cadman

If you are concerned about lead seepage down a hook shank, well some times that is a good thing. Because, being a smaller hook, this will let air escape when your cavity fills with lead and not giving you any bad pours from trapped air. I usually just cut off the lead overflow down the hook shank with a pair of dykes. If you want to fill it use high temp silicone (it's red). Here are the steps. 1. Fill the cavity you need on 1/2 of the mold with High temp silicone. 2. Smooth over, so it's flat with the mold half. 3. Put the hook where you want it and press it in place. 4. The hook will displace excess silicon, so now remove excess silicon around hook shank. Make sure you hold the hook in place so it doesn't move. 5. Let thoroughly dry(cure) 6. Next day, slowly take hook out of silicone mold (you may have to slice it out with a razor). Be careful not to pull the silicone out. 7. Once you have the hook out, take a single edge razor blade and shave off (clean) all of the excess silicone on the mold half so it will close tight. 8. Do the same thing on the other mold half so both halve will center the hook in the mold cavity. If you want a permanent fix, you can use JB Weld instead of silicone .

I have had the same Teflon inserts for 6 years. When I use them for paint, I wait till they cool and then I bend them slightly in the middle, and all the paint cracks and falls off. I never scrape mine.

Did you try Lakeland or Hagen's?

Very nice looking bait, glad everything worked out for you. Now you're hooked and you will stimulate the economy by buying more and more and more.

Mark, That can't be true. Because if I was a magician, I would be able to load up the boat with fish and become a professional fisherman. Maybe my "Magical" jigs aren't really that magical.

I have the Hagens wire former. I can tell you this. The Hagen's will form tight wraps up to .041 like the Twistech. However you have to keep pressure on the spindle as you push and turn the handle. I don't know if that is easier or harder then the Twistech as I don't own the other two. I will say when bending .062 wire, it is easy to do with the Hagen's however I find the wraps are a little looser, maybe because of all the effort it takes to bend the thicker diameter wire. Thanks for the comparison.

Ramiro, Well I'm sad to hear. You have been on hear a long time and have contributed help to many here. You have helped me many times in the past as well. I hope all is well. Good luck in your future endeavors. Stop by and say hi to us here. Ted (Cadman)

I checked my 5304 and they fit all the heads in that series. You have a PM.

nwbass, I use both brush jig mold models with the #5304 hooks, without any problems. I just looked at my molds, and none of my hook eye pins have been removed from the molds. With that said, I believe that the hook eye pins are tapered. First of all what hook sizes are you wanting to put in what head sizes(ounces) You can't put a 1/0 #5304 hook in a 1 oz hidden brush jig. You can , but you will have to remove the hook eye pin from the mold, and like smalljaw mentioned you will have a lot of clean-up. So let's start with what hook sizes you want in each mold cavity, and then we can go from there. Attached is a pic of #5304 Owner deep throat hook in a brush jig. So yes it can be done with minimal effort.

Hi Ron, I honestly don't know what the temp I'm pouring at as I haven't checked it in awhile. In my Lee bottom pour, I keep the dial at 7-8. Now I have a mixed lead alloy. So I'm not pouring pure soft lead. Sometimes 80% soft/20% hard and sometimes 70/30. I never pour with my pot maxed out especially when I pour 3 and 4 oz weights. I found with heavier weights, the molds expand especially after continuous non-stop poring, and the pours aren't as consistent. I have never heard of the alloys separating. How hot was your pot?

I've found that to be true as well. I have spoken to Shorty's, and I believe they were looking into possibly stocking these. They usually have good pricing when you buy 1K at a time. I don't know if they have worked it out yet.

Welcome to TU. Nice looking spinnerbait.

Get a hold of David Aery of Hook Solutions in Warsaw, MO, he can definitely help you out. His number is (660) 547-2874 https://www.hooksolutions.com/sunshop/

First of all, I would call up D & L and ask them what the colors are and where they get their skirt tabs. That would be the easiest. Second of all if you are referring to frog hair skirts as the really fine flat silicone material, then I don't think you are going to find every color. But check out fishingskirts.com finesse skirts for colors. You can also send fishingskirts.com a jigs and they will match the colors for you and give you their numbers. Remember, you will not always be able to find what you want if it is a custom run just for D & L.

Mark, Yes you could use steel wool, and put it on a drill, I do it by hand, because if my memory is correct, the spout with the hole is made out of brass and is soft. Doing it by hand lessens the chance of me damaging the spout and hole. It doesn't take much effort to clean the pot. It takes more time to empty the lead safely and letting the pot cool a bit so you can clean it.

The EC 635 is a heavy wire tin plated hook , so it is no going to rust because it was plated for salt water. I sell a lot of these and never had any complaints. The comparable hook although a little costlier is a Mustad 91715. On another note, many guys I have dealt with are switching over to black nickle hooks. I have been told by several of my customers, that they work just as good as the tinned hooks, and naturally a wider variety of hooks in the black nickle series that fit a wide variety of jigs.

The way I clean my pot is like this. I empty all of the lead into mini muffin pans or something where it will fit back into the pot again. Unplug the pot and it will slowly start to cool. I then wait a bit for the cool down. I try to work with a warm pot as it is easier to clean, so don't wait till it gets cold. Also, I put on cotton gloves to protect my hands. Unscrew the plunger and set it aside. Take some abrasive steel wool and clean out the inside of the pot walls and the bottom of the pot. Next clean out the hole by gently rubbing steel wool into it. It will come out really well. Once that is done, clean the tip of your plunger by rubbing it with steel wool. Empty all contents of pot. Screw in plunger and then fire it up and put your lead in. Should be as good as new.

I have used D2T , BSI and E-tex for clearcoating jigs. I have never had any problems with any of them. D2T and BSI seem identical to me as far as application and weight. They also have a slight amber color to them. If I you want the brightest of whites, I use E-tex. It originally mixes a little runny, but if you wait 10 minutes it gets a bit thicker.

You have a PM from me.

Good Write-up. I have a question for you. Do you mark the drive gear and the pinion gear before you take them off the reel? This is on spinning reels. The reason I ask is I have to Gen 1 Stradics, and back in the day I took them apart to clean them. Well, I didn't mark the original location of the gear set, and now they aren't as smooth as they were when I took them apart. At some point I will have to get two gear sets to replace them. This was years ago when I did this . I have been cleaning and repairing reels for about 7 years.

Looking thru my archives when I used to fish Musky, check out these places, https://www.muskyshop.com/components-lure-building/ http://online.flipbuilder.com/cswo/cbld/mobile/index.html http://www.mooreslures.com/PartsCatalog/files/assets/basic-html/page-37.html

Welcome to TU. So you have no air pushing any powder up? If so post pics of your unit. This way we can see what may be the problem. I've built many with my plans and they all work. Things I would check: 1. Before you put any powder in the cup, turn on the air pump open the valve and see if the coffee filter, or whatever you used on the bottom of your cup pops up a bit. If not then you don't have: a) enough air to move your membrane. Buy a bigger air pump. b) you don't have a good seal around the base or you don't have a good seal around the bottom of the cup. You should have powder moving. You may not get an even boiling effect, but you at least should get volcanoes. Also try Tyvec on the bottom of your cups. You can get it from the Post Office. They are the bigger 8.5 x 11 envelopes that look like stranded fiberglass.

You got that right, nice to pour your own jigs the way you want them and not have to pay retail.

Exactly, plus free lunch.

I have never seen a 3/4 oz or bigger Arky mold. I do have the larger Sparkie which is similar 3/4, 1 and 1.5 oz and Do-It still makes that mold.