BobP

I've only seen 2 types of Devcon epoxy - "30 minute" and "5 minute" - I think minor differences in the advertising on the packaging are unimportant.

Balsa bait intended for musky/pike? I seal that puppy with something really durable, like Devcon Two Ton epoxy, then lightly sand to remove the gloss and paint with any white paint as a color basecoat. You really can't seal a wood bait too well, especially if it's gonna get bit by toothy critters.

Nope, I've never had a problem with acrylic paint fading and agree with Salty on using water as a thinner - I don't believe it affects the color. Why would it? It's all gone when the paint is dry. Water based thinners can dilute its binders to the point that the paint cannot form a coherent film and it begins to bead up on the lure after spraying. YouTube is like everything on the internet - anyone can assert anything as fact but that doesn't mean that it is.

Joe, I think if you're careful about handling and storage, a quart can of DN, and probably KBS, will last more than 6 months. When I dipped in DN, a quart lasted about 8 months in salsa jars with restricted neck and spraying Bloxygen finish preserver in the jar after each use. That was without adding any thinner to the jar. It also matters how you dip baits - a quick dip and then letting the excess drip off onto a newspaper and not back into the jar is a good thing. Ambient humidity is also a factor, which we usually can't control. Another factor is how often and how many baits you topcoat. I was building batches of 4-6 baits every two weeks, dipping once, and eventually lost about half of my DN. The sooner you use it, the better. But a quart of MCU lasts a long time since it yields a pretty thin coating. Bottom line is that while guys can tell you their experience with MCU, your experience will vary depending on exactly how you use and store it. 21XDC - I tried aerosol wine preserver on a quart of Garco MCU. The preserver was mostly CO2 and nitrogen and my MCU began to gel almost immediately. I came away feeling that Bloxygen (nitrogen + argon) worked and the wine preserver did not. Your mileage may differ, of course!

Gino, I've had the most problem with bubbles in MCU when I dipped and put the baits on a lure turner. I solved it by just dipping and hanging them up so any excess MCU dripped off the tail. Along with others, I think the bubbling problem is caused when the MCU begins to cure and expels CO2. If the coating is too thick, the CO2 can't escape the surface of the MCU before it begins to skin over, which happens very quickly. I don't know what to make of the opinions here on TU that KBS is "friendlier" because you can dip baits in it without the stuff beginning to cure in the can. I've tried several brands of MCU and they all had that storage problem when used to dip lures - so I remain skeptical.

Those " too fishy" craw patterns work for me, especially in the spring before the spawn and on into summer too. I sometimes make a 'carved craw' crankbait that has the body segments carved into the bait for a more realistic profile. It doesn't seem to matter where I put the eyes as far as bites go. The best fish catching bait I ever made was a carved craw flatside - but can anyone say with confidence that bass eat crankbaits with the most realistic body shape better than those just painted in a craw pattern? I think there are too many variables in any crankbait to say that. It certainly can't hurt. Maybe it can help. Maybe it's not important at all. I think if you are trying for more realism in a craw pattern bait, you should tone down the use of the wild accent colors I see on many examples. Of course, there is the opposing school of thought that "something different", including those wild accent colors, will get noticed faster and bit more often. Who's right? What we need to do is transplant a pea sized bass brain into a human host so he can tell us what's up. Fill up the excess room in the cranium with Styrofoam peanuts.

The IM rating has become mostly "overtaken by events" with the introduction of various high tech bonding processes and new fiber types now used in blank manufacture. I still see it occasionally in factory rod descriptions but since it's only part of a blank's makeup, it has lost much of its meaning and is a rather iffy guide to a blank's quality.

I have a custom Tennessee handle rod with rings. You need to tape the rings down to insure they stay put, IMO. But if you use Scotch 2242 Rubber Electrical tape, which doesn't leak sticky adhesive like regular electrical tape, it works great. The problem might be finding a store-bought rod with that type of handle these days. But they work great and it's nice to be able to adjust the reel position on the fly to balance out the rod.

Re: Garco - I tried a quart last year. Its color was more amber than DN, had a higher viscosity, and the can "went off" on me much faster than the DN. In the final analysis, when I needed to buy some more MCU, I ordered another can of Dick Nite.

There's a thread on tapping the can on this page. Just take a look!

Well, MCU generally costs about $50 per quart. If you dip 50 baits, then wait a few months before having your next batch ready, you might be paying $1 per bait to topcoat them because the MCU has become unusable. Player's choice, I guess. I would recommend using the "tap the can" method for MCU. It takes a little longer to do since you brush it on the lures but it saves you a bunch of $$$.

Some guys dip baits in an exterior grade polyurethane and call it "good enough". However, many of us look for something more durable and waterproof. If your topcoat is compromised by an impact or hook rash and your paint is water based acrylic (instead of solvent based lacquer paint), the paint can begin to absorb water and will push the topcoat off the lure pretty quickly. So many of us opt for something more durable like epoxy, moisture cured urethane, UV cure polyester resin, or even a high solids concrete sealer like AC1315. Of the preferred topcoats f/u/w acrylic paints, the concrete sealer is really the only one that is close to "dip it and forget it" like you would experience with a solvent based polyurethane, IMO. Personally, I prefer moisture cured urethane for a thin, more durable, factory-appearance topcoat on plastic baits. But it isn't really dippable because of its storage issues. All you can do is choose your poison, learn how to use it, and then decide whether it's good enough for your baits. There's a wealth of info here on TU about each of the candidate topcoats. Just peruse the posts via the search function.

The short answer is yes. You can put just about anything on top of an epoxy coating because epoxy is very non-reactive with other coatings. The longer answer is "Why do you need it?" More gloss? More durability? The right epoxy should have plenty of gloss. Epoxy is much more durable than polyurethane, so using the poly after the epoxy is sort of "gilding the lily". I like to lightly sand epoxy to remove its gloss and improve adhesion of the next coating before application.

I guess if I built baits from PVC and used them to catch 8 pounders like Mark has, I might think that I had found the promised land too. 8 lb fish are as rare as hen's teeth around here. On the other hand, since you have 21 lb bass swimming around in SOCAL... why are you just catching those little dinks, Mark? My theory is he just doesn't have the patience to wait for the trout truck to arrive at the lake! And yes, I'm envious. Especially since the high today was 17 and the low tonight will be 0. And I live in the freakin South! More seriously, there's something to be said for using a single body material IF it allows you to build great crankbaits. There's plenty of precedence for this if you look at cedar baits produced by Poe and Stanford, or balsa baits made by famous custom builders too numerous to mention. After all, it's not what you build them from - it's all about catching fish. There will always be traditionalists who disdain anything but wood. I understand that and even have a little tiny strain of the same sentiment running through my noggin too. But I gave up fishing with a bamboo rods awhile back and maybe this will pass too.... or maybe not.

Mark makes clear why he likes to use PVC trim board and his reasons are perfectly valid to me. For a newby to lure making or for anyone who wants to build crankbaits quickly, PVC has some real advantages. He outlines how to use PVC from soup to nuts - and that's a nice thing to share. No harm, no foul in my book. That said, I use balsa, paulownia, and basswood exclusively to make crankbaits. Why? I value the differences in density that those woods provide to the way my crankbaits fish. I think wood density is critical - so using only a single material for the lure bodies on all my lures would be shortchanging myself and the guys who fish my crankbaits. That's not a dig at PVC. If you can build a variety of crankbaits with PVC that behave exactly how you want them to behave, you are doing exactly the right thing in sticking with one material. I haven't. Plus, Mark's note about electrostatically charged PVC dust was something that really bugged me when I tried doing a few PVC crankbaits. Personally, I feel proud that I can turn out good looking, good fishing, durable crankbaits from a variety of woods. It took me years and some failures along the way to learn how to do that. The issue of build speed is also important. If instant gratification is important to you - and I recognize it is to an increasing number of guys - PVC might be your best material. I don't have a thousand other things to do during the day, so that's a non-issue. As a hobby builder, I don't care how long it takes to build a good crankbait. In fact, I've come to value the discipline of patience that building in wood requires. It's all just different strokes for different folks.

I've never been able to get more than 6-8 months out of a quart of DN when using it for dipping. The more you dip, the more moisture you introduce into the jar, especially if you allow any of it to drip back into fhe jar while dipping. For me, that meant throwing away half a quart every time, which is pretty costly if you think about it! Go with the tap the can method.

I second what bobv says about brushing quickly. If you don't, the DN will begin to dry before you get around the lure to where you began and brushing that area again will cause the DN to gloop up, causing a mess. You don't have to be in a panic - but keep the brush loaded and don't waste any time.

Barr5150, The build coat can be any number of thick coatings dipped on the lure. One guy told me his shop used flooring glue as their build coat. The build coat on Poe's lures is very flammable while the build coat on Rapala wood lures is non-flammable. I found this out when torching a few old lures to take off the finish before repainting. A Poe bait burst into flame and was basically destroyed! The Rapalas came out with the build coat perfectly intact and ready to paint. Personally, I'm not into volume production so don't use a build coat approach. A coat of Devcon Two Ton or 5-8 dips into a propionate/acetone solution usually does it for me. I think most of the build coat candidates would take multiple days of drying. And I don't mind 5 minutes of sanding to remove grain pops.

For me, X-ing action is most pronounced when ballast is concentrated at the fore-aft balance point of a lure. So I also think distributing the ballast along the axis will dampen the X-ing. Whether that's good or bad is? If you are looking for hunting action, the consensus is that raising the ballast's position promotes that possibility. I doubt ballast height is the only determinant and think the excursion width and speed of the yaw created by the lip is also a big factor. In other words, if ya want it to hunt, you gotta Shake that Thing!

One year out of a can of DN when dipping lures is pretty good - and yes, dipping causes moisturized DN to fall back into the jar, shortening the life of the DN left in the jar. Auto clears do have some challenges - they're very toxic so require stringent safety precautions like a mask rated to protect against solvents, positive ventilation of the work area. I can't speak to how they perform on a lure since I don't use them, but there have been both positive and negative results reported here on TU. Auto clears considered durable enough for lures are usually two-part products, so there is inherent waste in that method when they exceed their "pot life". There are other candidates for topcoating like solvent based concrete sealers like AC1315, UV cured polyester resins like Solarez. The AC1315 is probably the closest choice to how you have been using DN - you can dip lures, it's a very thin coating, and it is not as sensitive to exposure to moisture, air, etc. But my gut feeling is that it's also not as durable as DN, which to me is the "World Class" topcoat. I also have a new can of DN and plan to use 'tap the can' to dispense it. I'll switch to brushing a quick coat on the lure, then hanging the lure up to let the excess drip off and allow the DN to cure for 2-3 days.

Jonister, I basically think your problem is that the wax isn't present on the surface of the lure when cured. Either there is not enough wax getting on the lure from the jug (i.e., you didn't mix it in the jug) or there's not enough time between application and curing for the wax to rise to the surface of the coating.

I'm pretty sure Solarez contains some solvent. Maybe in this cold weather it is not flashing off properly? Another thing - it contains wax flakes. They are suspended in the resin so it's a good idea to stir the Solarez before application. When on the lure, the wax flakes rise to the surface of the finish and they are necessary to prevent exposure to the air during the cure (i.e., to suffocate the resin) so its surface will cure hard. Too few wax flakes? Too quick a cure after application? Sticky surface.

Mowhawkman, I've read several posts here on TU that expressed frustration with the product - usually that they couldn't get it to harden on a crankbait. Why that is, I don't know. If SLT785 is having success with it, perhaps he can give you some tips. But there are always posts here on TU about an array of other topcoat products that are very reliable and durable.

I use Frisket Material, which is a thin adhesive polyethylene sheet backed with paper. It comes in a roll that's about 12" wide for artists to use as stencil material. You can bend it easily and cut it with an Xacto knife. I leave the paper backing on the stencils so I can just flip them over and use them for both sides of baits. A roll of frisket is fairly inexpensive and gives you a bunch of material - my roll is a virtual lifetime supply because I re-use my stencils. Now I have a library of 25-30 stencils that I use on various baits, for various patterns. Check the online artist supply shops like Dixie Art.

Some of the Iwata very small nozzles are quite costly but I think the Revolution is not one of them. I'd check on buying a new nozzle and save the hassle.