cadman

Hey Jeff, I tried this awhile ago, except i didn't get the good results that you did. Here is what I did. I originally tried the glue stick to put in weedguards, only to find, that after awhile the glue would soften from sitting in the water and the weedguards started to pull out. Then I started to make them in my molds. Had a few come out ok, but the cure time was very long. Seemed like a very messy time consuming process. Also another failure was that I originally didn't paint them and again they softened. I then air brushed them and although somewhat better definitely not bullet proof. Your info is definitely interesting. Some other things I have tried: Expanding foam: Very long cure time, a mess to use with Do-It molds. Concrete: Very hard to get in mold hole. Definitely would need a new way to pour. Many bad non-filled pours. Drywall compound mixed with fiberglass strands: Pours really well, too soft, breaks easy. Bondo easy to pour, too soft. Durham wood putty, too soft All 2 part epoxies. Not too difficult to pour. Cure time time not too bad, hard as a rock, but doesn't want to release from a mold. Probably need to make molds out of RTV, silicone or some soft flexible rubber. On all of these attempts, to speed up cure time air holes placed in strategic places would solve many issues for complete drying and curing. Just some stuff that I tried.

I am going to go with Living Image #370 Spotted Tabasco as I have that color in house. However your color looks a lot brighter than my skirt. It could be your excellent photography and lighting or like mentioned differing monitor colors.

Does anyone have 100 size #1 hooks they can sell me. LPO is out of stock for 2 weeks and others either don't carry it or don't have 100 hooks. Thanks in advance

Jig Man, mine didn't work this morning, now it seems to work fine. Jig Man, I was going to call you but I lost your phone number.

A lot of this is personal preference. I have used both, On swim baits, I like EWG hooks, I believe they give the plastic bait more room to swim and they look more natural in the water. But again depends on what you have confidence in and what actually works for you.

Welcome to Tackle Underground. I don't tie hair jigs, but there are a few guys here that do. One member off the top of my head is Smalljaw. He will comment shortly and I'm sure will give you some good advice. A lot of good info in this forum and a great bunch of guys willing to help. All you have to do is be open minded and want to experiment and learn.

I use it as well, and it works great. I wash and clean cork thoroughly. Then let cork dry at least a full day or more. Apply cork seal, and like mentioned dry in a day or two, then ready to use.

I've heard the same thing about cigarette ash as well, however the smell is a tad nauseating.

A vein powder has to be custom formulated if you want a green pumpkin color. Bite the bullet and buy it, that is the only way you will actually get the same shade all of the time. You can do a two part process but it will not be exactly green pumpkin, more like dark green. Apply silver vein on your jig, then get a dark candy green, and apply it over that. On the green hammertone it will be close however hammertones are not actually heavily veined.

I don't know of any direct replacement hooks for this mold. I modified my mold immediately to take other hooks.

It is either Sherwin Williams or Dupont. If you can't find it let me know

Can you post a pic of the painted jig you are having problems with. Here are the simple steps to put ylw/chart over white. #1 Take your clean hot jig and swish it through a well shaken container of white powder paint. #2 Look at the jig to make sure it is completely covered with the white paint. The jig should be gloss white. #3 Take your ylw/chart., and shake it up in the jar. Now take your white jig, reheat and swish through the ylw/chart powder paint. Don't burn the white paint. #4 Run the jig over the heat. It should gloss over with the ylw/chart completely covering the jig. #5 If it is not dark enough for you, repeat steps 4 and 5 until you get the correct color depth. Remember fast and quick through the ylw/chart. #6 When done put on rack to bake. Your colors should not separate. Remember you will have to dip your jig into the ylw/chart more than once, as the ylw/chart powder will not cover with one coat. Also, do not hold your hot jigs too long in the powder, especially the white, as it is a heavier powder. Below is a pic of an all white jig, with only ylw/chart. applied on the top. Yours will be entirely covered and bright.

Like mentioned you can mix the black and brown, but you won't get a true solid pigmented color. You may get slight shade differences in the jig. However depends on how much you care, it may not matter. There is a color that I use and it is call Patrician bronze, which is a very dark brown black. See if you can't find it. If not how much do you need, as I might be able to help you.

X2 on the ladle if you have a hot pot. The reason for the ladle is, the hot pot if you have it full of lead is too heavy to hold and pour lead for any given time. Also with the hot pot, everyone has a tendency to pour slower, because there is the safety factor of pouring out too much lead and getting burned. Pouring too slow and you will get arm fatigue if you pour a lot along with, lead not filling cavity. Pouring too fast and if you miss the sprue hole in the mold, will give you bad pours as well, along with over pouring lead all over the place. Definitely get the ladle smalljaw mentioned (follow his instructions), and you will be pouring like a pro in no-time.

Are you pouring with a ladle or a Lee IV pot? If you are pouring with a ladle, you should get complete pours. If you are using a Lee pot, shove the sprue hole of the mold onto the nozzle of the Lee pot. Try that. It looks like your lead is cooling before it fully fills the mold cavity. This is a just a guess. BTW Welcome to Tackle Underground and the Wire Bait Forum.

Yes, I bake it after both colors are on. I only use a white base coat for jigs that the final color is bright. Like ylw chart., hot pink, hot orange and lime green. The white base lets you use less of the final color and makes those final colors really bright.

My first question to you is this. What color are you trying to match? Do you have a pic of a jig or a skirt? If you are looking to make a two tone reflective paint that shifts color in light, that is going to be near impossible with powder paint. If you are looking to add purple to a jig to make the purple stand out, then that would be the last color I would put on a jig, before I would bake it. If you are looking to put candy purple over green pumpkin like mentioned, you will get an almost black look to it (depends on how much candy purple you put on). Probably not the color you want and/or not what you are looking for. If you want candy purple on top and green pumpkin on the bottom, what I would do is, do the green pumpkin on the bottom and up the sides as far as you want to go, and then come back and put candy purple over the top down and then let it fade into the green pumpkin. Note: The more candy purple you put on the darker it will be. However be warned, that the candy powder paints have a tendency to run when baked, so don't over do it. Once you find what you like, stop there and bake your jig to see what results you get. Doing it this way, you will then definitely get purple on top. The reason your top color is last, is because when you layer colors, you should work from the bottom up, as the colors look more natural as they fall over your jig. Also some colors when put over another and then baked, do not come out as intended. Sometimes its best to bake your jig up to a certain color and then come back and put your last color on, where the last color will fade in really nice without blending into the other color. There is a lot to process here, when you build color over color. The best thing to do is post a pic here of the color you want to achieve( if it's do-able) or PM it to me and I will give you the color sequence on how I would powder paint it with which colors to do first. I love a challenge so bring it on plus others may have some good input as well. This will be a learning experience for us all.

Question you have to ask yourself is what is your yearly usage? Are you selling jigs to other people and you want to maximize profits. With that said, unless you are buying 10,000 of one color, then fishingskirts.com is your best bet. Depending on the skirt, 3 tabs will cost you about 75 cents more or less. Unfortunately that is the way it is.

My screen looks different. Send the sample skirt tabs to fishingskirts.com. They will match it up for you and give you the numbers. This is the safest way I found to match skirts. Everyone will be guessing as all monitor colors vary.

I use a dremel, with a rubber tip and then rubbing compound followed by finishing it off with toothpaste.

The directions you posted, is that to make the 2nd clip of the picture you posted in your hand?

On using mold release, that is better than using nothing. However I will agree 100% with bass100 on polishing inside cavities. If you have the time definitely polish out the cavities especially the big surfaces. I have had problems from day 1 with my Brush Jig mold. The grainy surface inside the cavity would make my jig stick inside the mold cavity. Once I polished it, it fell out like butter. Also take a look at the PDF below. I have had to do this to some molds as well, you may not see the burred edge but sometimes it is there. mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf mold blank .pdf

No problem. After last year's debacle with the clips,the leg that Do-It bent on the clips works out much better for the smaller sized pours. Now you won't have to worry about the clip leg not being covered with lead and being partially exposed. They all pour very well for me. Good luck with your pouring.

See Pic below, this is the way I put the hooks on with the new clips.

Well Holy Moly, I'm impressed. 7/0 to 11/0 man those are some big hooks. BTW do you use those for bass?