BobP

If you just need the holes to be waterproof a swab coated with epoxy will work. If the holes will contain hardware that needs to be fixed in place, I’d fill the holes with epoxy paste like Rod Bond which is both waterproof and very durable.

One concern I have. On a bait colored with Sharpie dye, you must not use a topcoat containing any solvent or your colors will run. Frankly, I don’t see how shooting Sharpie dye would be cheaper than using acrylic latex airbrush paint. And your color choices would be much reduced.

I stretch a thick rubber band, the kind they use on supermarket produce, over the nose and mark the line. Then cut it with a thin fiber reinforced Dremel cutoff disk.

Agree with the above 100%. Do you think the hardener and the resin weigh exactly the same per volume? I don’t know. So recommend you get a couple of epoxy syringes and use them instead. If the manufacturer says to measure equal volumes, follow their direction. They formulate the product so that, if you follow the directions, there will be the proper amounts to form molecular bonds with no unbonded part left over.. If you don’t, there will be an excess of one part that never gets bound and voila, sticky epoxy. You also have to mix very thoroughly to get the hardener and resin in contact at the molecular level. A couple of minutes of vigorous mixing ain’t too much.

Well, I didn’t know what that was until I Googled it and was served up a description from the Specialized Balsa site. I assume they sell it.

Dipping in acetone won’t fix a crack because it can’t penetrate enough to get to the broken plastic inside. I don’t know of anything that will. I’d return them. If you monkey around with them, they’re yours forever.

Nicely done. Re paint: Createx (and its sub-brands like Autoair) is the most popular airbrush paint for good reason. It’s available everywhere and it maintains a high quality standard and consistency. That said, there are many other brands including taxidermy paint brands that I mix and match with no problems. As for price, I think you will find that airbrush paint lasts a very long time because you are using very small amounts of it on a single bait. I buy the 4 oz bottles and as a hobby builder, only need to buy 2-3 bottles per year to replenish my paint box. To me, using non-airbrush cheap hobby paint is definitely penny wise but pound foolish since a lot of it will just not shoot reliably through an airbrush.

That’s a shame! I really liked the 1/4 oz model. It is one of the few crankbaits that are very small but will run 12 ft deep. Now I’ll have to horde the few I have left!

I think your main problem is the 17 rpm. Etex contains solvent so is thinner and is more finnacky about fisheyes than glue type epoxies like Devcon, etc. Guys successfully use turners in the 1.5 to 8 rpm range. I agree with Anglinarcher about water based clearcoats. Several have been tried here on TU and none were found to be very durable or waterproof.

My concern would be that the oil in the wood may eventually migrate into and discolor the paint unless an effective barrier sealer is used on the raw wood. I don’t use either so can’t really say if this is a factual or fictional problem.

I can never get a lip inserted with epoxy on it without scraping some of the epoxy off the back of the lip and onto the exposed lip. Also, I want the internal surfaces of the lip slot 100% covered in epoxy when the lip is installed to prevent eayer leakage. That’s why I prefer filling the slot with epoxy and pushing in a dry lip. No muss, no fuss, no exposed wood anywhere.

I install all hardware except the lip before sealing. I mark a center line all around the bait to locate the hardware while the bait is still “square” and drill the holes before I begin rounding over and sanding the bait. So if I sealed the bait before installing the hardware, I would be fouling the drilled holes.

Not sure what needle lube is. I do the same thing with the light oil I use for reel bearings and also put a drop on the shaft of the trigger.

I cut a couple of slots in the back of the lip and also sand the hidden part of the lip with my Drexel. I use Rod Bond epoxy Paste to glue it in. Pack the slot with epoxy and push in the lip. Wipe off the epoxy that squeezes out the back of the slot. You don’t want a slot that is too tight because epoxy has a minimum film thickness for strength. I like the epoxy paste because it’s strong and has a very long work time, well over an hour, that lets me fiddle with lip alignment. It also will stay in the slot and not flow out.

Acetone is a very volatile solvent compared to lacquer thinner or denatured alcohol, so you really have to get after agitating the brush and spreading out the bristles in the solvent. The acetone will evaporate quickly and leave behind any epoxy that isn’t removed while submerged. I don't use acetone because I can’t store it for long in any jar or container except the can it comes in.

I troll un-teed wood cranks for stripers and yep, the hooks wear through to the wood through a thick coat of epoxy in a few sessions. I use high temper Japanese hooks so haven’t tried t-ing them lest they break. But it’s not a bad idea if your hooks will bend without breaking and you want to preserve the baits’ finish longer.

Etex also contains a solvent to help it level out on flat surfaces. Being much thinner in viscosity than glue type epoxies like Devcon Two Ton, it will tend to develop fish eyes more quickly if applied over a grease spot or finger print. Suggest you read the tutorial by Fatfingers on “achieving the perfect finish”. I recommend measuring epoxy exactly with syringes and mixing the heck out of it. You need to get the molecules of all the resin and hardener in contact for them to chemically cure as designed.

I’ve used the GloNation green paint. It came in a gel so the glow particles will suspend in it. The particles are very large, which is good and bad. Bad because they are too large to spray through an airbrush. Good because the more particles there are and the larger they are, the more glow effect you get. I painted it on thick with a brush in several coats and clear coated it with Dick Nite S81 MCU. It leveled out nicely and the glow effect is super strong and lasts for hours without charging the paint beforehand with a strong light. I think the gel paint would be a PITA to use for accents but I used it to completely coat jigging spoons for which it works great.

I use lacquer thinner in a single jar and reuse it until I see debris floating in the solvent. I clean the brush initially on a paper towel but then switch to a lint free cloth because paper towels can shed fibers onto a sticky brush.

If your needle is really sticking out farther you may have split the cone or nozzle of the airbrush. It can be hard to see a split on such a small part. Worth using a magnifier to make sure.

I always wet the brush in solvent and stroke it against a clean cloth before using it and I clean it vigorously after use, bending the bristles in multiple directions while submerged in the solvent and then stroking it dry on a cloth. Takes less than a minute and makes the brush last years instead of months. I prefer the fine bristles of an artist’s brush instead of the coarser bristles of flux or cheap throwaway brushes, so good cleaning is a must.

You lucky boy. I see one for sale on EBay for only $120, from Latin America. IMO, buy some KBII’s and find a custom builder to modify them rather than pay a huge premium for a discontinued bait.

What do you want the lure to do when retrieving it? After you get the ballast settled you need to swim it and see if the action is what you want. The lip seems fairly wide to me, which tends to minimize the side to side excursions the bait will make when ripped. If it doesn’t suit you after testing, consider narrowing it.

The props on spybaits tend to be very small and light, but the baits themselves are usually very small and skinny too. I think most of the props sold by online are chromed brass, like the pointed 1” props sold by lurepartsonline.com. These should do the job depending on the size of your bait, even though they may be a little heavier than the props on the Japanese versions.

On standard size bass baits I use Malin .041” diameter soft temper stainless from McMaster-Carr, and move down to .032” for very small baits. “Safety wire”, annealed and soft temper all mean the same thing. Easy to bend accurately with hand tools and strong enough to hold up in fishing. I started using it for line ties in balsa baits to avoid breaking the finish on the nose of the baits. Now I use it for everything. Soft brass wire was the original wire used in a lot of early balsa baits and is similar but slightly softer per diameter, and I prefer stainless because it won't tarnish. A 1/4 lb spool costs less than $10 and will do quite a few baits.