothing indicating it offers baits made from bamboo wood. That aside, interesting idea. But most of the bamboo I see cracks longitudinally as it dries and ages. And it looks pretty tough to carve. Other than the fact that it is hollow, which is what makes it interesting, color me doubtful. Anyway, good luck with trying it out!

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen airbrushes rated for their cfm, but it’s gotta be pretty tiny compared to most air tools. I never ever run out of psi with my Porter Cable 135 psi 6 gal unit. But I sure wouldn’t want to run it inside my house if anyone else was at home and if I lived in an apartment or condo, it would be a recipe for eviction at any time of day, inside or outside. My family also wouldn’t put up with the noise from my small Badger compressor inside the house after bedtime. Sorry but I don’t have any experience with a small QUIET unit. Several airbrush companies make quiet professional units at professional prices (high).

I mix Devcon Two Ton in a small jar cap covered with tin foil. Don’t know if the foil helps expel bubbles since it’s the only way I’ve ever done it. I mix with a plastic strip from an old credit card and really go to town on it. After vigorous mixing I add a few drops of denatured alcohol and mix that in. It thins the mix slightly, extends the brush time by about a minute, and expels bubbles. I also brush with a fine bristle flat nylon artist’s brush which tends to pop any remaining bubbles as I apply the epoxy. Set any remaining epoxy aside in the foil to check hardening progress. that’s my routine and it has worked for18 yrs without a failure, in cold and hot garage conditions, 45 to 90 degrees. Your routine may be different but you need to find what works for you and stick to it. Good measuring and mixing are the keys.

It depends on how much pressure you need and how much noise you can stand. I paint in the garage and use a Porter Cable oil free 135 psi compressor that has a 6 gal tank. Very loud but once it airs up, it will run an airbrush for a couple of hours before it turns on again. About $100. I also have a Badger airbrush compressor that has no tank and starts up whenever air is demanded by the airbrush. It’s too loud to use indoors and tends to pulse the air, which is not a good thing. There are quiet airbrush compressors that could be used inside without disturbing the family. They all have air tanks and they tend to be expensive. A standard tool compressor like the Porter Cable fits my needs and environment and is reasonable in cost. I want 45 psi CONSTANT psi (not PEAK psi) as a minimum. Small “on demand” compressors that don’t employ a storage tank generally drop about 15 psi quickly after the airbrush initially demands air, so I wouldn’t choose a small unit that has less than 60 psi peak pressure. Oil /oil less makes no difference to me. If oiled, use an oil trap in the air line. I hear the small California compressors have a good rep but have no experience with them.

When you get down to fine lines, you may want an Iwata with a .02 mm tip. I have a HP+ .02mm and it can shoot a line as fine as frog hair in the hand of an expert painter, which I am certainly not. For fine details, the viscosity of the paint is as important as the airbrush. And acrylic paint is harder to thin properly than lacquer or dye. Iwata makes airbrushes with even finer tips than .02 mm. They get expensive as all get out. And if you go in that direction, be darned careful to handle and clean it with gentle loving care. You don’t even want to know what it costs to replace the microscopic paint nozzle on one of those babies, and a bent needle has to be replaced by an expert airbrush tuner. For myself, I gave up trying to shoot fine detail long ago and get by with paint templates. It was the only way to stay sane.

You can sand down “owies” before applying other coats if you wait until it has fully hardened. Wipe it down with alcohol to remove the dust. If you get a fisheye where the epoxy cured away from an oil spot, another coat will often fix it. Best not to handle a lure with ungloved fingers while applying finish for that reason. The Pour-on epoxy’s solvent make them more prone to fisheyes than glue type epoxies. After doing a few lures you’ll develop a routine that works for you and you’ll gain confidence. But yeah, there’s always gonna be that little niggling worry about the end result when using epoxy.

Pour-on epoxies tend to brush on pretty thin unless you let the epoxy sit for awhile after mixing. Multiple coats are pretty typical. I know it’s hard to sit and wait while your topcoat hardens, hoping everything will work out right. But after a few times you get used to it. Finishing crankbaits will teach you patience!

You can apply another coat anytime after the first coat is sag free, 4-6 hours in most cases. Or you can wait 1-3 days after it has cured hard. Pour-on epoxies contain a solvent that evaporates while the epoxy cures. Your leftover epoxy may take a little longer to harden initially because it is thicker and takes more time for the solvent to evaporate than the thinner coating on the bait. But in any case, the epoxy should be cured hard in 24 hours. If it isn’t, something went wrong and another coat is needed to harden all the epoxy coats.

I use one thick coat of Devcon. Another as topcoat and the bait is plenty strong though you may be able to compress it slightly if you apply lots of force (more than it will ever get from a bass). Depending on temperature, all epoxy is slightly bendable. If you want rock hard, superglue will do it but I’m not sure what the real advantage is because I feel epoxy has more resilience to impact damage. Of course you could apply both. There are quite a few good finish regimens that work just fine depending on your pocketbook and your likes/dislikes. Not often discussed is the sound your bait will make as it rebounds off cover, and the finish you use can make a difference there. Do you want a ping or a thump? The bass haven’t told me yet what they prefer.

You didn’t and I’m sorry. But I know there are some guys who may read where Epoxy X is more forgiving of measurement, so may buy it and get sloppy about measuring equal volumes. That’s a mistake. Epoxy hardens by a chemical reaction at the molecular level. Too much hardener or too much resin means some of that part will not get into the reaction. Then, the epoxy will either not reach its best hardness or will tend to yellow more quickly. Same problem when the epoxy is not mixed thoroughly enough. We’re all trying to get the best topcoat we can.

I’d probably use an epoxy putty stick. But think you are probably talking about auto body filler. Either is fast. Body filler is sandable.

The thickness of your epoxy topcoat is up to you but my opinion is thicker is better up to a certain point. If you let ETEX sit after mixing for 10-15 minutes, you can apply it in a thicker coating. You can recoat epoxy anytime up to 24-36 hours and microscopic examination will not be able to tell it’s not a single application, or so I’ve been told, so I think recoat times are mostly irrelevant. I’ve said this several times, but Fatfingers posted an excellent member submitted tutorial titled Achieving a Perfect Finish about coating musky lures with ETEX. Definitely worth a read.

X2 with Mark. The only matte finish I’m familiar with is the soft rubbery stuff I’ve had on some Japanese jerkbaits and it peeled off rather easily during use. My take on it is that the bass just don’t care and if anything, virtually all prey species have a sheen that is best represented by a high gloss finish.

I apply foil on an epoxy waterproof undercoating, then acrylic latex paint, then topcoat with epoxy or MCU. I don’t really see the need for an intermediate coating but if I did, I’d use a clear acrylic latex airbrush paint. I shoot my color basecoat, also acrylic airbrush paint, after foiling then clean any overspray with cotton swabs wetted with denatured alcohol. This also removes any oil or oxidation from the foil and shines it up. There are an infinite number of ways to finish a foiled bait. This is just works for me. Guys who use thick foil often epoxy the bait afterwards to hide the foil edges. I use thin foil so I can burnish the edges to hide them without that step.

ETEX is designed for coating table tops and for decoupage where the coating is pored on in a thick coating. It contains a solvent to help expel bubbles. But on lures, the solvent will make it fish eye more easily if there’s oil contamination under a thin coating. We’ve just adapted it for lures. Same thing with glue epoxies like Devcon, we adapted it from its design purpose as a glue. It goes on thicker so there's less trouble with fish eyes, but it may have a tendency to yellow faster than ETEX. I really don’t get choosing an epoxy based on its purported ability to work even if it’s mismeasured. Why not just make sure you measure it properly? And then make sure you mix it really thoroughly. No problems then!

If you read Tuna’s post you’ll see the hardener is heavier than the resin so he weighs out less of it to end up with equal volumes. The difference may not be a lot but if you are trying to get the perfect mix you need to correct the weights to end up with equal volumes. I prefer to just measure the volumes out with syringes to avoid hurting my tiny brain. MCU yields a thin very clear tough topcoat that to me looks and acts like a good factory finish. I don’t know about KBS but Dick Nite S81 MCU seems to soak through the acrylic paint and bonds with the plastic of the lure, which makes the finish very durable.

I just use epoxy cut with a very little denatured alcohol, then lightly sand it to remove the shine and give it some tooth. Of course, then you have to shoot a good solid color basecoat of acrylic paint as you begin painting. Player’s choice.

Looks like more than a few cc’s, which is all I ever use. However, you do like a syringe with a cap to keep the leftover stuff liquid in the syringe. Maybe a big syringe with fine enough gradations would be good - just suck up a whole bottle of epoxy and dispense it all that way.

There’s nothing saying you can’t use the “tap the can” method of storage on a new can of KBS to avoid storage problems. If you apply a MCU by a method other than dipping, it is an easy way to store and dispense the finish while avoiding it curing in the container.

Brush marks on a bait will be transmitted through the thin layers of airbrush paint, so where possible you want to avoid brushing unless the coating is self leveling or you can apply a smooth surface with a brush. As for "sealer" versus "primer", as far as I know, a primer's job is to promote adhesion of the next coating to the underlying substrate (wood, plastic, or paint). It's necessary on metal surfaces so it can etch the metal for a mechanical bond to be formed. On wood, I don't see the need for a primer between the wood and water based acrylic paint to promote adhesion. I do see a need for a sealer, primer, undercoating or whatever you want to call it to waterproof the wood so the paint will not raise the wood grain. And if that coating is white, it can also serve as the color basecoat, which is a nice "two fer". So to me, using a solvent based BIN on raw wood is really waterproofing and basecoating rather than priming. Tomayto, tomahto. What I really care about is whether the BIN will waterproof and protect the wood as well as other stuff like epoxy, MCU, etc which may be more durable. You have to answer the question of how much protection is enough for yourself. Whatever you choose, it's true that your acrylic water based paint finish will last exactly as long as you can keep it protected with the topcoat you apply over it. If water gets into the paint, it rehydrates, expands and pushes the topcoat off the lure. If water gets past the paint and the "primer" or "sealer" or "undercoating" the wood expands and does even more damage.

Weighing can be OK if you differ the weights measured so you end up with the same volume of each part, as Tuna does. For me, it's just easier to use syringes "suck it up and shoot it in". I am usually coating 2-3 baits at a time and using 1 cc each of resin and hardener for each bait. I tend to apply a fairly thick coating to my wood baits and I do it fairly quickly. I use MCU on plastic baits for a more "factory look".

Yeah, that’s the stuff KBS Diamond Coat. It’s also sold by online auto supply outlets. Re: syringes. I use epoxy syringes sold by rod builder online stores like Mudhole. They don’t need to be big ones. After you squirt the hardener/resin out, just draw the plunger part way back into the tube. That will prevent it from sticking. Sometimes I have to clean out the tip of the resin syringe with a wire to remove crystallized resin. Other than that, the syringes last indefinitely since you aren't mixing the epoxy inside the syringe, just using it to measure and squirt each component. I don’t know whether you need special epoxy syringes. It doesn't seem to me that there would be much chance of silicone contamination with any syringe, but guess it doesn’t hurt to be sure.