BobP

Devcon says to measure in equal volumes. The most accurate way to do that is to buy a set of epoxy syringes. Dispensing equal sized pools works ok most of the time too, at least at room temperature. You either did not measure it accurately or you did not mix it thoroughly enough. Of the two, the most common is not mixing it enough. I do mine with a strip cut from an old credit card and mix in a jar cap covered with heavy duty foil. Hardening takes place through a chemical reaction at the molecular level, so unless it is mixed thoroughly, the components can't react and harden. I mix the devil out of mine until it turns white from the air bubbles in it, then mix in a FEW drops of denatured alcohol to slightly thin the mix and extend the brush time by a minute or two. That helps expel the bubbles too. Then I apply it with an artist's brush whose fine bristles pop any remaining bubbles as I brush it on. there's no way to strip bad epoxy without mechanically removing the entire finish. Just mix a new batch and apply it. The new epoxy will cause the tacky epoxy to cure hard too.

Flip color paints are available. I'd check the Wicked lineup and any brand sold for hobby car painting.

Envirotex contains some solvent so it is naturally thinner than a glue epoxy like Devcon Two Ton. Epoxy wants to contract to itself while curing, so a thinner epoxy will have more tendency to fisheye than a glue epoxy. The thinner the coating you apply, the easier it is for a fisheye to appear.

Mix a few drops of denatured alcohol into enough mixed D2T to do 2-3 baits. Go slow. A little alcohol goes a long way. That will thin the epoxy and increase the brush time by a couple of minutes. Denatured alcohol is the only thinner I've tried that doesn't screw up the epoxy. The rotation time required will also be longer by 15-20 minutes but it will still harden to the touch in about 5 hours, effective full cure in 12-24 hrs.

Lurch, Do a search on this. There have been several recent threads on the topic.

You can tint just about anything you want to use for color basecoating and then dip baits in it. One shop I heard used flooring glue as a "build coat", which allowed them to thickly coat a crank which might be only rough sanded and have various surface imperfections. Of course, you have to take a thick coating like that into account when you are designing a bait's size, ballast, etc. If you dissect a classic Rapala or Poe's bait, you'll often find such a build coat. I don't build for production so can't recommend a specific coating but there are a few higher volume builders here on TU that may be able to help.

I only use water based acrylic airbrush paint too. Createx and others including taxidermy paints. And I rarely if ever thin it. Plain water flush between colors. Acetone flush after painting, take out and clean the needle. Airbrush cleaning solution soak overnight when the mood hits me, usually quarterly. Createx is popular because it is widely available and consistent in quality with finely ground pigments that shouldn't be clogging an airbrush. My gut feeling is that your brush is either clogged with hardened paint in the tip or is damaged in the tip somehow.

I've used Paasche and Badger airbrushes but now mostly use an Iwata Revolution BR. I very rarely experience any clogging with the BR. It has a .3mm tip that I consider perfect for airbrushing cranks using airbrush paints. If yours is continually clogging, are you using airbrush paint (and not cheap hobby paint)? If so, I suspect you may have a bent nozzle or needle, or dried paint in the brush that can only be removed by soaking the brush in airbrush cleaning solution. It's not normal for this brush to clog.

Hmm, sounds like you are not contaminating the lure with silicone or oil from your hands. Assume there is no oil coming through your airbrush from the compressor? If all that is OK, I would try letting the Etex epoxy sit for 10-15 minutes after mixing to gel a little before brushing it on and not being stingy with the coating you apply. And as always, measuring and thorough mixing is critical. If a second coat fisheyes in the same spots, there is contamination there. If not, it's usually a problem with the mix or the application technique. You want to keep the brush loaded with epoxy every time it touches the lure.

I looked at the GlonNation site recently and they give info on how long the respective glo color paints will emit light. If I remember, the greenish white lasts the longest at 10-12 hours. The amount of light emitted depends entirely on how many and how large the suspended glow particles are. I have only used their acrylic glow green paint, which had lots of particles and was very grainy - too grainy to pass through an airbrush. But it really glowed like crazy. So there are trade offs depending on how you want to apply it vs particle size vs the amount of glow you get.

If the epoxy company sells the syringes for use with epoxy and the plunger gasket looks like black rubber.... I bet that's what it is. If you're feeling hinky about it, drop a note to System Three and ask.

The basswood I see usually seems to have pretty consistent density so I never float checked it to see if it had a "top". But then again, I don't build cylindrical topwater lures with it. Vodkaman's superglue tip will fix you up if you have concerns. You can't really do too much testing while building a bait. I'd want to float test a topwater to fix where and how much ballast to add after undercoating and before painting it. How they sit on the water at rest makes a big difference in performance.

Comments on some of your questions: tung oil is good stuff but it takes weeks to become really hard. A coat of Etex would be a lot faster and just as good or better. I don't know of any ready built lure turners. Just about everyone builds their own using slow speed ac motors like from a rotisserie, a microwave, etc. it took me about an hour to build mine with a piece of wood shelving, a dowel rod, a couple of washers, a 6 rpm motor, and some alligator clips. It's lasted for 15 years so far. Polycarbonate is a lot more durable than plastic so you can use thinner sheets of it. Think function over form. I wouldn't want to weight a lure down with hugely thick Lexan just because the lure I'm copying has a thick plastic lip. I mostly use 1/16" thick Lexan on my lures. Keep the protective backing on the Lexan until you are ready to buff the edges clear. I use a Dremel with a felt polishing cylinder to buff. A cylindrical body will rotate from the torque of a prop. Ballast will counteract it, as will using props that rotate in opposite directions. Hope this helps.

I use .041 soft temper stainless wire. You can use copper wire if you like but it will discolor and corrode over time. I order mine on line from McMaster-Carr but you can find it in home centers and hobby shops. superglue the raw wood to stiffen the surface, lightly sand any rough areas, then apply a coat of epoxy, lightly sand to give it some tooth, then paint. rattles can be made anyway you like, or you can buy worm/jig rattles and use those. The homemade variety can be made as loud as you like, so I prefer them.

smallies eat the same forage as largemouths but they have a more inquisitive and aggressive attitude. I don't throw wild colors at largemouths but bright patterns like chartreuse/orange back, clown, fire tiger, etc are productive smallmouth colors for good reason. Not saying more natural muted patterns won't work too, but you can expand the palette.

You might try any of those remedies, or you can simply sand the sharp edges down to get a small radius. There's really no way to prevent epoxy from drawing away from a sharp edge - it just goes with the territory.

honestly, if I were trying to get kids interested in fishing, I'd start with soft plastic lures instead of hard baits. Cheaper, less casting skill required to fish, safer, and probably better fish catchers than crankbaits thrown by a bunch of inexperienced kids. I'd have visions of kids hooking themselves, each other, the nearest tree, and anyone trying to teach them how to fish. There's a lot to said for the ole Texas rig. It catches fish and seldom results in trips to the emergency room. That said, I'd be willing to donate some finished crankbaits if you are hell bent on that course of action. With the understanding that you, not me, are responsible for the resulting mayhem. If so, pm me. a can of spar urethane varnish would probably be a cost effective solution for topcoating. Not ideal, imo, but workable.

The "standard" is Createx because of its consistent quality and wide availability. But you can mix and match various brands, including taxidermy acrylics to get a wide variety of colors and special effects like pearls, flakes, etc.

I agree with 21xdc, it's the topcoat not the paint. I haven't tried KBS moisture cured urethane yet but often use Dick Nite S81, which is formulated specifically for coating Dick Nite spoons. In other words, if you want a true factory spoon finish, this is one. Dick Nite paints spoons with lacquer paint that he also sells. TU members get a discount. I've painted spoons with acrylic water based airbrush paint and dipped them in S81, and have been very happy with the results. That eliminated the environmental risk of spraying solvent based lacquers and the topcoat seemed to penetrate the paint and make a good bond with the spoon metal underneath. Don't know whether KBS has this penetrating quality since I haven't tried it.

I dip my brush in DA and shake a few drops in the mix to do 3 bass baits mostly because I want to thin the epoxy for a little thinner coating when working in a cool garage. It also extends the work time by a minute or two. After years of epoxying I've decided 3 baits on a batch of D2T was all that can be comfortably done before the mix begins to thicken, regardless of adding DA. Why push it, get in a rush and screw something up after all that work building them?

And yes, Solarez is uv cured, not uv radiant.

Yup, you're right Ben. When it comes to topcoats, the devil is in the details!

I use DN MCU too, and wanted a method that was similar to dipping without exposing my unused finish to ambient moisture. Spraying didn't appeal to me so using a soft brush, I just quickly flood coated the lures and hung them up to dry and drip the excess off the tails. Takes only a few seconds to do. It works fine and there's only a brush to clean up afterward. There is a little wasted finish from what drips off the lures, but no more than if I were dipping the lures directly in the MCU. Several TUers dip in KBS Diamond Coat MCU and say it's less sensitive to moisture contamination. My feeling is "why spray if you don't need to?" It's no faster and you don't have to worry about thinning the MCU, or about adjusting a spray gun or airbrush. If I were doing 30-50 lures a day, I'd probably just dip them in Dick Nite just like he does for his factory baits. You'd be using up the finish quickly enough that moisture contamination probably wouldn't be a problem. Jmho

I'd apply the same reasoning as Dauds to all of the details of bait making. There's nothing worse than building a bait that turns out to be a great one, then being unable to replicate it because you forgot where exactly you put the ballast weights, or what the finished bait weighed, or the angle you used on the lip, etc etc etc. and if you build more than one model bait, you WILL forget. I take detailed notes on every batch of baits I make and make frequent use of a digital scale, starting with cutting out the blank and finishing with the type of topcoat I use. And I note what I think about how the bait performs afterward. It will show you the way to improving your baits and how to replicate the good ones - and how to avoid making not so good ones!

There are a lot of different coatings used to seal (undercoat) and topcoat wood baits. It's a matter of how complicated and expensive you want to make it. One of the simplest regimens I can think of is to finger coat the raw balsa with some liquid superglue to stiffen and strengthen the wood surface, apply a coat of D2T to waterproof the surface, lightly sand, paint, then apply a coat of D2T as a topcoat. That minimizes the number of coatings you need to acquire and yields a pretty durable bait. There are many liquid epoxies on the market. D2T is a popular choice but other slow cure (aka 30 minute epoxies), either designed for glues or decoupage crafts will work. Each has its peculiarities, good points, bad points, etc. They all usually require rotation for an hour or two after application to promote leveling and avoid drips and sags. It's also a matter of how patient you can be when making a bait. There are optional coatings you can use like uv cured polyurethane resins (Solarez, AlumiUV) that cure in a few minutes, moisture cured urethane that you can dip and hang up to dry/cure (KBS Diamond Coat, Dick Nite S81),etc. You need to read up on the options to choose what is best for you and the way you make lures.