fatfingers

Try roughing up the surfaces to be bound with some 600 wet/dry sandpaper along with drilling a few tiny holes in a given area on both sides of the piece to create a Devcon post.

This is the answer I would hope you already knew: "Rubbing it with my finger didn't take it off but rubbing with my fingernail peels it right off."

Great video. Rapala baits are truly magic lures. Somehow I think a builder can relate to that video in a way that others might not.

I went back to d2t after trying Gorilla glue for a while, along with a few others. The d2t is just the best,so I chose to bite the bullet and order it as needed. I've installed .092 stainless screw eyes with it and you will twist off (break) the screw eyes before they will unscrew from the bait. That is the strength I'm after, so I use the stuff despite the hassle of ordering it. I build stuff for muskies though. If I built for other species I'd probably use something easier to get.

The big3 of topcoats are the big 3 for a lot of goog reasons. A lot of trade offs are involved in lure building...and a lot of variables. It is somewhat tough to compare notes without eliminating most of the variables. How is it being applied? Which paint is it being put over? How long between coats? 8hours or 8 days? Fisheyes a problem? Mostly with water based paints ot urethanes? On it goes. Lol, come back in a year and the question pops up again.

That is pretty much the same warning that you see on d2t,which is what almost everyone uses to glue in lips, screw eyes, etc. I use both d2t and ex74 with ventilation. I was simply offering my experience and opinion on the idea of spending time and money to build a lure only to topcoat it with a product whose label tells you that it's going to yellow. As others have told you, if you're happy with the stuff, then by all means go for it.

Yellowing happens in very subtle stages. Four months probably isn't enough time to judge the propensity towards yellowing. Yellowing can take a while to even notice because you normally store the baits out of the light., Therefore, when you say 4 months that may mean as little as four hours in the direct sunlight. Over the years we've had a lot of discussions about yellowing. (If I had a dollar for everyone here who swore that D2T did not yellow, I'd be rich. ) From my view, yellowing is an undesirable trait because it distorts all the colors, not just the white or the lighter ones. If you're going to go to the trouble to mix the colors you want only to have them yellow later...well, I don't want that if I can avoid it. EX-74 is a clearcoat made by envirotex with UV protectors in it and I've had almost no color shifting using the stuff. You also have to remember that yellowing is only one of the problems you have from direct sunlight. Fading of some of pigments is another. The more brilliant colors tend to fade the most from direct sun. UV protection is important in that respect also. Much of what we do as builders is a matter of esthetics. That a bait will still catch fish doesn't mean that the yellowing hasn't defeated the purpose of putting all that time into one bait. Just my 2 cents.

Try here... Www.mooreslures.com

Great job, Ben.

My comments on this are not necessarily directed at the fact that the finish bubbled, but instead more of a general comment on the bond of the clear coat to the paint... When I first started building, I used to use primer on the bare wood. The primer seem to be the weak link in the bonding process and on a few baits I had some 'delamination' where the finish and paint separated from the bait, at the primer level. I stopped using primer and instead began sealing the baits with sanding sealer, then a thin coat of clear (followed by a bit of light wet-sanding) and then I put down a coat of white paint, not primer, as a basecoat. I then paint and finished the bait as per usual. The wet-sanded clear coat seems to provide a much, much stronger base upon which to build paint layers compared to the somewhat chalky primers that are commercially available. I have had zero problems with delamination ever since.

Both DT2 and Etex will work but you must use more coats than you might for other species. Etex will generally require more coats than Devcon because it goes on a bit thinner per coat. I quit using Devcon because it yellows so badly.

I really never found the need to use heat on my baits for the drying process. Spin 'em and let 'em harden naturally.

LaPala, I would like to ask you for a favor. But I can't seem to send you a private message on this site. Could you give me an email address?

Nice. Now if we could just get Walmart to start carrying it again.