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chad, Del's kit is an excellent place to start. I think most of us started there. You may want to get some more dyes and flakes depending on what you typically fish. I'd start with a microwave and one or two pyrex cups. I don't think the kit comes with directions but there are directions written out on Del's website. It can be done in the garage. Depending on where you live it may be a little tough in the winter due to the cold temperatures. My plastic is stored in my basement. I believe the storage question has been discussed in the past (you may want to do a search for it). Most people say don't melt down commercial plastics. You don't know what's in them and most of them smoke a lot when heated. I know a lot of people start by melting down old baits until they get their plastic in the mail though. You may want to search for this one too and see what other people have said about it. Hope that will help you get started. Eric

Darkman, A laminate is when the top half of the bait is one color and the bottom is a different color. A lot of soft plastic jerk baits are like this. Also, stickbaits are being made like this as well. Yamamoto has a red shad laminate with a red bottom and a black top (he has others as well, this is just an example) It looks cool. Honestly, that's the only advantage I see with them. Most baits look more natural when you pour a laminate. Also, you can get some nice color combinations that you can't find at your local bait shop. Eric

Microwave is very easy and quick especially if you only plan to pour for yourself and a couple other people. Pouring pots are better if you're going to sell large quantities of baits. If you plan to use a pouring pot you may want to invest in multiple molds of the same style so you can just keep pouring. With the microwave you have to reheat to keep the plastic hot so this is less of an issue. Just my 2 cents. Eric

Smallie, Just ask for something you want to try. The last time I ordered plastic I just asked if I could get a sample of something and they just sent it to me. They are good people to work with!! Eric

Most of us frown upon melting store bought baits. The problem is that you don't know what's in them and what kind of plastic they used. You probably won't have issues doing it, but some people say that they have. I think the general consensus is not to do it. I know a lot of new guys do it when they first start when they are waiting for all their supplies to show up though. Personally, I just throw the senkos away after I use them. Soon you won't be buying any of them anyway though... Hope that helped. Eric

I use senkosam's green and fuscia without any issues. Eric

onesock was playing with this for a while and produced some good looking baits. I'd look up some of his earlier posts with the search feature. Eric

try doing one or two at a time until you figure it out. Also, you need to preheat the mold (I usually set mine on an electric stove burner set on low between pours). The plastic needs to be very hot for the second color or you will have issues with pouring the entire bait and/or delamination. Eric

I used to use calhouns and have switched to MF. I cut up some scraps (and used lures) of calhouns and put it in with MF (after I heated the MF) already and didn't have any issues. Eric

That's where my job come into play. I'm using a helium pycnometer for most of that work. You take a sample of the material and put it in an aluminum cup and weigh it. Then you put it in an instrument and it replaces all the air in the cup with helium (helium is the smallest gas if you can remember back to your days in chemistry class so it fills all the little cracks and pores in the material easily and quickly). Then it measures the volume of helium it took to fill the rest of the aluminum cup and gives you a density. I doubt it's cost effective for everyone to buy a helium pycnometer so that's kinda out of the question. The easiest way to do it is to put a certain amount of water into a graduated cylinder (the skinniest one you can physically use) and put it on a scale (the most accurate one you can get) and zero it out. Then put your material in the water and read the change in volume and the weight change. Eric

Sorry I haven't given you guys an update on my progress for a while. I bought a boat last week so I've been a little distracted. I have densities for all my raw materials and now I just need to measure the density of my sticks and compare what my program is telling me they should be to what they actually are. Also I need to find somebody that has a bag of sticks from a few different companies so I can compare mine to other brands. I haven't bought a bag of sticks since I started making my own and I don't plan on buying any for this experiment if I don't have to. The numbers that the program is giving me seem to make sense. Through this process I realized I was doing a part of my cost analysis wrong (flakes). Some companies sell flakes by volume and other sell it by weight. I never really thought about that until I started writing the formulas for the program. Make sure you're calculating that one correctly. The skeletal density of 0.035 flakes is about 6 times larger than the bulk density. So, if you're paying by volume you're getting about 1/6th of the flakes as if you were buying by mass. Just a thought Eric

I agree with everyone here so far. We all have our favorites. Color formulas will be the same. Each brand has a slightly different softness (more important when making sticks) and you will have to add different amounts of softener to them to get the same hardness. My advice is to request a sample of whatever formula you are considering from LC and MF. I was using Calhoun's when I started just because I was buying everything from Del. I got a sample of MF supersoft and I found it was easier to work with and was a little softer than Calhoun's supersoft formula. My customers didn't notice any difference in the performance of the baits (durability and softness) when I switched. I would definitely look into all the suppliers before buying a 5 gal jug. Even if you decide to stay with Calhoun's, you'll know that is what you want to use instead of always wondering if the grass is greener on the other side. In the end way everything when you make the decision (cost, shipping, location of supplier, personal preference, etc.). Eric

LLS, The only junebug I've seen is a dark purple with purple and green flakes. I use Del's black grape with a couple drops of black in it. Eric

why not add some of your favorite scent as well? You may also want to poke some holes in the bait so the scent and salt can diffuse through. Just a couple thoughts. I like the concept though. Eric

Vodkaman, I do have the spreadsheet written (I wrote it while I was eating my lunch at work a couple days ago). I am planning on measuring densities this week. For things like salt and glitter you need a bulk density and a skeletal density to make the calculation work unless you were measuring them by weight when you were making the lures. I use measuring spoons for my glitter and salt so I need a bulk density (which will give you the mass of the glitter or salt per volume before it goes into the plastic). Bulk density is easier to measure because it includes all the air between the flakes of glitter or grains of salt. To make the calculation accurate for the final product you need the skeletal density (the density of just the glitter or salt and not the air since the air is not in the lure. those voids are filled with plastic which is another part of the calculation). I will be using lab equipment to measure the skeletal densities which, as I said, is only necessary for the dry materials. Then you just need the density of the plastic (after it has been cooked). Then you use the mass law and densities to 'predict' the density of your final product. Then, since every lure of a given style will have the same volume, you can do quality control by weighing lures at random throughout the lure making process (which some people already do). I'm not very familiar with the process/materials used for making hard lures so I couldn't give you a direct answer for a home made apparatus for your purposes. I will assume that you are using a certain type of wood for all your lures and you have standard lure styles (size and shapes). In which case you could find the density and volume of the body of your lure. That is where I would start. Then, as you drill holes for hook hangers and weights you would be replacing the wood with a metal and would have to take the differences in densities into consideration. I think it would be very valuable to know the density of everything you are using and then you can make trade offs with materials (and the size or amount or weight you want to use) until you achieve the density of the final product that you are looking for. In my case, the salt and glitter add weight to the plastic (which will float naturally). So, knowing the density of everything I can calculate home much of everything I need to add to get a density within a certain range. If you give me some more details I can get more specific with how to measure the density of your material and try to help you find a way to measure this with ease and precision. Feel free to pm me if you prefer, or we can continue this thread. Also, I'll keep everyone updated with my findings as I continue my little project. Eric

ok...I think you guys missed the point. I already have a formula that I like to use. However, every customer wants a rate of fall like a certain brand of lure that they like to use. So, if you knew the density of all the raw materials you are using (mainly the salt, plastic, and flakes) and you knew what the density of the lures you typically make is, you could write a program (like make an excel spreadsheet) that would calculate how much salt/sugar flakes you needed to add or take out of a recipe in order to achieve the density of a certain brand. It would ultimately take most of the experimentation out of the equation. The main reason that I want to do this is because I've been making a lot of custom colors for some of the local FLW guys and their colors have 3-4 times the glitter that I usually use and it's messing with the density and stiffness of the sticks. So, I need to back off the salt and sugar flakes to account for this and add some more softener. If you had all the data before you started, you could get a very close estimate of how much salt and sugar (and if you wanted softener as well) you would need before you even made that first batch. Rate of fall would be determined empirically (through experimentation) using standard brands and your (or my) typical recipe. It would only be good for the specific lure (shape and size) that you tested. I understand line, hooks, and weight play into this but you would assume the customer is using the same set-up with your lure that they used with the other brands which takes those things out of the equation. Sorry if I'm taking this too far for most of you guys but this is what I do for a living (chemical engineer). We do this at work everyday with our products and it saves us millions of dollars because we can optimize formulas with a computer and do a couple experiments instead of experimenting until you figure out where you need to be. Experimenting costs a lot of money. If a computer can get you in the ball park, you can wander around until you find your seat. Otherwise you have to find the ball park first. Eric

Has anybody determined the density (bulk and skeletal) of different raw materials (cooked plastic, salt, glitter (different sizes), etc.)? I was considering doing this and then writing a program that you could plug in your formula and it would shoot out a density and rate of fall for lures. I figured this would be very helpful with stick baits and maybe a few others. I didn't want to spend a bunch of time determining densities if someone had already done it and was willing to share. Along with that, if anybody has determined the density of different brands of stick baits this would be helpful as well. I have a few yamamoto's and kinami's that I can test but I don't have any other brands. Just a thought as I'm sitting at my desk trying to avoid doing actual work... Eric

Get Tom Kirkman's rod building book (Rod Building Guide). It is a great place to start. Then go to rodbuilding.org (Tom's website/forum). He also publishes a magazine (RodMaker magazine) that has some good stuff in it (and you can get backisssues as well). Eric

grimlin, Last time I looked, Del had step by step directions posted in the forum on his website - del-mart.com . Depending on who's plastic you're using you may want to stir it rather than shake it. I used to use Calhaun plastic and had to use a paint stirrer on my drill to mix it. If you shake it you tend to get lots of bubbles in the plastic when you heat it. I shake the MF plastic that without any problems though. I guess it's just the nature of the beast. Eric

TFP, The flat side of the frog would be up. Due to drag in the water, the curved side of the frog would want to face toward the water (less drag in the water that way). It would be very hard to get it to swim with the flat side down. Eric

TFP, If you are not looking for the buzz action, turning the legs out isn't an issue. I used to use the frogs that came with the Banjo minnows with a lot of success. They had curl tail legs and I would swim them just below the surface over grass/weeds. Just my thoughts. Eric