Vodkaman

Your experience did make me grin and wince at the same time. I felt your pain. Get back in the saddle and make another, can't wait to see the pics. Dave

No wonder they wanted to keep the MSDS sheet hidden, wood alcohol, such an easy solution. I am wondering what other volatile fluids would work, denatured alcohol, acetone, paint thinners, cellulose thinners etc. My guess is that it is a surface tension mechanism, but just a guess. Dave

Here is my version of an epoxy drying wheel, used in conjunction with the lure holders that I recently posted: http://www.tackleund...607#entry151607 Had a few problems with this build, sometimes it would have been better to just stay in bed and watch a James Bond movie. The motor drive shaft was bent, I never noticed this when I bought it (second hand). So had to get creative, to allow the motor to wiggle while turning. It will do until I find a better motor. I wished I had raised the wheel another 2", this will be corrected when I get the motor. I had trouble fitting one of the base screws, just would not go in. Damaged the head, so removed it (with a struggle). Tried a new screw, with lubrication, same problem. Next, opened up the pilot hole a size, could not get the drill through. Assuming a knot (god I am stupid), I changed up to a more powerful drill and rammed that screw in. The wood split. All the time the screw had been hitting another screw I had already fitted in the end plate, DUH!!! Epoxied and clamped the split, all OK now. Don't know why I told you this, hope you get a laugh out of my stupidity. Dave

Thanks John.

You have probably already concluded that RTV would have been a better mold material (general rule, hard master - soft mold). Alternatively, soft or unbaked clay master in PoP, but you would only get one mold from the master. I would guess that just about everyone who has dabbled with molding has lost one or two prized masters to the concrete burial and I include myself in this statistic. You will never reach the top without climbing the learning curve. Dave

Personally, I do not think it makes any difference. The subject has been discussed before and opinions have been expressed, but I do not recall anyone publishing proof that one method was better than the other. The majority rotate the lure sideways around the long axis, but quite a few members rotate end over end. Dave

I would like to know what blades other members use for cutting the lexan. I never fancied the coarse toothed wood blade for this material and went straight to the fine toothed metal cutting blade. Hope you do not consider this a hijack of your thread. I think it is all relevant information. Sorry, cannot help you with the lathe. Dave

Here's a thread from two weeks ago that may help you: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/20115-how-to-remove-paint-from-spinner-blades/page__p__150136__hl__stripper__fromsearch__1#entry150136 Dave

I have been trying to think of a lure holding system for quite some time. I have several prototype lures on the go at the moment and ran out of spring clamps, so had to come up with something fast. This idea was one of those 5am jobbies. Made from materials and tools that I already had lying around my cave. Materials - 10mm diameter aluminium bar, 5mm allen bolts and washers. Tools - centre punch, hammer, 4.2mm dia drill, 5mm x 0.8 tap, band saw, belt sander, allen key. The design is self explanatory. I spot punched and drilled a hole through the bar one inch from the end. The reason for this excessive distance was, when I cut the bar to correct length, I was not cutting a slither, which would have disappeared into the band saw casing and could have caused a problem. Tapped the hole. fitted the bolt and washer. marked the edge of the washer. removed the bolt and washer. cut the bar to the mark. Sanded (or filed) a flat on the bar, to aid clamping. Trimmed the bar to required length. Removed burrs. The idea is that once the twisted eyes are fitted, the lure is clamped and never touched with hands until the top coat is dry. Various stands and jigs can be manufactured to hold the lures for the different operations, like drip drying, painting etc. A lure drying wheel can be designed to hold the bar, with a flap of rubber sheet partially covering the rear of the hole, this should be sufficient to hold the bar in place. This would allow the bar to be pushed in and pulled out, without stopping the rotation. I am sure more jigs will come to mind. Dave

WOW! never considered the fire risk, with all that light wood dust sitting in my machine. Thanks Mark. Dave

Nothing wrong with the machine that you have selected. But what material you cut with it, comes down to what blade you use in the machine. You are not limited to the blade that was delivered with the machine. I use a very cheap bench top machine, probably similar to the Ryobi that you described. It is not brilliant, but gets the job done. I have thought about upgrading, but I got 50 blades made for it about a year ago. I use mine for cutting small blocks of wood, mostly very light density, the occasional piece of plywood, polycarbonate for bibs, the occasional aluminium bar (20 pieces today) and very occasionally a piece of brass and 1/4" steel rod. For all the materials other than the wood products, the standard blade (coarse toothed wood blade) is the wrong choice. I find a fine toothed 'hacksaw' type blade is much kinder. I do not enjoy switching blades, so I leave the fine blade in for cutting the wood, unless I have a lot of cutting to do at once. I have had a few blades snap, but this was generally when cutting the steel rod and I got over confident with the capabilities of the machine. It is extremely important to correctly adjust the blade tension and all the guides correctly. Skimp on this process and blades will snap, along with your temper. It is also important to 'listen' to the machine when cutting. If it starts making 'thud thud' noises, then the adjustment has slipped or you are pushing too hard and the welded joing is hitting the guides. This is a sure sign that the blade is going to snap soon. Power down, open up the case and examine the blade joint for cracking and check all the adjustments. Sorry I have wandered into a general discussion on bandsaw operation and as a previous owner of a bandsaw, you are already aware of this information, but I thought it might help others. Was not meant to patronise you. Also, I am not an expert in this field, so if anyone feels that my information is incorrect, please say so, I will not be upset, I too want to learn. I would like to see a pic of your sander adaptation, sounds interesting. Dave

When I worked in Malaysia, I lived in an apartment, so noise was a big issue. I bought a silent compressor, sorry I do not remember the manufacturer, but it was no more noisy than an aquarium pump. It worked OK for detailing, stripes, scales etc. The only time it was a pain,was when you were laying down a base coat, then it would run out of steam pretty quick. Not a job stopper, a few seconds and you are up again. The problem is that they do not have a reservoir to store a sufficient head of pressure to sustain a heavy coat. In fact, I am not even sure if it had a reservoir at all (I did not open the thing up to find out). It may be possible to hook a silent compressor to a tank, to solve this problem, may be someone has tried this and will provide feedback for you. This compressor was very expensive, but I think that was down to the owner of the hobby shop, he definately saw me comming. He charged me $120 for a Paasche VL airbrush, I had no choice but to pay, no other local suppliers. Hope you find a solution that works for you and your neighbours. Dave

Amazed that a picture is not available on the web. I could not find one either. I found an ebay sale from 2009, $22.50, but no pic. Dave

BigM is a possibility. His eyes are similar (but not raised), he likes his kill spots low and the tail hook eye horizontal, scale netting looks the same too. He also likes this style of body. He is not a member here, but posts on bassresource, does very high quality work. Maybe not, I just noticed that BigM fits the lips before painting, the lures in question, the bibs are fitted later. Dave

As you are one of the more progressive members of http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/312-2-part-plaster-molds/page__p__1581__hl__vacuum__fromsearch__1#entry1581 I wish you every success with your baits and your future projects. Dave

The kill spots are consistently in a low position, also the eyes are slightly raised, again consistently. These two features should make identification of the builder easier. I cannot help other than this. Dave

Nova, you are correct. The pam is more for when pouring plastic, to achieve a shiny finish, even then it may not be necessary, depending on how well you seal the PoP. I too have made wooden masters, but it can be a wrestling match to get them out sometimes. Wood is no good for spindly appendages, unless you carve them separate and soft glue together. I modelled a snake in plasticine once, complete with a scale effect. Took hours to clean all the clay out of the mold. Never again. Dave

Welcome to TU John. The plasticine will work, I have tried it before. BUT, assuming you are going to use PoP (plaster of Paris) for your mold material or possibly fibreglass resin, both of these heat up when setting. Fortunately, the set occurs before the big heat, but the clay will melt and make a right mess, especially with the PoP, as it is porous. I suggest that you get to a hobby shop and see what else they have available in soft clays, sculpy is one that springs to mind. Best use it soft, or you will never get the master out of the mold. There is a spray on vegetable oil called Pam, this works very well. as a release agent. If you use PoP, read up of sealing PoP molds. Some use thinned elmers, some use thinned epoxy. Melting the old plastics will work, but it is going to get smelly, so plenty of ventilation. Dave

I agree, keep the ideas comming. Plenty of room for more. Dave

Grreat post JR. It is always helpful to post your experiences, especially first time experiences. This is what other first timers are looking for. You probably saved a few people making the same mistakes. Dave

You are on the ball Ben. The mitre guage is there as a rough guide, just for now. The next project is a sliding adjustable edge mitre, that uses the edge of the band saw table. the jig will be located between two pins, this will confine the jig and still allow me to cut the slot width in two passes. Haven't completed the design idea yet, which is why I held back on the idea. I deliberately left the mitre in the pic, to show you that I was thinking in that direction. My guess was you or Diemai would have mentioned it, LOL. Dave

Problem sorted, perhaps mods could delete post No1 and this text. The problem is that the shaped body inevitably has curvature around the sides, this makes the use of the band saw very difficult to get a ‘square’ cut for the lip slot. The solution is some sort of jig to hold the blank. We have all seen the Austin outdoors video, were James Marshal inserts a lure body (painted) into a jig of pins (20 seconds into the video): this method works fine for James’s blanks, as his bodies have flat sides. My blanks have rounded sides, so this method would not be stable. I designed a different type of jig.I made a mold of the rear end of the standard body, from Bondo, using a short length of PVC water pipe, glued down onto an old ceramic tile, as the mold box. I waxed the body, to prevent adhesion and made sure I only inserted half way, to prevent locking the body in the Bondo. A smear of wax inside the PVC tube helps, but the Bondo does not bind. A light side tap with a small hammer releases the pipe from the tile (slight chipping of the tile, but not a problem). Make sure the master is up against the side of the pipe, this allows plenty of material for the next process. A length of scrap wood or something similar may be necessary to hold the master in the Bondo, while it sets. Using the belt sander, I sanded a flat on the mold, parallel with the lure body. This flat rests on the belt sander table and holds the blank at the correct angle for slot cutting. The sanding of the flat will take some tweaking to get it perfect and will require a few sacrificial blanks to get it right. If you are making your own blanks, this is not a big problem, but if you are paying $3 a pop for them, it may be a little painful. If you sand too much off, you can always glue a piece of wood to the base and continue adjustment. Another modification would be a wooden base with three adjustment screws to fine tune the alignment. In use, it only takes seconds to cut the lip slot. This jig does not position the slot, merely holds the blank parallel to the band saw table, enabling different angled slots to be cut using the same jig. Dave

I would love to pass this idea onto you guys, but seems to be a problem uploading the tutorial pictures. Dave

I agree with Travis, why copy someone elses work when you can create your own. Take your time to get the master as perfect as you can. Spend hours on it, the time will be well spent. If you remove too much material in one spot, add a layer of bondo filler, in 20 minutes you will be working the shape again. When I did some body molding, I thought about molding lips in, but decided against it, preferring to have the flexibility to be able to change the lip geometry. It is possible though. The biggest problem is going to be cutting the lip slots, as the molded body does not have a flat side to help with the band saw. A jig can be made to solve this problem fairly simply. Dave