BobP

Regulators and moisture traps can be found at many home centers like Lowes or Home Depot, or you can find ones designed for airbrush compressors at dixieart.com or other airbrush stores. The hard part sometimes is finding the adapters to fit everything together. I took all my junk to the store to make sure I got the adapters I needed. Use some plumbers Teflon (PTFE) tape on all the connections. Moisture traps often come with an integral air pressure gauge, which is nice to have.

Predator, I haven't had trouble with a particular acrylic and DN but have never used Auto Air so there could be a chemical incompatibility. The only time I had cracking and crazing is when I sprayed thick multiple acrylic coats on one bait's belly. I think DN soaks into acrylic, which is good for durability but bad if it isn't compatible. So far (knock on wood!) I haven't had any storage problems for 6-7 months and counting. I decanted a quart into several smaller bottles with necks that are just wide enough to dip a bait through (salsa jars) and I cover the jar tops with tin foil after I screw on the caps securely. I never let a bait drip back into the jar, as cautioned by Dick Nite. I dip them in and remove them slowly, then let them drip on newpaper for 10-15 seconds before putting them on the turner. You don't want DN pooling into a thick layer anywhere, or that area can develop bubbles or wrinkles. I think the solvent takes longer to evaporate in a thick area and stays in contact with whatever is underneath for too long. I'm not a paint chemist and don't know why DN behaves (and misbehaves) the way it does. This is just my homebrew technique based on trial and error. You can develop some goofy conclusions that have no basis in reality if you aren't careful, but I try to pay attention. Sometimes, it's hard to tell exactly why something blew up in your face

DN recoats - I wait 24 hrs because I've occasionally had wrinkles when I did it sooner. It's not scientific but I haven't had a wrinkle since. I've also found DN is pretty fragile immediately after it's dry. Obviously, it takes a few days for the moisture cure to develop and become really tough. After that happens, the stuff seems as tough as a good clearcoat on a commercial bait. I especially like its very slick surface and it seems to fend off hook rash better than epoxy.

I wrap a rubber band around the hinge to immobilize it. It works fine on double screw eye hinges, not sure about other styles of hinge.

It's easier for me to sand a patch done with a filler that's similar in density to the wood around it. An epoxy patch in a balsa bait is REAL hard for me to sand. I use interior wood filler in balsa and exterior wood filler in hardwoods for that reason.

2nd coat - I've gotten wrinkles occasionally when I dipped again sooner than 24 hrs. I'm not saying it's an exact science but I've never had a problem when I waited 24 hrs. IMO, keeping the coats thin is critical. If you recoat before the solvents have completely evaporated from the 1st coat, it will eventually bite you. I had more touble with wrinkling and bubbles when I used Famowood DuraTuff water cured poly, which is much thicker than DN. I only use one coat of DN on bass baits now. It seems plenty tough and I figure the more operations you do on a lure, the more chance of bad things happening. I recoat only if there's a problem with the first coat. There's nothing more frustrating than getting wrinkles or a bunch of bubbles in a clearcoat after all the work you've done on a crankbait.

Thin is thin but after moisture curing (takes about a week to get very tough and a month or so to get REALLY tough) the DN will IMO be more durable than a coat of ETEX. The drawback with DN is that you need to wait at least 24 hours, preferably longer, before you recoat. For bass lures, a single coat has worked fine for me. I only recoat if I get a bubble or other problem. It makes a slick glossy surface that is pretty resistant to hook rash.

I'm betting it's the Zap glue. Soaked into the newspaper and covered with epoxy may not be the same thing as using it over the epoxy, exposed to air. Why not try something like a water based interior wood filler? It dries quickly, it's white, and an inexpensive squeeze tube lasts a long time. White spackling compound is very similar.

It depends on whether the original was copyrighted. Most of the fish pics I've seen on university biology sites aren't but pics done by artists often are. It will say somewhere on the site if they are.

Like Spike-A-Pike, I think the solvent in your polyurethane caused the problem. I suggest trying a coat of Devcon Two Ton instead. It has no solvent and shouldn't lift the foil, plus it forms a hard durable coating that levels very well. I'd be concerned too about using Elmer's on the netting. If it was this fragile, it may delaminate from the lure during use regardless of what's on top of it. The contact cement used to glue down countertop laminates should fix that.

I think paint thinner and mineral spirits are too oily. I use denatured alcohol, lacquer thinner or acetone. The DA seems to work best. It thins nicely, doesn't flash off as fast as acetone and still lets the epoxy cure out nice and hard.

I use a flat square tip artist blending brush, $6-7 for a set of 4-5 various sizes. I clean them with acetone or denatured alcohol after use. A couple of years and about 200 crankbaits later, I'm still using the same cheapo brushes. Wipe excess epoxy off the brush on a paper towel. Agitate the brush in solvent and bend the bristles against the bottom of the jar, fanning them out. Dry the brush on a clean lint free piece of cloth. Check to see if the bristles are separate. If not, repeat in the solvent. Cleaning takes about 1 minute.

Rlcam, various things cause bubbles, from bubbles mixed into the epoxy, bubbles caused by the way you brush it on, to bubbles coming out of the lure if it is heated before the epoxy is hard. A FEW drops of denatured alcohol mixed in the epoxy can thin it slightly and help it to expel bubbles. How you brush the epoxy and what brush you use also have a big effect. I have the best luck using a 1/4" wide flat artist's brush (called a blending brush). I brush over the epoxy quickly several times to remove any bubbles and I'm "laying it on" fairly thick and then brushing the excess down the lure, always keeping the brush wet with epoxy. You don't want the brush dragging dry over uncoated areas - it causes bubbles. When it's finished, I breathe on any bubbles, then spin it. I don't heat mine with a heat gun or torch but some guys do.

I don't mask unless I want paint to hide the sides of the lip slot or when repainting baits, and I take it off before clearcoating. However, it makes a neater line if you take off the tape immediately after applying the clearcoat (something I learned building rods).

I use the soft temper stainless (aka safety wire?) from McMaster-Carr for thru-wire harnesses and on most baits for the line ties. It's similar but a tad stiffer than soft brass wire which is very popular for bass cranks. I'd recommend the .040" diameter (untwisted). I've used the .032" successfully but figure, what the heck, .040" still looks good and is 33% stronger. In addition to making it MUCH easier to form the wire frame, it also makes the bait easy to tune without cracking the finish around the nose. I haven't had it break or even deform perceptably on bass up to 6 lbs. It seems like cooked spagetti compared to hard stainless but when bent into a small diameter circle and anchored in epoxy, it's quite strong.

On pre-formed baits, I bend a piece of acetate around the nose of the bait to mark a symetrical lip slot and cut it with a Dremel cutoff blade. I usually make the slots large enough to provide adjustment room and use Rod Bond paste epoxy that will fill any void without leaking out. This inexactness is one reason I tend to avoid pre-formed bodies! Cutting the slot while the blank is still "square" and before rounding is the most accurate method. BTW, I've bought preforms with slots ready-cut that were more skewed than I could do freehand, so it was a lesson learned. The smaller the bait, the rounder the bait, the less accurate they tend to be in my experience. Of several popular online sources, the best ones I've seen came from Jann's Netcraft.

A point about heating baits - If you heat the whole bait, it can expand the air inside and guess where the extra air goes? Into your clearcoat. I just brush Devcon on and put in on the turner for an hour. Rarely see any bubbles. If I do, breathing on them during the first few minutes of turning usually pops them. Some like to pass a torch or heat gun quickly over the bait, but not enough to heat the inside.

I'm not such a good historian as you. Many square lip fat shallow balsa baits have lips that are just slightly narrower than the widest part of the body and set at right about 30 degrees from horizontal. Most 2 1/2 to 3" balsa versions weigh about 1/2 oz. The new Rapala BFAT4 or Lucky Craft 1.5 both fit that model. I like some roll along with the wiggle and the Rapala has that.

Many Michael's Craft stores also carry it. It comes in two 8 oz bottles and is marketed as a finish for table tops. The actual name is Envirotex Lite.

If this is the first bait you've made of this type, you should float test it before installing ballast. Ballasting while a lure is split in half is an easy way to go but it's not going to work well on an untested bait. I float test a bait after it's shaped, waterproofed, and the hardware is installed. Mount trebles on the bait temporarily. On a walking bait, drive a pin in where you think the ballast should go, then hang lead wire on the pin and float the bait, changing position and weight until you get what you like. Weigh the lead and melt it into a slug, then drill a hole and epoxy it in the bait. Write down the ballast weight so you won't need to float test the next one when your fishing buddy insists he's gotta have one just like it.

One added tip - if you get a contaminant (dust, gnat, hard piece of epoxy, whatever) in your brush while brushing epoxy wipe it off on a hard surface or a lint free cloth - NOT a paper towel. An epoxy filled brush will lift numerous fibers off a paper towel and you don't want them in your clearcoat.

Tim Hughes, noted crankbait artist, posted that they use a blast booth and it has the advantage of removing finish without erasing detail like hand sanding does. A booth would be the deal if you did as many repaints as Hughes Custom Baits, or if you had one sitting in the garage for other tasks.

I'm sure there are airbrush artists in South Africa, just gotta find where they buy supplies and do likewise

Kevin, you had some resin or hardener that didn't get mixed. 2 problem areas with epoxy prep - insufficient measuring or mixing. If you do both right, it comes out smooth and hard every time. Don't mix it in a container that has any creases or corners, and use a flat piece of plastic (like a strip cut from a credit card). I mix the heck out of mine to the point where it has lots of bubbles in it. No problem. If you brush it out on the lure properly with an artist's brush, the bubbles will disappear. If you coat sticky epoxy with new, the new stuff will cause the sticky layer to cure most times.

You can add several solvents to Devcon to thin and help it expel bubbles. I use denatured alcohol because it doesn't evaporate as fast as acetone. No need to thin if you work in warm conditions but a little thinning in cool temps will extend the work time a few minutes. It also extends the cure time by an hour or so. Envirotex Lite comes with solvent in it and is quite thin when applied, and has much longer cure time. If you want to thin, mix the epoxy first then mix in a FEW drops of solvent. It doesn't take much!