BobP

Most eclipse models have a .35 mm tip. As well as ordering parts, I think you can send Iwata brushes to a repair facility for service. Don’t think this would be necessarily required on an Eclipse since the tip is not especially small compared to many other Iwata models whose tips really need to be professionally fitted to function right.

I’ve owned Badger, Paasche, and Iwata. My Iwata is clearly the best built and has been trouble free for 10 years. Mine is a Revolution B with a .03 mm tip. Eclipse is of similar high quality in the Iwata lineup. Just IMHO, your Eclipse sounded like it had a problem in the trigger system which caused most of the problems you cited. All airbrushes are precision instruments that require daily cleaning and periodic deep cleaning. They're easy to break or get misadjusted so that they can’t work well. Finicky? Yeah, a little. But there’s no other tool that can do the same job as well.

Your brush wasn’t finicky. It was broken and needed repair to work properly. If you threw it against a wall in frustration, maybe airbrushing isn’t for you. The main thing building and finishing crankbaits taught me was patience. Stick with it and you’ll get that lesson over and over.

Considering the number of segments and their construction, I would brush a moisture cured urethane like KBS Diamond Coat on the exterior only of the bait, careful not to let any flow into the joints.

Exactly, Mark.

After roughing out blanks with a scroll saw, I hand shape them with a Dremel tool and a wood carving knife. Do I recommend hand shaping crankbaits? Not really. Good baits are symmetrical and it takes experience to do them right by hand. I’ve been “practicing” for 20+ years and hundreds of baits so know the techniques and patience required. It’s just the way I prefer to do it as a hobby builder.

I make baits only from wood: mostly balsa or paulownia, a few from basswood. Nothing against other materials like PVC board, it has a couple of advantages in fact, but I just prefer working wood and like the different densities it offers.

I press a double thickness of tin foil into a baby food jar lid, throw the foil away after use. The lid holds enough to coat 4 bass baits with Devcon Two Ton epoxy, which is all I can coat with one batch.

It’s easy to assume anyone asking about a build problem did all the prior build steps in the same way and with the same products as you use, which obviously ain’t true. That mistake leads to a lot of bad advice but it’s hard to avoid on an Internet forum. To make clear, I use epoxy as an undercoating and water based acrylic paint, so there’s never a solvent based coating on a bait before applying MCU. Epoxy is about the most chemically inert coating I know for a wood bait. And I use acrylic latex color base coats. If you mix solvent based coatings on a bait It’s always a crap shoot whether it will work, so good luck there.

Ya got me. If the MCU is not pooling anywhere on the baits, the only other cause I’ve heard of is wet water based paint - which doesn’t exist in your case.

I use Dick Nite MCU over baits painted with acrylic latex (various brands) and don’t have wrinkling. You didn’t give details on how exactly you apply the MCU, which may be the root of the problem. I have dipped but usually now brush MCU on. I use a 1/2” brush to quickly flood coat the lures, then hang them to let excess MCU drip off the tails. I usually go with a single coat of Dick Nite. When I first started using MCU I rotated the lures while drying because that’s what I was used to doing with epoxy. Big mistake. It allowed MCU to pool on the lure for too long, which caused wrinkling. Just hanging them up is the way to go, IMO.

When using Rod Bond paste epoxy, how many lips etc you can do in about an hour or maybe as long as 1 1/2 hour is its only limitation. I appreciate the stuff because it allows me plenty of time to tweak lip positions as many times as my OCD makes me. And it doesn’t require any heroic measures or techniques to keep its pot life very long. I also don’t have to worry too much about getting lip slots cut to just the right thickness. After the slot is filled with epoxy its gel texture will hold a lip in place whatever the slot thickness.

My batches are 6 at a time because that’s what my lure turner holds. I use Rod Bond to install all hardware including lips and hangers, and often for ballast too.

Yes, the brand is Rod Bond epoxy and its sold online at Rod building sites like Mudhole. It comes in two varieties. A regular slow cure and a fast 20 minute variety. I prefer the slow cure because I build baits in small batches and the slow cure has a work time of at least an hour, which gives me plenty of time to tweak lip positions. I’m not in any hurry and slow cure epoxies have one big advantage: they are always stronger than fast cure varieties.

I think it depends on how thin your foil is and how thick your topcoat is. I use adhesive foil that is pretty thin and Devcon 2 Ton epoxy that is pretty thick, so no foil edges show after painting directly onto the foil and then clearcoating. If you use a topcoat that is thin and requires multiple coats, you might as well coat the foil before painting. In the end it’s all about hiding the foil edges.

In the late 90’s I bought a “garage built” balsa squarebill that had been touted by a pro on the Bassmasters circuit. Could not get it to run right and it took on water and self destructed in a single day of fishing. That’s when I decided to start making my own baits, and thinking about that lousy bait later, I believe its maker was a victim of his own success. It’s very hard to ramp up production and keep up quality at the same time. And it’s a business. If you can’t calculate all your costs of production and price them accordingly, you can’t make money on the baits and the more you sell, the faster you go broke.

Guys usually start painting baits by applying a color basecoat, a heavily pigmented white or sometimes black paint whose purpose is to hide wood grain and give the later paint an even, consistent background. Paint jobs are built from the bottom up. If you have a problem after the paint is applied, you need to fix it before applying the paint.

If you have tacky areas, there are 3 possible causes. A bad batch of epoxy, not measuring exactly enough, and not mixing well enough. Of the 3, mixing problems is the most prevalent. You can let Etex sit for 15 minutes before application if you want a thicker coating. Your humidity is not a problem as epoxy is formulated for a nominal 70 degrees and 50% humidity. Etex is good stuff but it contains solvents to thin it and promote bubble expulsion, which makes it more prone to fisheyes than other epoxies.

Both of these are good choices. The saltwater ss leader wire is more bendable than hard temper ss wire but is much stiffer than soft temper “bend and stay” ss wire. I’ve used #12 Malin ss leader, which is pretty thin (.029”) but I really prefer .041” soft temper ss wire on bass sized baits. It’s very easy to shape but strong enough to maintain its shape as a line tie or hook hanger. Buy it in 1/4 lb spools from McMaster Carr online for less than $10.

I grew up in a small business family. As an adult, I chose a different career, mostly because of the hard business lessons I learned at my Dad’s knee. Some guys are interested in building baits as a business. Some of them can build great baits consistently in single or small batches. But very few are able to scale up their production, keep the quality as good as it was as a hobby, and most importantly, run the operation as a profitable business. And if they manage to do it, many find that being an 80 hour a week slave to production schedules and dealing with feckless suppliers and irrational customers is not the dream they envisioned. If you can cheerfully do that, I salute your guts and initiative and wish you the best of luck.

I use the Polytranspar Superhide White. It has lots of pigment, shoots well through a .030 tip, and dries very quickly to a hard smooth surface that is somewhat tougher than your typical acrylic latex paint. If you plan to dip lures, you don’t need an airbrush paint though.

I lightly sand the old lure to erase any imperfections and give the surface a little “tooth” to promote paint adhesion , then squirt a little dish soap on it and give it a quick wash. Dry with a clean cloth and ready to paint. Don’t see the need for solvents.

I think of cream as a variant of “bone” and you make that by mixing a little yellow into a white base, and possibly adding a few drops of brown.

I don’t know of any epoxy that you can use without a lure turner for a large number of baits. What I suggest is that you consider using KBS moisture cured urethane. You can dip lures in it and simply hang them to have the excess drip off the tails and dry/cure.

A long work time is one reason I like Rod Bond paste epoxy; its stays in gel form for at least an hour, plenty of time to install hardware and lips on a batch of baits.