cadman

Basseducer is correct. I have used JB weld, waited for it to cure hard, and then file smooth. Paint and you're done. Check one before you do all of them. My experience might be different than yours, However I have never had and problems. Make sure you overfill, so you don't have voids in the hole and also so the JB weld can level itself out. Better to have more and file than to have a void , as that looks worse than just having a hole in there.

Another vote for Texas Tackle.

Definitely Worth split rings. If I remember correctly, they charge you a dollar more per packages for broken packages of 100, but don't quote me.

I'm with smalljaw as well. I was and still am a die hard fan of hydro-silk material. If you see the current round rubber Jann's sells, it was like that only smaller in diameter, very soft and supple. I have about 100 skirts left and none to be found anywhere without overpaying. I too tried bio-silk on the recommendation of smalljaw, and I too like it, but it's not hydro-silk.

I understand where you are going with this. I'm just trying to make this easier for you so you don't spend a lot of wasted time. Didn't mean to come off like a jerk, just want to give you some easier choices, as many people like yourself want to jump in, spend a lot of money only to find that this is not what they expected.

No, you would have to do this in a vice, as you or anyone else doesn't have the strength to manually put a ridge on a lead jig. Personally you are going to waste a lot of time in your endeavors. Buy a mold and or have one custom made and be done with it. You will never achieve what you want to do by hand. I assume you never poured jigs before. Well let me tell you that there is a big learning curve in that just alone not including painting them. However if time is not an issue, than you are more than welcome to try. However I am telling you from the get go, that you are looking about this the wrong way. You need to have a game plan and have a starting point. No offense, but you are all over the map with this project. You need to think this through and find out what your budget is, do you want to pour the jigs, do you want to buy a custom mold etc. etc. How many jigs you want to make are you selling them or just for yourself. Lot of questions you have to ask yourself and get an honest answer.

Here is a link that was posted in the past. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/topic/27732-skirt-tab-storage/?hl=%2Bskirt+%2Btabs

You can also use the banana spinnerbait head, cut wire and re-bend to fit to your liking.

There is a guy on this site Bob La Londe, he makes custom molds. His banner comes up when you are in the general forums area. PM him and I'm sure he will give you a price.

You will have to be more specific as far as what mold model number you have. Did the mold use aberdeen hooks? If so you could use Mustad black nickle hooks, Post model number and you will get many hook suggestions from others here,

There you go, now you got the hang of it, now make 10,000 more and you'll be an expert. LOL Very nice looking jigs, job well done.

The jig shown, has a ridge for an inset eye. Similar to a socket eye jig by Do-It molds. If you want a deeper inset, you will have to have a new mold made. You can always cut away material on a mold, however to add material to get a rounded appearance is impossible to do by hand. You can get any of the molds by Do-It, pour the jig and just stick on the eye and be done with it. The picture you posted is from a custom made mold.

This says it all in a nutshell, if you follow this you will get perfect baits/jigs all the time. Including the bourbon. Well said Skeeter

I tried all of the above methods and they really didn't work well for me. So here is another method to try. Mine is more laborious, but I like the outcome. #1 Stick a drill bit into the hole so the drill fits snug in the slip jig. #2 Heat and paint the slip jig. #3 Dip in cold water to cool and pull off drill bit and let it sit in water. #4 Do all the of the rest of the slip jigs. #4 When done, take all slip jigs out of water let dry. #5 Check other end to see if there is any paint on it. If it is poke a steel rod to get the paint out. #6 Take x-mas ornament hangers and thread through hole to other end. #7 Hang on rack and bake. This does have a lot of steps, but anytime I do these type of weights, they all seem to take a lot of time to get it to look good.. Good Luck.

It looks like good pours to me. Powder paint will cover the wrinkles. If you are questioning the long excess on the keeper, just snip those off with a pair of gate cutters.

I will agree with BobP. let it cure at room temp. It will cure in 24 hours if you used the correct proportions and mixed it well. The only reason I would warm not heat the epoxy is to be able to spread it on easier and that would be to warm the epoxy before it is mixed.

Like smalljaw stated, it depends on what you want. If it is for yourself, than you can put in whatever you want. If you are going to sell them, many come with 2-1/2 tabs which is 55 strands as a standard, but not always. Nowadays, you see less and less strands because some companies want to save money and/or they might want to be different than their competition. The less strands the faster the fall, and naturally the more strands the bigger the profile and the slower the fall.

I hope your wife is doing well. Thanks for the reminder, most of us fish a lot and never really comprehend on how bad the sun is for your skin.

The guys here are correct it is a vein powder paint. If you can just use the vein color as it is, it is much easier to use and apply. If you need colors, than like mentioned you can use silver vein with transparent red, green, or blue powder and/or copper vein with the same colors to get a darker hue. I have a lot of info on this and powder paint as well. If you are interested PM me for more info.

The paint you got is a two step process, in which you have to have both colors. I believe you have to buy both colors from fishingskirts.com in order for it to work properly.

Did you look at Fishingskirts.com? They have the biggest selection of skirts. It might be close to there #007 banana seed color only with bigger black spots or #015 clear chartreuse silver black flake Also if you send them the skirt they can match it for you as close as possible. Just a thought.

I have nothing negative to say about them. They have fast service better prices than most on the i-net and most of all their shipping prices are really fair. Thanks for reiterating this.

To me this is a personal preference. I do not like heavy or medium weedguards. My philosophy whether right or wrong is this. If the fish can't compress the weedguards, or a weedguard is too stiff to expose the hook point then there are a lot of missed hook sets. Again this is my opinion. I either user a really light weedguard or no weedguard on my jigs. Even if I fished your conditions I would do the same. I would rather lose some jigs than to lose some fish. I am probably not the norm in this thinking. Curious what others will say.

I buy my swivels from Worth, never had a problem with their swivels. I never had Sampo because they were too expensive so I can't compare the two. I buy them with both split rings on each end. To me too much screwing around with putting on swivels, and the cost vs the time spent is not worth buying separate components. $0.75 cents each is about right at 1000 count. I currently don't need swivels.

If the original finish is a powder coat or an airbrush, yes. If it is a vinyl paint like mentioned above or has an epoxy coat no. You can strip all of the finish off, however that may not be worth the cost of the jigs. If time is not an issue and you want to learn to powder paint . Strip the jig with paint stripper, make sure it's dry and re-paint.