smalljaw

I get it!!! I just think that they are fantastic the way you are doing them and I wasn't sure how the paint would hold up. Making lures is a good way to relax and "fish" when we can't be on the water. When you decide to make a new color or new body type it would be cool to post a picture or two in the gallery section, I really like these as they are different and so seeing more of them would be a treat.

Very nice!!!! I'm assuming you carved the lure bodies out of wood and used those to make the mold?? The other question I have is about the paint, while the hand painting looks fantastic, I have to wonder with all the other investment in time to make your lure look really good, why didn't you chose to go with an airbrush? Don't get me wrong, the hand paint you've done looks exceptional but I would think an airbrush would be easier and offer you more options in your paint schemes. Just to make sure you understand what I'm saying, I think you've done an outstanding job, super nice baits, I'm just asking a question about the airbrush because I have to admit, the level of detail you did with that brush by hand is unreal, I'm just curious as to why you wanted to do it like that.

Ladle is the best way, at least for me it is. I use a little harder lead with my spinnerbaits in order to keep the wire from coming loose but I use rotometals 3% - 5% antimonial lead so I know what I have. If you never ladle poured you need to practice by pouring into the mold with no hook or wire form in it, this will help you to find how fast you can pour with a ladle. The other thing is heat, if you are using a bottom pour pot I'll bet the lead is hitting the gate surface before entering the cavity since you can't really center the mold because of the wire form. That is going to make your lead freeze faster and thus cause incomplete pours. So if you are uncomfortable with the ladle try taking a torch or heat gun and focus the heat on the top surface of the mold to get the gate area nice and hot and also crank up your pot a notch or 2 and see how that works.

Are these molds brand new never used?

Component Systems Quick Coat Lure Markers, they are valve activated paint sticks. The markers come with different tips and there is one to make perfect dots, a little tap makes a small dot, a little more pressure and time makes a bigger dot. I use them for that purpose and the best part is you can put your dots or lines or whatever on top of powder paint and then cure and it will bake into the finish and come out as if you powder coated the marks on your lure.

Try this one...............https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/anvil-apex-adjustable-fly-tying-vise . Or this one................https://www.barlowstackle.com/Griffin-Odyssey-Spider-Vise-P2565.aspx . I use the Griffin Odyssey Spider and it is because I normally wire tie larger jigs and I don't need the vise for that. The Griffin is rated up to 4/0 but I have done 5/0 and even some 6/0 heavy wire hooks and it held fine, but if I was going to do mostly 5/0 and larger hooks then I'd go with the Anvil. I love my Griffin but like I said, if I was doing 5/0 heavy hooks all the time I'd go with the Anvil because it has a heavier hook rating.

It is easy to figure out. Add your material cost, then figure out your overhead by seeing the increase cost in your utility bills, it will only add 2 cents per item but it adds up. Then you have to add in the 10% FET tax and depending on the state you may also have to include sales tax and after all that is figured in you then decide what you want to charge for time. Figure out how long it takes you to make 1 jig from start to finish and then how many you can make per hour and how much you think your time is worth per hour and divide that into the number of jigs you can make in an hour and when you add all of the principles up it will give you a price.

What you got is rayon chenille, close enough but the nylon is different and based on how close the color is then I'm saying that for sure it is nylon chenille. You can get it at Grandpa Bob's Custom Jigs but he doesn't have that color, and that is what I'm saying, I believe Lion Brand made nylon chenille and they discontinued it so if you like that color and find Kelly green nylon chenille buy all of it you can as chances are it is no longer made.

I believe it is Kelly green nylon chenille which is hard to find anymore.

Very nice jigs, what head is that? As for thread finish, I use either Loctite super glue brush on when using silicone or rubber skirts and I use Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails clear when I tie hair. The main reason is the clear nail polish leaves a very visible white residue when it dries on silicone. The Sally Hansen's brand clear is what I prefer, it takes a little longer than other brands to get hard so it penetrates deep and so far I haven't had any thread failures.

I think you misunderstood what he posted. The manufacturer is making, packaging, and distributing to stores direct so yes, they can pay the FET tax since they are basically doing everything. My guess would be that it is working as a licensing deal in that they use his brand name and design and for that he gets a share of profit.

The football head makes a good chatterbait or should I say "bladed jig" to keep the lawyers at bay...LOL!! I personally prefer the Trokar swim jig, but the football head is liked by those who want that knocking sound to be front and center. I've used it and what I can tell you is this, the swim jig head is nice and erratic and works being pulled though sparse sections of grass, the fooball head is erratic but a little less so, it takes more speed to get the same action as the swim jig. Where it shines is noise, you'll quickly notice how much contact the blade is making with the head as the ends of the football head will be chipped pretty well, and this is with the blade attached by split ring. If you are using a regular eye football head and attaching the blade direct to the hook eye I don't thing there would be enough blade movement for it to be worthwhile using but on a split ring it does make some noise.

I believe you are ok but I'd still consult a CPA or lawyer just to make sure. The reason you should be fine is because you aren't manufacturing them, most of the talk you hear about taxes has to do with us tackle makers buying our material and then making and selling our product. In your case you aren't doing anything other than supplying the design and the manufacturer is doing you a big service. As for the plastics, well since you are self manufacturing and I assume you are buying your materials wholesale without the excise tax already applied, you will most likely need to file a quarterly report. I may be wrong but if I were you I'd have both products under one LLC and then file your quarterly and you should be ok, separating them just creates another set of paperwork but this is purely speculation as I'm not familiar with creating 2 distinct brands.

Awesome!!!! I loved the fact that you epoxied the wire in before painting, now you have the powder helping the reinforce the wire, good deal right there.

Naked Bait had the color made, if you have a sample you can get it made. Skirts Plus or Fishingskirts will have it made but you'll need a minimum order to have it done.

Spike-it lure and blade dip. That is a dye and won't add weight to the blade.

If I understand correctly, you want to get wire to use for both in-lines for panfish and spinnerbaits for bass, correct? If that is the case then you are compromising on both ends with the panfish spinners being on the heavy side while the spinnerbait is on the light side but I will try to help. If I was doing that and using a #2 clevis, I'd go with .028" to .031", use the smaller if you are staying under 3/8oz for your spinnerbaits and use the larger if you want to go heavier but that would be as far as I'd go.

I had the same thought, but like you after looking at it along with other colors I don't think it is exact but it is similar enough that it should work. What was the name of the place you got the material? I'm wondering if that was a special color unique to them, almost every store has colors you can't get anywhere else. To this day I have to go to Janns Netcraft for Avocado, over 10 years and still nobody else carries that color skirt material so I'm assuming Janns has it made special. You also know as Cadman said, if you send them a sample they will match it but you need to buy 500 tabs I believe. Good luck on the search.

I don't mean to be smart but if you use a color a LOT, how don't you even know the name or where you get it from?????? Look at color #132 at Fishingskirts, it is called shiner.

The hook is fine for fishing around rocks, light brush and docks with say 30lb braid and a 12# to 14# leader. If you want to go with a heavier hook you'll need to go with the 32796 but the mold will need to be modified but it isn't a hard modification. For heavier applications I use the Trokar Arky head and the Brush jig because those jigs use a heavy wire hook. The mold you have is good but that jig is more suited to moderate cover with a straight 12# to 14# mono or fluorocarbon, heavy braid needs the heavier hook if you are using heavy power rods. As I said before, the modification isn't hard to do but it needs to be done to move up to the heavier hook.

If you are pulling the head out of the mold by the hook then you are causing the problem. Try pulling the head out by the sprue, that will help. Also, if you are twisting or bending the sprue back and forth to remove it then that could be the issue and you would need a gate shears to cut the sprue free instead. If it is loose just from pouring it then you have a an issue with residue on the hook or somewhere that is keeping the lead from hardening around the hook.

Isn't that an H2O Xpress from Academy Sports? I also think this should have been put in the hard baits section for future reference.

Ok, now go back and read the very beginning of this thread starting with the title. Again, I'm not trying to be smart with you but the person posting, and everyone else, including myself, was talking about the painting and curing with the weed guard cast in the jig head. The guys commenting before you posted were describing the heat resistant tubes that go over top of the weed guard to allow you to apply heat to the head to paint and cure without messing up the weed guard. You then said you can get a cheaper version of the tubing for 1/1000 of the price from a hardware store. Just so you understand some of our terminology, heat resistant TUBE goes over a weed guard to keep it from melting when it has been cast in the head, heat resistant PINS are used to create a hole in which to glue a weed guard in after the paining and curing is finished. I think you commented without reading the other posters, and as Cadman has said, most everyone here has been using Teflon pins for quite some time, the OP wants help with keeping the weed guards from blooming out when he heats the head. After your answer I understand what happened, you failed to read what the thread was about and are confused over tubes and pins, no big deal just remember in the future not to assume and carefully read what the post is about and you'll be fine.

All together I'd say a teaspoon, on a single color it is a very small amount. It is why when I'm working on new patterns and do a single bait from start to finish I don't even reclaim the overspray. The amount of overspray will be different for each user as well, I probably wasted a lot of powder when I started doing it as I'm not sure if anyone else was using it. In fact when I purchased my first gun, there wasn't a "powder paint airbrush", it was a Badger model 260 hobby sandblaster that I picked up on clearance because it said it could spray up to 200 grit abrasive and I figured it may be good to spray powder. Anyway, when I started using it I would just hold the button down and keep a steady stream of powder going, now I spray by pulsing the button in short bursts to get the color exactly where I want it with precision. So I'd say someone just learning to use it will probably have a lot more overspray than what I typically get. I hope that makes sense to you, it really is hard to gauge especially since some colors spray different than others. I will have to sweep white a second time on a spinnerbait head to get it perfect were as most other colors will work with just 1 quick pass so I always seem to have more white powder to reclaim than other colors.

I've been using that spray gun for a long time, over a decade and your question is hard to answer precisely. The main reason is the colors differ in how they spray and the coverage so the amount of baits you could do with say a 2oz jar of white will be different than what you do with chartreuse or red. My best guess would be that 100 3/8oz spinnerbaits fully covered with 1 color would take about 1oz, a little more with some colors, a little less with others. The colors that would take the most powder would be white and chartreuse. That is the closest figure I can give you but if you want to break down costs you can weigh your bottle with 2oz of powder and then spray a 3/8oz bait and then weigh the bottle again and see how much you used and then figure out how many times you can spray that amount to use up the 2oz and you'll have your answer but just estimated I think 200 baits per 2oz of paint is a good number