cadman

I buy 10 to 25 lb lots of powder paint from a guy out of the country. He turned me on to this tape about 4 years ago, and I

I use high temp tape, and It has worked very well for me. I've literally done hundreds of jigs this way. I've tried the alum. foil, and #1, it was too tedious for me, and #2 I didn't get the complete coverage I get with the sticky tape. I'm too anal about perfection, also I want my whole swivel up to the jig paint free. I'll post a pic later tonight of some of my stand-up jigs. Just my worth.

This is my first time using red hooks in my pouring. What do you guys do for scratched hooks, or when you have some bad pours, and you do a repour and you scratch the hook? I was thinking of baking a bunch of hooks first before pouring to harden the finish????? Or if I scratched them afterwards, can I use a waterproof red marker:whistle:, or what are my options...Thanks guys

Just out of curiosity, are you sure it was bees wax? I've been using bees wax for 5 years, and all it does is just smoke really bad. I switched to this because some candle wax will flame up. Maybe there is different grades of bees wax.

Ray, I have this mold, and I just tried it out. A 4/0 aberdeen Eagle Claw #570 will fit the 1/2, 3/4 and 1 oz jigs. You can see in the pic below, that it will not fit in the 1-1/2 oz ultra-minnow jig. On the other 3, you may get some flash around the lower part of the collar since the aberdeen hook is thinner, but you can easily trim it off. I won't know for sure, unless I poured these with the hook in place.

PM sent

I see your from IL, and in my back yard, so I'll give you some info, along with all the other guys here. Use it if you want, if not do what you will with it. I am a sheet metal programmer and designer. I don't make crank baits, but this is what I can tell you. My first choice for lips would be stainless steel (SS) #304. If I were making baits for salt water, I would use SS #316L. #316L is stainless steel with low carbon. It is made for highly corrosive situations. Cold rolled steel is out of the question, as it will start to rust. Aluminum, also oxidixes fast if it is not anodized. Once it's anodized, it will withstand water. Only problem is aluminum is soft and will wear fast, and start to pit once the anodizing wears off. In the thin gage material that you will be buying, all the material can be cut with tin snips. Cold rolled steel being the easiest, folowed by stainless steel, followed by alum. You can use 6061T6 alum., and it will be very hard to cut, but it still wears faster than stainless steel. Cut outside the line, like someone mentioned here, and smooth the edges for final finish. If you are looking for some special profiles, PM me and we can discuss laser cutting.........Hope this info helps some of you guys out.

JSC, My philosophy is this. It's not about proving anyone right or wrong, it's about helping people out with experiences other people live and breathe daily. We all make are own choices, right or wrong we learn from them, and hopefully, input from others will help us all down the road.

Tim I think you're right on this. The vinyl paint at one time was a problem. I don't know if it still is. I used it a while back, along with powder painting, when I was doing durability tests. The only thing vinyl paint gave me was a really bad headache. I also didn't see anything in my durabiltiy studies, to justify using it, so I stopped. Powder paint is so much easier to use, work with and store. JMO.

Devcon 2 Ton (Devcon 2T) is a 2 part epoxy, that is used as a top coat. You can buy it at Wal-mart for about $2 for a 2 syringes. You must buy the 30 minute. This has a longer working time. Do not buy the 5 minute epoxy. Myself and others use Devcon as a finish coat as I mentioned in the post above. You mix two equal parts of hardener and resin on a piece of alum. foil. It is put on with a paint brush, and then you let it dry for 24 hours, in which it hardens and cures to a super glossy finish. You can let it dry longer if you have the time. You can clean your brush with acetone (nail polish remover) That's it.

Mickalo, Dayooper is right; you don

Yeah that would be great. I believe I sent you my tutorial. You can either e-mail me or pm me if you have a lot of particular questions, or post it here, if it's not too lengthy to explain. I am always curious on how guys finally finish their jigs, and how the process went.

No problem, always willing to help. I've had mine going on 3 years so far no problem. BTW, how do you like that heat gun? A tip for you guys with heat guns. Always lay your heat gun down on its side after it has cooled. Mine stands up for ease of use. The reason for laying it down is this. First of all, it could tip over and fall down and crack, and mainly this. With the heat gun standing on end, things can fall in the heat gun opening. If it is anything metal, and you forget to take it out, it will short out the heat gun. After that it's junk. I found that when I first started powder painting. I was taking paint off a painted jig that I screwed up. Well I wanted to save the lead, so I accidently overheated the jig, and a piece of lead melted and dripped into the gun, causing the lead to short out the coils. That was all it took . Never did that again.

There you go www.tjstackle.com

Any dual temp, or multi-temp heat gun. A necessity for muti-color powder painting. I bought mine at Menards (Wagner brand) but it doesn't have to be that exotic.

Mike, Well if LedHed recommended this site, than your on your way to some beautiful jigs. As far as books, I don't know of any. As far as tutorials, you can start with TJ's Tackle. Benjamin is one of the members here, goes by the name of dayooper. I'm sure he'll chime in. Any way he has a powder painting tutorial video on his website. Definitely something to see. Also Benjamin sells Pro-Tec powder paint, best price so far. He's an excellent source for information. I myself also have a tutorial, which is a little more advanced. If you want, PM me your e-mail, and I can e-mail it to you. Also, there are a lot of guys here that will be more than willing to help you out. Do some research in the forums, and then if you can't find it post it in the wire bait section. Someone will have an answer for you. A lot of very knowledgeable guys here. Oh yeah I forgot, I'm sure since LedHed steered you to this site, and is going to get you hooked, I'm sure he will answer many of your questions also. Welcome aboard.

George is right on the money. If you're going to keep them on the shelf for an extended time, put them in a plastic bag, to keep the dust off of them. Then when you're ready, pull them out and bake away.

Hey Jamie, Welcome aboard. Another Illinoisan. I'm originally from Chicago. Now reside in Libertyville.....You'll find me hangin' around the wirebait section.

Q8, There is a lot of info here, and a lot of guys willing to help out and pass along their knowledge. All you have to do is do some research on the site first, and then if you can't find it someone here will help you. The only thing I did when I was 15 was fish. We didn't have the world wide web to help us with anything. You are very fortunate to have all this info available to you. BTW, I hang around the Wire baits forum..............Good Luck Hey, I resemble that remark.. An old Three Stooges quote. If you don't know who they are don't ask..........BTW, what age do you consider to be recognized as an old geezer:lol:. I just want to know, so if I forget to do something, I can use that as a good excuse.........

This is just like being a junkie, it is very addictive, except this is a good addiction. I started out with 2 molds some powder paint and a Lee bottom pour pot. 8 years later, I now have about 50 molds, (2) lee pots, (2) hot pots, about 700 lbs of powder give or take a few lbs, and 1000's of hooks and skirts. It just snowballed into something bigger. Now when I don't pour or paint for a while, I get withdrawals.

Once you get into multi-color work, you will see that you use your fluid bed less and less. I now only use it for my production runs of single colors. You can't beat it for that purpose. As far as a hammer working, are you doing paint hardness tests?

Welcome aboard, a lot of helpful people here. Just ask, and someone will lead you in the right direction.

Out of curiosity, where are you located in Illinois. The last couple of years we had an influx of Illinoisans. I'm from Libertyville, and I hang around the wirebait section. Welcome aboard. BTW I'm getting older too, but as long as I can fish, and make tackle, nothing else matters.

I used to use candle wax, and switched to pure bees wax. You have to watch what candle wax you use. Some of it ignites in the pot, and others just smoke. I found out the hard way. You're right bees wax seems to work better for me also, just got to have the door open. It sure does smoke.

You are definitely right about some things here. Our company makes sheet metal parts, and 95% of every part we make gets powder painted. Yes it is an electrostatic system, and yes it must be baked on for durability. The other down side to an EC system, is that there is a lot of overspray and paint waste. We have a recovery system for the powder, but in our case the powder is not re-usable, since we spray so many different colors. My personal opinion, for small guys like us is, it is not practical. If you don