BobP

Shades of the old TU epoxy wars! IMO, both produce a good clearcoat. To me, the differences more concern application methods than end performance.

Here are some comments, not meant to be comprehensive but what I think (rightly or wrongly) about ballast basics: At the most basic level, ballast is about the attitude you want the bait to have as it swims through the water (head up, head down, horizontal) and how buoyant you want the bait to be (topwater, fast floater, slow floater, suspender). Most custom wood bass baits have integrated ballast/belly hangers so it's easy to tell where the ballast is (it's rare ballast will be hidden where you can't see it). I'm talking wood bass crankbaits only. But you don't have to use an integrated ballast, you can distribute it anywhere you want it. Topwater walking baits have ballast in the rear 1/3 of the bait to make them easy to walk and so the tail will sit down in the water to entice bites. Poppers and wakebaits are ballasted to float horizontal. Btw, the trebles are part of the ballast. The lower the ballast is installed in the bait, the more stable the bait usually swims. Where you ballast a bait fore/aft affects the attitude the bait will take as it swims. For example moving ballast forward makes the bait swim more head down, effectively increasing the down angle of the lip. It's not simple because the lip length/angle, the ballast amount/position and the postion of the line tie all work together as a system. Each affects all the others. So experiment, prototype, improve. If you install the lip and hardware including the tail treble, and then find the fore/aft balance point of the bait and install the ballast there, the bait will swim with an X-ing action, i.e., the bait will rotate left/right on that point as it swims. That may not be the swim action you want but finding the balance point is a good place to start in figuring out where you want to put the ballast. I usually want it somewhere in front of the X point. That's a good time to do a float test and decide HOW MUCH ballast you want, too. Hang lead on a temporary belly hanger with treble until you get the rise rate you want for the bait, then install that much ballast. In general, shallow baits have quick rise rates, deep baits have slow rise rates. If you look at the best wooden baits and measure their design details, it will give you a leg up on designing your own. You'll see that there is really not a huge amount of design variation, but small differences can have big results.

I use an airbrush compressor that outputs 40 psi with the airbrush running. Most airbrush compressors work at about 15 psi less than their maximum pressure, which is the number the manufacturers advertise. For instance, a 30 psi compressor will only put out 15 psi pressure with the airbrush running. You want at least 30 psi working pressure so I'd look for airbrush compressors advertising at least 45-60 psi. If noise is not a big deal (few compressors of any type are quiet) and I had it to do over, I'd buy a small shop compressor with a 2-5 gal air tank that generates 100-120 psi. Slap on a pressure regulator, psi gauge, and water trap and you're in business. And you can use the same compressor to fill the tires on wifey's car, drive nails, spray paint, etc.

I bought a roll of frisket material. It's a thin transparent plastic film with a peel and stick paper backing. About 10 bucks gets enough to last almost forever. The nice thing about frisket is it's purpose-designed for making stencils. Draw the design on the paper backing and it cuts out easily with an Xacto knife. Tip - leave on the paper backing. Flip it over to do the other side of the bait and then save the stencil for future baits.

Hanging baits is not only easier, it works better. If you dip baits and put them on a turner before enough DN has dripped off, the rotation can cause the DN to pool in one area and wrinkle the underlying acrylic. That doesn't happen if you just hang them up to dry, since any excess DN will drip off the tail.

There is no official formula for "lacquer thinner". The solvent mix listed on the LT sold in home centers changes depending on what solvents the manufacturer wants to use. "Virgin lacquer thinner" sold in most automotive stores is usually more reliable. Acetone dissolves plastics more quickly. How a particular plastic cup + a particular solvent will perform on a crankbait can only be discovered with experimentation. Some guys report poor adhesion and/or cracks in the coating after a while. Some like it fine.

I don't use HOK, but regularly use various other brands of acrylic paint without problems. The solvent in DN is pretty active stuff so you want to get it on the lure with minimal brushing and get it started flashing off without delay. You also want the paint to be absolutely dry. It helps to heat dry the paint with a hair dryer so it "cures" before clearcoating.

I'm not sure it matters as long as it's deep enough and has a good airtight lid. I use 16 oz salsa jars with the fluted necks. They have an opening just wide enough for the largest baits I dip and their lids seem to clamp down better than some (but I still store it with heavy tin foil over the lid, secured with a rubber band). If you are a hobbiest and use DN slowly, it will nevertheless begin to cure when the level drops below 1/2, I guess because the air space in the jar gets too large. I avoid that by topping off the jar as needed and/or spraying Bloxygen gas into the jar before I close it. The bottom line is that you need to limit the DN-to-air contact area and the length of time it is exposed. How you get there is up to you.

For propionate, check with TU'ers Palmetto Balsa or Swede. It comes in small pellets which you dissolve in acetone. A little prop goes a long way. I put about a table spoon's worth in 12 oz of acetone and it dissolves in about 24 hrs. You want the solution quite thin. That avoids bubbles and lets it drip quickly off the end of the bait. It dries as fast as the acetone takes to evaporate, which is very quick, 3-5 minutes. Dip the bait and let it drip off the tail back into the jar, then hang to dry. If I'm doing a batch of 5 baits, #1 is usually ready for another dip by the time I dip #5. You may need to blot a few hanging drips off the tails. Add more pellets or more acetone as needed, no need to get too exact about measuring it out. After 2-3 dips, check to see if any light sanding is needed to remove any bubbles, then finish dipping 3-5 more times. When finished, let the prop dry and harden for a few hours before painting. Prop is hard and somewhat flexible but doesn't adhere well to lip materials and acetone clouds Lexan, so I don't want the final lips installed when dipping. I install "false lips" into the baits' lip slots first. These are simply pieces of Lexan or circuit board inserted temporarily while undercoating and painting so you don't screw up the real lips and don't get anything weaker in the lip slots than the epoxy you will use to install the real lips later. They're handy to clamp onto with locking forceps while finishing a bait. Put some blue painter's tape on them to get a friction fit in the lip slot if needed. I drill holes in the false lips and hang baits by bent wire hangers over my workbench. Use a razor blade to free the false lips from the baits and trim excess prop from around the nose of the bait before painting. Anyway, that's how I do it and why.

Sniffer, I've done quite a few baits like you list and it works fine. However, I think DN makes for a pretty thin seal coat so prefer either 5-8 dips of propionate dissolved in acetone or brushing on D2T thinned down with denatured alcohol. I also like Polytranspar Superhide White as a color basecoat vs other acrylic latex whites. It bonds well, covers grain better, and dries quickly to a hard dry surface with a hair dryer.

Top Off = adding DN until the jar is full again. If I start with a full dipping jar of DN and just use it up, it will begin to cure when it's about 1/3 full. There gets to be too much air and moisture in the jar during use and storage. One thing that seems to help is shooting some Bloxygen into the jar before sealing it. Bloxygen is an aerosol argon/nitrogen gas mix sold to preserve solvent based finishes. Sounds similar to welding gas, which has the same function, i.e., to exclude oxygen.

I dip but brushing gives similar coverage. I do 2 coats for bass baits, 24 hrs apart and I hang them to dry. No need to sand unless you are fixing a problem. I don't feel dipping/dripping is especially wasteful. Don't you have unused DN if you brush or spray? The only problem with dipping is keeping DN in the dip jar from curing. I keep the jar topped off and spary a little Bloxygen in the jar before storage, which seems to work.

It's true to say that everything on a bait affects its acton. The lip is what sets the bait in motion. IMO, a jointed bait requires less lip area because you are only driving the first segment to oscillate, with the rear segment(s) just following along in train. On a single piece bait, the lip has to drive the whole body mass. The lips on wakebaits are usually set at almost but not quite 90 degrees relative to the horizontal plane of the bait. Ballast keeps the bait upright in the water and sinks it to a level that causes a good wake to be generated when the bait swims. Too much ballast tends to slow and kill the action. Too little makes it unpredictable and unable to swim straight. The best advice I can give about where to put the segment hinge, what size lip to use, etc, is to study some commercial wakebaits and pay attention to how they are built, in detail. A lot of research went into developing those baits and you can benefit from it without reinventing the wheel.

I basically feel if you can get the color on without it falling off, the topcoat will usually make it permanent. If you want more adhesion, you can spray a plastic lure with Bulldog or U-Pol adhesion promoter. Light sanding is an alternative if there isn't a lot of surface texture. Least good but usually sufficient, you can just wipe the plastic down with denatured alcohol to remove any dirt/oil. On raw wood, you need an undercoat like propionate or epoxy to stop the grain from raising and to maintain waterproofness. Whatever the undercoating (if any) I use a white color basecoat before adding color. Createx white may work OK but Polytranspar Superhide White acrylic latex sticks better and covers faster. I've painted plenty of plastic baits with just acrylics and epoxy and they're still working fine several years later. That said, I think a solvent topcoat like Dick Nite soaks into and through the latex paint, which makes a more monolythic coating with better adhesion.

Many commercial wood baits are built with a belly hanger cast into a cylinder of lead ballast, sized for that bait, which is glued into the belly. You can alternatively drill holes along the centerline of the bait and epoxy in lead weights, solder, etc. How much? Ah, there's the rub! When you have shaped, sanded and waterproofed the bait - just before painting - with all hardware, hooks, and lip installed, float the bait in a pail of water and hang lead on the trebles until you get the float depth and attitude you want for the bait. Then drill hole(s) for that amount of ballast and epxoy it into the belly. Repair the hole, paint the bait, topcoat it and voila, rat extraordinaire.

I don't use a heat gun, I use a hair dryer and I don't go crazy. Start on low until the water sheen on the paint disappears, then on high for about 5 secs just for the heck of it. Don't start pushing paint around on the surface or boiling it! If your waterproof undercoat is inadequate, you will sometimes get a bubble in the paint. It isn't the paint boiling, it's air inside the bait expanding and escaping through a bad spot in the undercoat. I heat dry after every color shot. Just let it become a good habit. Yep, some airbrush paints from Createx or other brands feel tacky even after drying. I assume it's excess glycol flow enhancer or whatever (hey I ain't no paint chemist). If I'm topcoating with epoxy, I just ignore it and it has never caused a problem. If you're concerned, it will usually go away after a day or two of air drying. Why heat dry? First, so I can handle the bait without smearing paint or having wet paint pushed around by the next layer of color I shoot. Also, heat drying "cures" paint into a more durable film with better adhesion, and it does it immediately. I don't usually topcoat baits immediately after painting (I'm tired of messing with them by then) but have done so with no problems on numerous occasions.

I've done most of my surface baits (4-7" length) out of basswood. If you want max buoyancy, balsa is the lightest. But it's also the softest and easiest to damage. If you want to use balsa, I suggest "hard balsa" with a nominal density of 12-16 lb/cu ft, not the light stuff used for model airplanes (6-8 lbs/ cu ft). Basswood is 23 lbs/cu ft and much more durable. Whichever you choose, you'll have to ballast the bait to get the correct float level and action so the wood type is somewhat irrelevant re buoyancy. Correctly ballasted, they'll all float. Personally, I like a wakebait with a moderate, regular action and basswood works well for that. Also, if you plan joints in the bait, wood durability and hardness become more critical.

Very low pressure, paint thinned to flow well, tip of airbrush very close to the surface to be painted (take off the end needle guard if necessary). Oh, I forgot..... a steady hand. You can learn many tips about airbrushing at various airbrush websites, just Google them up!

I did the same as Silverdoc. If you drill through to the cavity, you're in trouble, so I suggest using a smaller eye and just making the area for it flat, not recessed.

I got mine from dixieart.com but their shipping is quite high on orders less than $50. Haven't looked, but Michaels, Hobby Lobby, etc should have something similar.

You also might try Envirotex Lite (aka ETEX). Musky bait builders seem to like it, applied in multiple coats (3-5?). It contains solvent so may soak into the acrylic better than D2T, but it does take longer to cure and multiple coats makes it a process taking several days. My alternative to D2T has been Dick Nite poly. It's solvent based and has excellent adhesion on wood and plastic (again I don't know about PVC). When I peel epoxy covered baits, the finish always separates in the acrylic latex paint layer, and that tells me the acrylic is the adhesion weak point. I can't peel a Dick Nite bait because the DN has soaked completely through the acrylic paint to whatever lies beneath. That makes for a pretty strong bond. If there is a cost efficient topcoat perfect in all respects, I haven't found it. There always seem to be trade-offs in application, adhesion, storage and handling. But at least we have options.

Templates/stencils I use frisket film because it's easy to cut and will bend to fit the contours of a crankbait. Frisket is a clear plastic film with a peel-off paper backing you can buy at art or hobby shops. It's the easiest template material to use (designed for this purpose) and one roll lasts a lifetime. Trace an outline of your bait on the frisket, then pencil in the details you want to add to the bait. Use an Xacto knife to cut out the details, then cut out the bait shape. Here's a tip - when you're ready to paint, don't peel the frisket film off its backing and stick it on the bait! Just hold it against the bait, shoot your paint and then dry the template with a hair dryer. Now, flip it over and use it for the other side. Voila, both sides exactly the same! Plus, this allows you to save the template to use on other crankbaits. Pretty soon, you'll have a library of templates you can use for almost any detailing task. I use them for kill spots, red gills, craw legs, firetiger blotches, perch stripes, etc, etc. Most frisket film is marked with a grid of blue lines. Another tip is to register the tail and nose of the bait along one of the grid lines when you outline the bait. When you're ready to paint, put that line on the nose and tail and you'll know you have the template straight.

Are you hanging them to dry or putting them on a lure turner? You'll rarely have wrinkles if you simply hang them to dry so excess DN drips off the tail. When you put them on a lure turner, the rotation can cause DN to collect in a pool somewhere underneath the drying film and that will cause wrinkles. Been there, done that! Also, I thoroughly dry the paint with a hair dryer as I apply each shot of color and let the bait "rest" for a few hours after painting to insure all the moisture has evaporated.

Anything glass.

Epoxy forms a "shell" that has only moderate adhesion to the substrate it sits on (latex paint). If you've ever removed epoxy from a bait, you know you can usually peel it like an onion. Its durability depends on the shell staying intact and preventing water infiltration. Any sharp edge, e.g., sharp edges on the segments of a swimbait, will look OK but will have very thin epoxy that will wear through quickly. I can't comment on epoxy over PVC but wonder how much heat expansion/contraction PVC has. Maybe not enough to make a difference on a small bass bait, but perhaps enough to matter on a swimbait? I would ask for the bait back for an "autopsy" that might give you clues about why it failed. Perhaps you will need to switch to a solvent based topcoat that has better adhesion.