BobP

Selecting The Right Epoxy.pdf

I paint in the garage with the window open and a big exhaust fan running. Atomized acrylic airbrush paint that doesn't stick on the lure mostly becomes plastic dust. Not something you want to be breathing in large quantities but in and of itself, it's not toxic and a dust mask seems adequate protection to me if you are sensitive to it. Now if we're talking lacquer paint and/or other solvent based coatings, that's a whole other animal that calls for more protection.

It's hard to say what exactly it is. If it's flecks of solid stuff, the DN may have started to cure or dry before you finished brushing the lure and brushing dislodged small flecks of hardened urethane before you finished. DN outgases its solvent very quickly (especially on a warm humid day) so you want to coat the lure quickly and then hang it up immediately to drip off any excess and begin hardening. I use a 1/2" flat nylon artist's brush loaded with DN and I "flood coat" the lure in a few seconds, then hang it over newspaper to drip/dry. Clean out the holes after it has hardened. DN is pretty unforgiving about how it is applied and handled after coating. If the "flecks" are actually small bubbles, the humidity may have been too high during coating. Regardless, the problem is esthetic, not functional. It's still durable and the fish won't care a bit.

The Eclipse series is popular and Iwata makes great airbrushes. The eclipse uses a drop-in .35mm nozzle versus the screw-in nozzles used on most other Iwatas. The .35 nozzle is a good size for crankbaits as it will shoot pearl and flake airbrush paint without problems. There are Iwatas with smaller tips and ones that cost less or much more than the Eclipse but it is a very good "one brush for everything" brush.

I understand. I don't build baits in a production setting, which is very different from a hobby setting. You need to worry about economy of scale and most of all the TIME it takes for you to complete the various build tasks. Most of the small scale production baits I see are painted with lacquer. The original Suddeth builders turned out a good bait and they refined their processes over time as they learned the ins and outs of specific build steps and which products to use. You need to do the same and learn the details from them. Otherwise you are going to have a lot of missteps. There may be new products and procedures you can integrate into your processes but first you need to learn everything about how "the originals" did it.

I use acrylics vs lacquer so can't help much re thinning it. Whichever you use, My experience is that painting a crankbait uses very small volumes of paint, small enough that my focus is getting the paint on the lure in the most effective way I can for the paint scheme I want to produce versus worrying about the very modest cost of the paint. As far as chartreuse goes you can add small amounts of green into a yellow base to get any version of chartreuse you want. For me, I prefer a clean Createx Neon Yellow to a real chartreuse color and I think most of the commercial "chartreuse" baits I see are variations of plain yellow versus actual chartreuse.

I don't see how you could effectively cure it unless maybe you used a special flash oven that would quickly heat the surface without heating the whole lure. I think typical powder has to be melted at over 300 F. And I disagree that powder has more colors than lacquer or acrylic paint. Good luck with it but color me doubtful.

I think most of the sources cited here on TU have had very good customer service reputations and have been quick to replace defective blanks and make good on their orders. Realize that these suppliers are typically one man operations. If you have a bad experience with one, there's really not much recourse unless you paid with PayPal or are willing to contact your credit card company to cancel the payment. I wouldn't hesitate to do that if you think you have been treated unfairly or unethically, if things went exactly as you say. And no, this is not a usual practice among blank suppliers.

I put a drop of oil in the trigger air inlet of my Iwata to lube the trigger components when I do a periodic thorough cleaning. So far it keeps me from having to disassemble the tiny trigger parts. So far.

You're gonna have to disassemble the trigger components to see what the problem is, and work from there. There are several videos about the 105 on YouTube.

Different airbrushes use different connectors. I got mine at a Sears store but any home or hardware store that stocks air tools usually has a supply of connectors, moisture traps, pressure gauges, etc. take your airbrush hose with you.

I haven't seen any for sale. But you can make your own. I get lurepartsonline.com props and buzz bait rivets. The rivets will force fit into the prop holes with a little effort and then I sand down the rivet shaft with a Dremel to get he length I want. They turn a whole lot easier than uncollared props.

It looks like the TC20T comp pressures to 57 psi and includes a small air tank to keep the comp air flow from pulsing, so yes, I think it would work ok for an airbrush. Is it the best solution for your purposes? That depends on how quiet you need your comp to be and the environment it will be used in. I work in my garage where noise is not an issue so use a Porter Cable 135 psi tool comp with a 6 gallon air tank. It turns on to re-air the tank maybe once in an afternoon of painting and is small enough to fit under my work bench. It's too loud to use in the house or in a studio but fine in my garage. Most guys would say that more air pressure and the biggest tank you can get, the better off you are on a "cost to air basis" if the environment can accommodate it. Player's choice.

Personally I prefer the Iwata, but I'm brand loyal. Compressors are important. And one thing you need to know about airbrush comps is that ideally you want a SUSTAINED pressure of at least 25 psi. Manufacturers typically list the maximum psi their comp can produce, and that's misleading because on a small aitbrush comp, the psi usually drops 15 psi after you press the trigger on your brush. So I wouldn't buy a comp that promises less than 40 psi max, and preferably 50-60 psi if you have a choice. Paint: to me it's all the same as far as water based acrylic latex airbrush paint goes. I mix and match brands according to the colors available from various companies. Createx is the standard of quality for basic colors. I also use quite a few taxidermy paints for special colors, flakes, and pearlescent effects.

I spray some water in the cup with a spray bottle and shoot it until clean into a trash can. Some guys submerge the brush in water or cleaner and pull the trigger. Guess you could do the same thing with a siphon model. Paint comes in plastic bottles with a nozzle, so just squirt a little into the GF cup for the next color. For many color shots, that's just a few drops of paint.. There are lots of ways to "get it done". It just depends on your equipment and where you're working. For me, it's my garage.

To each his own! You still have to clean out the paint in the siphon tube and airbrush tip between colors. There's less leftover paint in a gravity feed brush to clean out, so I prefer those.

The Paasche and Badger standard brushes usually come in a kit with 3 different tips and needles, which is nice if you want to paint things larger than crankbaits. But they are siphon models and I strongly prefer gravity feed brushes. They work a little better, are easier to clean, and use less paint. But all said and done, it's the guy holding the brush and not the brush that gets the art done.

I was never a good detail artist and after many years trying, decided I never will be. I use paint templates for detail. It's the refuge for those of us who are ham handed hammer heads.

Paasche, Badger and Iwata all make good reliable airbrushes. My favorites are the Japanese Iwatas due to their precision and build quality. I think a brush with a .3 to .35 mm tip is the sweet spot for crankbait painting and I use an Iwata Revolution BR with .3 mm tip for everything. It is moderately priced at about $100 retail. Painting detail is more a matter of technique and control than what brush you use, and that takes practice. The Neo is Iwata's bargain brush and is not made in Japan. Some guys say they work fine, some report problems with them. If you paint where noise is not an issue, many guys opt for a tool compressor vs a small airbrush compressor. They are cheaper and offer higher air pressure and long endurance without cycling on/off if they have an air storage tank. I'd choose an oil-less compressor with a min 5 gal air reservoir and min 100 psi pressure, and add a moisture trap and an auxiliary fine pressure control in the 10-40 psi range that you would use with an airbrush.

Propman, cutting lips from polycarbonate aka Lexan sheet is so easy, particularly for a coffin shaped lip for which you have a specimen to trace from. A pair of metal shears, a Dremel sanding drum and felt polishing cylinder is all that's needed to roll your own. I think it's unlikely that you will find a stock pre-made lip with the exact same size and shape.

If the eyes are resting on a curved surface, the epoxy can weaken the adhesive backing and cause the eye to partially pop off. Plastic lures usually have a flat recess to hold the eyes and you can drill a recess into wood or other materials to do the same. This is a little finnacky to do so I prefer to paint the eyes on wood crankbaits. I like the classic look and the fish don't seem to care one way or the other.

If a topcoat is damaged and is covering acrylic latex paint, the paint will absorb water and try to push whatever topcoat you used off the bait. The undercoat aka primer would not be affected unless it was also water based or was also penetrated. I don't fish for toothy fish but if I did, I would consider using lacquer based paint which is waterproof but requires using a protective mask when spraying. If all of the coatings you use are waterproof a fish would have to penetrate all of them to ruin the bait. It's really a matter of how durable you require your bait to be.

Yep, exacto handles with the blade removed. I use locking forceps to grip the lips while painting. Put a little painter's tape on the lip to avoid scratching it.

I'm sure it's just me but I never found a rattle can paint or primer that didn't give off an objectionable odor even after it had dried for several days. And in my crankbait box, the smell would concentrate and affect all the other baits in there too. Just sayin. I color basecoat with Polytranspar Superhide White and a .30 mm Iwata brush. It has lots of pigment, is water based, and dries quickly to a hard smooth surface. I'm sure a Hvlp gun would be faster and do it just as well. Most airbrush brands include a heavily pigmented white in their lineup for color base-coating. whatever option you choose, remember that it will have to be compatible with a solvent based topcoat, if that is also what you choose. There are also coatings that you can dip baits into to basecoat but I haven't tried them, such as heavily pigmented lacquer.

Suddeth, huh. I bought a few of their foamed baits 15-16 years ago and liked them. They caught fish and their design was unique. When I went back to see their other offerings, I heard they had sold the company and never saw those types of crankbaits again. Good luck if you are planning to revive their designs.