BobP

I'd start with some Nature's Gallery White Pearl (you can try Createx Pearl White) and add drops of Createx Caribbean Blue until you get the color value you want. The NG Pearl White has lots of pearlizing medium in it; enough that it's almost a candy pearl, but the LC lures I own in Chartreuse Shad also have lots of metallic sheen in the blue.

Get your wife/son/daughter to turn the wheel slowly for 45 minutes if you're coating with Devcon.

Tater Hog, get right to the wood shed and pick a nice thick switch off that willow bush on your way:pissed:I'll be there directly.

Well, lessee, a couple of Tapp repaints, some tiny foiled shallow divers, several new foil shad shaped cranks, a gold foil plastic crank I'm planning to take to Canada this spring, all being painted. Oh yeah, and a new Foredom flex shaft tool for shaping crankbait bodies. Plus misc lures I plan to use tomorrow since the weather forecast is 65 degrees!

I gotta note that Strike King paints several different Sexy Shad paint schemes, depending on the model of bait. If your customer is very picky, I'd want a physical example of exactly what he has in mind.

I spin'em for an hour. Maybe only 45 mins is required. But what the heck, go ahead and spend that extra 1/10 cent of electricity I say. We're specifically talking about Devcon Two Ton here.

The deal with compressors is how much constant psi does it generate? When starting out, I bought a Chinese model that advertised 30 psi. 1/2 second after I pulled the trigger, it dropped to 15 psi and stayed there. Lesson learned. If "40 psi" drops to 20 sustained, not so good. Tool compressors are popular because they put out lots of psi and more volume than any AB will ever need. Downside = increased noise and space required. If I were looking for an inexpensive Chinese table top compressor, I'd check out some of the dual cylinder models.

look at the TU gallery and some tackle sites and see how the swimbaits are built as far as weight, number of segments, lip/no lip, and how the segments are proportioned. I recommend a 5-7" swimbait with 2 joints (3 segments) as a first product. It's a relatively small swimbait and light enough to throw without a special rod/reel. The simplest hinge uses interlocked screw eyes, two per joint. There are hinges that are much more complicated but IMO none that work better.

Yes, sticky spots come from not mixing it thoroughly. Sticky all over, you didn't measure it right. The rough spots are due to heating it before application and accelerating the cure too much. At 65 degrees or above there is no need to heat D2T. If you're in a cold garage, submerge the epoxy in a pan of warm tap water for awhile. If you want to thin it, a FEW (3-4) drops of denatured alcohol stirred in after mixing works. The container you mix it in should not have recesses where unmixed epoxy can hide during the mix. I use a small jar top, covered with tin foil, and a cut strip from a credit card as a mixer. If you apply epoxy with a good brush, there will be few or no bubbles. Exhale on a bubble and it will disappear 99% of the time. Slap that baby on the lure turner and walk away. The epoxy will do the rest.

I think it's electroplated like most factory chrome baits and not foiled. Foiling is the "poor man's" method of getting a similar effect. On Rogues, the stripe/scale pattern is embossed in the plastic surface. If you foil over it with thin foil like Venture foil or leaf foil, most of the pattern will be preserved. Heavier foil will obscure it. Unfortunately, nobody on TU has reported finding an affordable chrome paint with anything near the reflectivity of electroplating.

It's a neon yellow stripe, gray shoulders and blue back. The gray separates the yellow and blue.

What they all said Take a look at a Strike King King Shad and you'll see the lip is small relative to the size of the bait and is sharply angled down at about 80-85 degrees from horizontal. Any lip shape will make it swim, including a square, round, or a bib shape like on the King Shad. The size of your bait and how the segments are built will determine the best lip size, so it may take some experimentation. I'd make the lip a bit larger than I expect will be "perfect" and whittle it down to the right size after on-the-water tests. There are lots of wakebaits out there nowadays. Like Birdman says, look at some to get an idea of where to start.

I guess everything is bigger in Tejas? Try here: mcmaster.com They stock lots of wire and hardware

If the AB is clean, I'd start looking for problems like a bent needle tip or nozzle. If you pull the needle out and it shoots OK, it's either a clog or a needle problem. If it's still balky, it may be a problem with the nozzle.

Were you heating the lure after applying the epoxy? In cool weather, if you warm up a lure just coated in any topcoat, the air inside will expand and try to find a way out. If it does - bubbles. This also pertains if you topcoat in a cold garage and then bring the lure inside the warm house to cure. Once epoxy is cured, it's very resistant to chemical or solvent intervention. Any fix has to be mechanical - either sanding out the problem of stripping the lure completely.

If he's dipping it a gallon container, it probably isn't Dick Nite! That's a good way to waste a bunch of clearcoat. It's probably an automotive polyurethane of some kind.

Gorilla glue is waterproof. As long as you paint over it, it won't matter.

It sounds to me like the airbrush is clogged with paint. I'd disassemble it and soak it in airbrush cleaner overnight, then run water through it to see what comes out. I'm betting a thorough cleaning will restore it, and if so the brand of airbrush wouldn't matter.

That's a good start Chief! You'll never learn everything about building crankbaits and that's one reason why it can hold your interest.

I think it may depend on the foil. Metallic duct tape is thick enough that the tape edges stand out. Paint doesn't seem to adhere very well to it so adding epoxy is good for adhesion and esthetics. I've started using Venture tape designed for stained glass work. It is much thinner, the edges are unobtrusive, and paint adheres better to it so I don't epoxy it.

I don't know anyone who shoots epoxy through an airbrush. When I paint lead heads, I shoot a highly pigmented water based acrylic like Polytranspar Superhide white as a color basecoat on the lead and then acrylic colors. The paint will stay on there as long as the clearcoat stays intact. For that, I dip the head in 2-3 coats of Dick Nite Fishermun's Lurecoat. If I did lots of lead heads, I might look around for a more durable paint system but this works for me and uses coatings that I'm familiar with from painting crankbaits.

As to whether they're as good, you just have to try them and decide for yourself. There are differences in the results you get but a majority of hobby painters use acrylics because they are less toxic and cleanup with soap and water. Createx, Smith Wildlife and Van Dyke are popular brands and can be bought from web stores like taxidermy.net or dixieart.com. Createx is also sold at many craft stores. Personally, I like acrylics for the above reasons and am satisfied with the results. Due to the toxicity, I wouldn't dream of using anything else.

I have a Crescendo and only use the fine tip. When I used hobby paints, I thinned them with water only. Squirt paint into the siphon cup, shoot some water from a spray bottle into the cup and mix it with a plastic stick (the little stick that comes with a D2T syringe set is perfect). You want the paint about the consistency of milk. No harm pouring any unused paint thinned with water back into the paint bottle afterward. I don't store paint in the cup or in the siphon jars that come with the airbrush because the siphon tubes eventually get gummed up and can release chunks of dried paint into the airbrush.

It seems to me that your bad results may be related to either the painted surface or to how you applied the epoxy. The paint surface needs to be dry and without any oil or particles. I have best luck applying D2T at room temperature or above and with a medium flat edge artist's brush. It does a more uniform job than 'flux brushes' and that's a head start on getting a smooth uniform clearcoat. Don't think of painting the surface, think of smoothing on the epoxy, never letting the brush drag on a dry surface. This gets MORE epoxy on the bait, which means it will level out better when you put it on the lure turner to cure. When I have to epoxy in the garage in winter, I add a few drops of denatured alcohol to the mix to make it more brushable and help leveling.

Unless you inject them with helium or hydrogen, anything you add just makes them heavier:). On a bass-size bait, the paint and a coat of D2T adds about .03 oz to the weight. Not much but considerable on a small jerkbait, especially a suspending model. You might try sanding the old finish off before repainting, then using a thinner clearcoat like Dick Nite, or a thinned D2T. You could also drill a hole and remove some of the lead shot ballast, maybe replace it with glass or plastic beads to reduce weight.