BobP

I like Venture brand hvac tape and order it on EBay or Amazon. It has better gloss and can be found in various thicknesses. Thin tape is easier to burnish so make the edges disappear.

I’ll flick a couple of brush fulls into enough 30 min epoxy to coat 3 average size bass baits. It really doesn’t take much at all and too much makes the epoxy run all over. I’m with Anglinarcher on this. I strongly prefer MCU on plastic baits, versus epoxy.

Damned Apple autocorrect! Lebanon should have been “Lexan”.

I haven’t used KBS but brush Dick Nite MCU, which is similar. I don’t worry about the hook hangers until the MCU has cured hard. Then I use a Dremel with a micro drill bit to clean out the hangers. A Dremel wire brush would also work. Takes about a minute per bait. I flood coat the baits with a brush quickly and hang them to dry. I’m sure the thickness at the tail is probably greater but MCU is thin enough in viscosity when just applied that the excess drips off the tail in a few seconds and any fore/aft difference is unnoticeable. You definitely don’t want to rotate the bait as that can result in bubbles anywhere the finish pools during rotation.

The only way to remove cured epoxy is to scrape/pry it off or sand it off. Either method will leave the lip scratched or cloudy from sanding. You can fix that by dipping the lip in urethane finish, preferably MCU, afterwards, unless it is a polycarbonate (aka Lebanon) lip to which clearcoats don’t adhere very well.

While it’s true that any little thing can change the swim performance of a crankbait, I would look at the things that have more basic effect before suspecting a thin coat of epoxy. Lip length, shape, position of the line tie, overall balance, ballast amount and position, and symmetry of the body and lip are major factors. That said, I never put epoxy on a lip because it has bad esthetic and performance effects. If you repainted a known good crankbait and now it won’t perform, maybe. If it’s an Asian knockoff bait or a custom bait you made, the problem probably lies elsewhere.

As chemicals go, etex is the same as other epoxies. The MSDS sheet says it may cause skin irritation and you should avoid breathing it’s mist. You can develop a skin sensitivity to liquid epoxy over time. Jmho, compared to many other clearcoat products, etex seems pretty tame and I certainly wouldn’t rate it “extremely toxic”.

KBS and MCU in general sticks well to plastic or circuit board lips but will peel off of polycarbonate lips.

Start with a solid opaque white all over the bait to hide underlying shading of the plastic or wood grain. Shad and bluegill have a reflective sheen. You can use pearl white to get that effect or a fine silver flake in a transparent medium dusted over the entire color scheme. There’s no wrong way to paint a bait and there are many ways to get a particular effect. The truth is that no two guys paint a custom bait exactly the same way and the same goes for the specific colors they choose to do it. You just have to jump in, develop your technique, and choose colors that look right to you. If you goof it up, wash off the paint and try again until you get a scheme that is acceptable to you. It’s a learn by doing process. Check out some of the crankbait painting videos on YouTube to give you ideas on techniques and color schemes.

Take a look at the hardbait cookbook topic at the top of the page and it will give you an idea of some of the color choices used. Sort of overwhelming if you want a reasonable color palette and are just starting out, right? I recommend getting a basic set of the primary colors: white black green blue yellow red brown. You can mix intermediate colors from them and you can add a few flaked, pearlized and neon colors to round out a basic “bass prey” palette. Or you can peruse taxidermy colors to get ones specifically designed for prey species. As well as the basic colors, I tend to use taxidermy paints a lot and most of them are flakes and pearls. Other than the basic colors in opaque, I use mostly transparent colors so I can layer colors for more natural effect and color blending. After a few years, I ended up with about 50 colors. But starting out with a basic palette makes the most sense.

If the joint has sharp edges I wouldn’t paint or epoxy inside the joint because epoxy cures away from an edge and the sharp edges will bang against one another when the bait is used anyway, rapidly chipping off the epoxy. The amount of gap in a joint significantly influences what kind of action the bait has. You don’t want to decrease the gap by clogging it with a topcoat. I like to wrap a rubber band around the joint hinge to protect it from topcoat and to immobilize the flexing of the bait while I apply and cure the topcoat.

It’s simple. Instead of starting with a white color basecoat, you just start with your transparent colors and shoot them lightly to get the translucent color scheme you want.

For indoor use, I’d go with either epoxy like Devcon Two Ton or UV cured polyester like AlumiUV. The AlumiUV is more expensive but it is very tough and only takes dipping and a few minutes of UV cure to give you a completed bait. MCU like KBS Diamond Coat is also a very nice topcoat but it does contain solvent that has to be evaporated as it hardens. I don’t find the fumes objectionable since were talking about fractions of an ounce of finish for a fishing lure but I apply MCU in my garage and let it outgas before taking it inside to moisture cure over several days.

It’s water based so I don’t think it would be useful for crankbaits. Probably designed to be heat set at 325 degrees on T-shirts. Even the “outdoor” water based clearcoats have proven to have rather poor performance on crankbaits.

Yeah, airbrushing works fine. But the crux of the problem is that you must put a really tough topcoat on the paint for it to last since jigs take a lot of abuse. I use moisture cured urethane but as Mark says, clear nail polish is cheaper and faster and is also a good choice.

If those are the weights available, I’d use the 3 gram and might cut it down to 2 1/2 grams. Weighing a variety of popular commercial custom 2 1/4” (not 2 1/2”) balsa flat shallow runners, .29 oz seems to be very common for the total bait weight including trebles, and the ballast most often works out to be 2 grams (.07 oz). Your bait is slightly larger. To get there when copying one of them, I use a small digital scale and subtract the weight of all the component pieces including split rings and trebles from the target weight to derive the required ballast weight. I estimate the weight of the finish at 1/50 oz. Using this method you can match the finished bait weight to within 1 or 2 hundredths of an ounce. You aren’t copying a bait but the same principle appliies.

It’s probably a isp outage, especially if it is located in the NE U.S. that is undergoing a bomb cyclone and flooding/power outages.

I paint in my garage with water based acrylic paints so don’t feel the need for a booth. It does create acrylic dust which would be a concern inside the house. If you need a booth inside, a simple box with an extractor fan and a particle filter will do. If you spray solvent based finishes like lacquer based paint or solvent based topcoats (especially catalyze utethane auto clearcoats which contain isocyanides) That’s a different matter. Then you need a flame proof fan and an outside vent and should wear a solvent rated mask while you work.

Test it and see. It has to be waterproof, has to have good leveling properties, and has to be tough to be an acceptable Topcoat. Cost effective is also good. Woo Hoo! Maybe the next great thing! Or not.

It takes a couple of weeks for the TU member judges to make their choices and for the results to be compiled.

There are probably dozens of ways to do it. I’d probably use quick cure epoxy or superglue to fix the wire followed by some auto body filler or even an outdoor caulking material to fill in the voids so it can be easily sanded smooth to hide the slot.

If you painted them with water based acrylic latex airbrush paint, give them a soak in warm soapy water and then remove the paint with a scrub brush.

The classic tow eye for square bills was soft brass. Nowadays, many of us prefer soft temper stainless steel. I buy mine from McMaster-Carr online in Malin 1/4 lb spools, .041” diameter. It’s easy to hand twist for a tow eye and while it’s hard enough to maintain its tuning, it’s soft enough to adjust without danger of cracking the bait’s finish. I twist them on a drill bit clamped in a vise with the wire held by vise grips. As to lip material, I use either 1/16” polycarbonate (aka Lexan) or G10 1/32” circuit board, with a preference for G10 on square bills for its better rebound quality off of cover and sharper swim action.

You can thin glue type epoxies like Devcon with a few drops of denatured alcohol. I don’t think thinner decoupage epoxies like Etex would need it. Just push a swab soaked in the epoxy through the hole from both ends several times and you should have good coverage.

Man, I’ve tried various glue-on foils including Mylar, gold leaf, etc and it ‘s just too finnacky for me to get it the way I want it. Which of the various spray adhesives to use? How smooth does the substrate surface have to be? When to apply the foil? How best to burnish it down? I defaulted to adhesive foil and think it has the right level of shine to mimic a real fish. I like Venture Tape because it has more shine than average hvac tape, is thinner, and has good adhesive.