BobP

I haven't had problems with any brand so choose based on color and price. I've used all the brands mentioned except Auto Air. You try different ones. Open an order and you're disappointed in some of the colors, excited about some others. Eventually, you develop some favorites. IMO Createx is hard to beat for overall quality and the consistent way it shoots. But it comes only in a limited palette and doesn't include "wildlife" hues and some metallics. I keep a stock of standard Createx colors in 4 oz bottles and supplement it with a variety of wildlife greens, grays, and pearls from other brands. It's hard to find a few colors in acrylic, especially a good metallic gold. One of the best is Folkart Inca Gold, a cheap hobby paint. There are a few colors I mix myself, namely blue/gray and bone but I'd rather use premixed colors when possible.

I've tried several methods including gold leaf, silver duct tape and Mylar type foil. Leafing was a fiasco - I couldn't manipulate the gossamer thin leaf without it tearing and the water based sizing glue sold at craft stores is not very durable. I admire some of the leafed lures I've seen on TU but darned if I can get the stuff to behave for me. Silver duct tape is fast and easy but is rather thick stuff compared to the others and is has a dull silver finish. It's easy to apply a scale pattern by crosshatching a bolt over the foil. The adhesive is durable. It's a bit of a pain to cut out the foil to fit the lure since the adhesive has a tendency to foul your sissors. For real flash, Mylar film is unbeatable. It has a shine that resembles liquid mercury, brighter than chrome. I got mine from a "Space Blanket", aka emergency reflective blanket sold in Walmart's camping Dept for $2. The stuff is a thin plastic film with metal deposited on one side. Don't know if all Mylar is like mine, but you need to be careful not to crease the film. Also, the metal can be scratched and solvent can also remove it. Therein lies the rub. You need to scratch some of the metal off to determine which side is the plastic and which is the metal. Mark whichever side you want DOWN with a Sharpie so you'll know which side is UP! If you put solvent based adhesive on the metal side, bad things can happen if you slide the foil around on the lure to position it. If the metal side is out, you can scratch it pretty easily if you smooth it down too hard. Hazmail makes some mighty nice looking Mylar foiled baits and he uses contact cement to glue it on. I tried it. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for the solvent to evaporate from the glue, or maybe my cement was whacked, I don't know, but it took off metal from the foil and ruined the effect. Lately I tried Devcon epoxy, figuring it doesn't contain any solvent so should be OK. With either glue, you want a THIN smooth layer, applied with a finger tip. I used 5 min Devcon and waited 4-5 minutes after application to put on the foil. Worked fine but not as neat as Hazmail's baits. Guess practice makes perfect! With any type foil, you want to clearcoat it afterward. I use Devcon 2Ton because it has no solvent. Acrylics don't stick well to metal foil, plus the clearcoat covers the edges for a seamless appearance. Besides, you'll probably need to "clean up" overspray on the foil when you paint the belly of the lure. A Qtip dipped in lacquer thinner or denatured alcohol works fine but you want to be cleaning overspray from epoxy clearcoat, not from raw foil. I don't do alot of foiling but made a few lures recently for a saltwater fishing trip. If you want real flash or want a custom painted bait that has a finish similar to factory chrome, you need to look into Mylar foiling. Obviously, I still have a way to go before I "get it down"!

Hey, my 98 PD-19 may not be beautiful anymore but it will still chine walk with the best of 'em with a Merc EFI on it! BTW, is that an EVINRUDE on the back of Moby Dick? Ha ha ha ha

Jerry, I think the bubble came out of a cavity behind the eye. I've had it happen on baits with 3D eyes. My theory - epoxy generates heat while curing, enough that an air pocket behind the eyes expands and Whammo. Generating bubbles under epoxy is one reason I don't heat epoxy finish on wood lures. I waterproof lures before painting and that also suppresses any air expansion in the wood but you never know when or where an air bubble will pop out under the epoxy and give you a headache.

Yeah, but I've yet to catch a fish dropshotting an Aaron's Magic Roboworm! That is the ugliest brown I've ever seen! Must be one of those Left Coast things. To keep from going insane (or maybe I have and don't know it) and broke, I limit my plastics to 1) watermelon black flake 2) green pumpkin and 3) purple. That keeps my plastic tonnage down to a level where the shelves in my garage just bend and groan loudly instead of actually collapsing onto my wife's car. Also, my Triton boat floats alot higher now!

2 weeks ago I had the same problem and assumed the galleries were closed to all members for some technical reason. When I started seeing new pics but it was still closed to me, it dawned that maybe there was a problem with "permissions" on my account. A note to Jerry (hit the "Contact Us" prompt at the bottom of the page) and the problem was fixed. Hey, these are computers. Ya gotta expect a few glitches just to keep it interesting!

Thanks DT. I'm about out of "glue" so am looking around to see what's available. The requirement to buy a whole gallon for $100+ is a little off-putting but I see it's sold as a floor coating so I guess that's understandable. My concern is that I do 100-150 crankbaits a year and I'm wondering if a gallon will store for the rather long time it will take me to use it all. Many of the products I've perused so far on the web advertise 100% solids but none I've found so far advertise any UV additives or other enhancers.

DT, you're very knowledgeable about finish epoxies and I appreciate the added info. I've used Devcon Two Ton, ETEX aka Envirotex Lite table top epoxy, and one other table epoxy (forgot the brand but it yellowed like crazy). I often use Devcon. Readily available, fairly cheap, brushes well, levels great, cures hard in 24 hrs, looks good and wears pretty well. When I say "wear well" I mean equal to most factory baits. I can't see any yellowing on pearl white lures I painted with D2T 3 yrs ago, so I'm not knocking it on that score either. Other TU'ers prefer ETEX. It contains a solvent so is a thinner finish that cures more slowly. Users give it high marks for durability. It's a favorite among custom builders who use multiple coats for a thick clearcoat on musky lures. Dick Nite Lurecoat is a very thin (compared to either of the above) moisture cured poly. DN had it formulated to clearcoat DN spoons. Tough, slick, thin, glossy stuff. If you want to dip finish it's a great choice but you can also brush it and get a nice clearcoat. One critical quality of ALL these "TU Favorites" is they are readily available. Walk into any Walmart and buy Devcon. Walk into any Michael's Craft store and buy ETEX. Click on a banner ad at the top of this page and get DN at a great special price for TU'ers. Most of us are not wedded to any particular product or brand. Show us something better at reasonable cost and we'll jump at the chance to use it. So - what's its brand name, where can we get it, and how much does it cost? Is there a minimum order size? Do we have to contract with an epoxy company to get it custom formulated?

Gold/brown - basecoat with Polytranspar #422 Warm Gold Pearl acrylic and then shoot Createx Transparent Light Brown over it until you get the shade wanted. I'm not a big fan of trying to exact match factory colors since they are usually lacquers and dyes, not acrylic which is the only paint I'll shoot. I think most of the hues you are looking for are easier to do with transparent and not opaque acrylics. For me, shooting transparent color over an opaque color is easier than trying to mix opaques to get a particular shade, and the layered colors will have more depth and look more "alive". You can also layer transparent colors over one another for different color values and translucency. Createx sells transparents in just about all their standard colors. Another example is bright metallic gold. Shooting transparent yellow Createx over silver foil yields a bright reflective gold. I like it because I can't apply real gold leaf worth a darn and nothing else I've tried comes close.

Is this any different than Envirotex Lite (aka ETEX)? Both are "table top epoxies".

IMO, epoxy has a single advantage over moisture cured poly - it levels out and hides surface irregularities extremely well. Otherwise, the poly is tougher and slicker. On the high end japanese bait repaints that Rookie is famous for, DN wins hands down. Thin, clear, glossy and tough as nails. Just what he's looking for. A few TU'ers (well, maybe just Dean!) use multiple coats of Dick Nite as their standard clearcoat. It makes a very durable lure but takes several days to apply. If you've ever sanded moisture cured poly like DN to prep a repaint, you'll see why guys choose it. TU'ers are roughly divided between guys who build baits as a hobby and guys who are into production for sale. The different perspectives mean alot when choosing equipment and finishes. Haven't had so much fun since the Devcon-ETEX skirmishes! Cry "Havoc!" and loose the dogs of war!

As far as durability in crankbaits, no wood will last long after the clearcoat fails and most woods will last fine if it doesn't

In my experience, if you leave Dick Nite in the can and reseal the lid several times, it's gonna begin to leak air and cure. Sooner or later! I decant DN into smaller bottles with constricted throats, tighten the lids down and cover them with tin foil. It lasts indefinitely in that mode. For the jar currently used for dipping/pouring, I never let DN drip back into the jar and never pour any unused DN back into it. The bottom line is you want as little air and as little DN surface area exposed to air as possible. At the suggestion of a fellow TU'er, I just ordered some Bloxygen, an inert gas you spray into the DN container to block any reaction with ambient air. DN is great stuff, but air is its enemy! Painting eyes - I pop them off and throw them away, then use new 3D adhesive eyes or paint on new eyes before clearcoating.

Guess this a litteral case of "different strokes/different folks". I never have a problem wetting out the surface with Devcon. I think of it as laying on epoxy rather than forcefully brushing it, and I want to keep the brush loaded so I'm not dragging a "dry" brush over the surface. I use inexpensive square "blending brushes" that cost $8-9 for a 6 pack. They're not really "soft" bristled but they're way softer and finer than a coarse bristle flux brush. End result? - same glass like coating as DT:) Guys who do it regularly develop a routine that works for them and it's always different from someone else's. It doesn't matter as long as we get to the same finish.

I think maybe your brush is not wetting out the lure surface properly. Like Striperknight, I mix the heck out of Devcon. Then I use a soft flat artist's brush to smooth it out on the lure. If done properly, brushing gets rid of 99.99% of any bubbles. I don't see any need to heat the lure afterwards. If I see a small bubble, breathing on it usually gets it gone. Some guys use a coarse flux brush to apply epoxy, then throw them away. I think you can do a much better job with a 1/4" artist's brush that has fine bristles which pop bubbles as you brush the lure. Clean it "vigorously" in denatured alcohol, lacquer thinner or acetone and brush it dry on a clean cloth. My current brush has lasted 2 yrs.

I'm thinking high quality but modest cost. The Iwata Revolution B with .3mm tip and gravity feed 1/16 oz cup is just about perfect for crankbaits and it's only about $68 from dixieart.com. It's a great "beginners brush" but no matter what airbrush you add to your arsenal in the future, you'll still be happy using the Revolution. It has typical Iwata build quality (flawless!) as the top end Iwatas and it will shoot any kind of paint without problems, but with good control. Since it's over $50, Dixie will ship free. Might as well order Createx paints to go with it, plus the hose, adapter fittings, water trap, etc, you'll need at the same time. Dixie is one of the best sources for airbrush parts and pieces.

DT, a dozen or so of those and it's Fish Fry time! Smitty, I agree with Phil - go fish it! No crankbait is going to look and act EXACTLY like a perch. If yours has the "visual cues" the predator is looking for and a decent action, it's gonna get bit. Black bars, greenish gold undertone and some orange on the belly will do it. Take a look at a factory bait in perch pattern, for example a Rapala, and you'll see the "standard". If the perch in your area vary, you can make appropriate changes and fish a killer bait.

Buy a double syringe of Devcon Two Ton epoxy at Walmart for $2. Mix some up and then thin it with denatured alcohol (up to 50/50). The thinner allows the epoxy to soak into the wood. Sand off the gloss of the epoxy after it cures for 24 hrs and you're ready to paint. After you paint the lure, brush on some unthinned Devcon as your durable clearcoat. Put 2 bent wire hooks on the nose and tail of the bait and reverse the up/down position every few minutes for the first half hour. Voila. And pretty cheap.

If you want eyes that look like the ones on premium japanese baits, your best bet is Japan. I just use the standard round 3D variety but suggest you contact some of the japanese gear sellers on Ebay or elsewhere to see if they can provide a contact. Or PM Rookie - he mentioned he got his from Japan.

The only way to really get it right is to do a float test. Hang lead on the bait until you get exactly the attitude in the water you want, then use it for the ballast. Guestimations aren't going to work very well on a walking bait if you want exactly 45 degrees, or whatever.

You can't really consider them "baits of shame" until the bass give their opinion The biggest thing about baits you don't like because of the paint job is that you have reduced confidence throwing them, and that is a killer for fishing them. Personally, I have no baits of shame. I strip them immediately and repaint! Don't want my friends making fun of me at the lake! But that's a whole 'nother thing that has nothing to do with catching fish.

Nothing plastic is compatible with acetone, including the adhesive on the 3D eyes. If you're dipping it may not have too much effect since acetone evaporates quickly and you aren't wiping it across the eye. But it will cloud a plastic or polycarbonate lip. Have you considered painting the eyes? They may not "pop" like 3D eyes but can look good if neatly done. There's alot of back and forth about how predator fish regard eyes, their size and position but I haven't noticed any advantage of one over the other in terms of getting bites. I always fit 3D eyes into a shallow socket so they'll stay put under normal use and because I don't like the "pop eye" look of just sticking them on the side of the head. As far as size, I keep a selection and choose the size and color based on the particular bait. 5 and 7 mm would be appropriate for smal/med and larger bass baits.