tubinator

Delw, we're both typing at the same time. My w3 is 36X36X28. Takes 2 people to carry it, if I remember correctly it was one of the first 2 made of this series. So, they may have shrunk it down for the market they were targeting.I use an nsk 20,000 or 30,000 rpm spindle can't remember which , it's been so long. Yea, Matt is cool, Likes to hunt mearns around southern AZ. I lived in Sierra Vista when I bought the mill, so I was able to go into their shop and see what I was buying before I bought. At that time, they were working on the laser scanner, while I was using my little roland pieza needle "toy" scanner. The Top dog of the company that I got my cad/cam software from left the cad/cam software part of the business and last I heard is running the development of the scanner. They are selling it for 21 grand, but it will only scan to .02" and only an area of 10X10X5cm but that should be enough for the majority of lures out there.It exports the files in stl format. Send Matt a detailed part or something and let him scan it, can't hurt to try.

Oh, and I do mostly 4-axis milling with a rotary table. I can put a gnat with freckles on a frog's a$$. I guess align-rite has lightened the w-111, probably for the industry the are marketing it to. But I just love mine! To each his own.

Yup, Bobcad is always on the phone when they are trying to sell you something, and not when you need a question answered. That's the joke! I wouldn't send a newbie there or recommend any part of their stuff. I threw away $1100.00 on the lastest software earlier this year, trash canned it after a month of playing with it. It's still 3rd rate software. My wolverine 3 weigh's alot more than 120lbs, it might not move as fast as your mill but then again most of the stuff I've been cutting I've been using .001 to .005 profile bits. In 1998 I bought the mill for around 9 grand with a few upgrades added on later. The cad/cam software I use was 11 grand and now sells for 13. Delw, when was the last time you checked out their laser scanner? Anyway, my point was that if the original poster was looking for a 100 to 200 thousand $ cnc setup asking about it on a lure making forum isn't the most logical thing to do.

yea well, you know what they say about opinions.... I've had the wolverine 3 for about 10yrs now and I've made at least 100 X the money I spent on it. And it's still running strong. You crack me up with your opinion on bobcad. Now there's a good joke!

Check out align-rite tools. They make 3-d scanners along with other machining tools that might work for you. They also will scan your master and generate a code then you can send it off to someone else to cut the mold on their mill. For me scanning and then milling the piece was a shorter learning curve to actually producing a product then designing the piece in 3-d software.

Well, 6 days and 20 posts later, finally got the answer I was looking for. Thanks Vodkaman. And to all the others that posted, it was an interesting read.lol

Thanks for the input guys. I wasn't even thinking about water pressure, but more along the line of water density.

I did some tests of three different dropshot worms rigged on a lightwire hook in a 5 gallon bucket. Two of the worms manufactured by the "big boys" both would sit with their tails down, the worm I made stayed horizontal. My question is, would this characteristic change in a real life situation? Say in 10-20-50 foot of water? And if so, how would it change?

You could also dip the bigger tubes say 14" in multiple stages. What i mean is dip the tube as deep as your plastic container will allow, pull it down and cut off the head, then slide it up the rod and dip again up to where you cut, yes you would have a slight bulge where the dips over-lapped but with a tube it wouldn't effect the action. This way you could make multi-colored tubes 2' long if you wanted.

Wally world has stuff called Kustom Kolor, You can find it in the toy section, it is mainly used to paint plastic model cars,trucks, that sort of thing. They have lots of colors. It's available in spray cans as well as 1 oz. bottles for the airbrush.

I use carving wax, someone on TU just posted some pictures in the last week or two and they were using canning wax and a pocket knife to carve it.

1 hour per inch thick at 350 F is recommended. But because of overshoot of most ovens and kilns,I prefer 325 for a little longer time. The idea is not to vaporized the water in the mold to quickly or you may get cracking.

My son bought me an airbrush and some really cool colors of paint and said I need to be painting some of my paddle tail swimbaits, so where should I be pressure-wise on the regulator? How much psi?

Are you heating in a microwave? Possibly got a drip of water from there also.

Try a small fan and some clothes dryer exhaust tubing or just open the garage door. BRRRRRRRRRRRR.......But, yes you do need some sort of ventilation with that paint, unless you like to get high and loose brain cells.