sagacious

OK, you said the bubbles were IN the clear, not under, so outgassing is probably not the culprit. I know full well that this'll sound craaaaaazy, but here it is: Is it possible, just possible, that the bubbles were there all along? Were you in a hurry to finish the lure to show it off? Did you show it to your buddy under different lighting conditions than when you clear-coated it? Were you possibly being a little more critical when you showed it off? The exact same thing happened to me recently. I coated a lure with 2-ton, and it was-- it looked-- immaculate. Then about a week later, I had it out in the sunlight, and noticed a couple tiny bubbles in the clear. Next to the glitter-coat, the tiny bubbles were invisible, but in better light they looked HUGE! Now, they weren't huge, but many of us are critical of our work, and any flaws seem HUGE! If I had been showing it to a friend, they woulda looked HUGE. I thought to myself, "These couldn't have been there before..... something musta happened!" But, of course, they were there all along-- and I just hadn't seen them. This may sound simple, but better lighting may be your solution. I worked for me. Good luck!

I agree. You can also make a great rattle from a fired 22lr case and a bb or small ball-bearing. Use a thin piece of brass to cover the open end of the case. I just cut open another fired 22lr case with snips, and then punch out a brass disk with a hole punch to cover the open end. Works great, won't break, cost-effective, catches fish, and is plenty LOUD! Hope this helps, good luck!

click: http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/wire-baits/13211-dripless-lead-pour-pot.html

Bronzefly, Do a search for "spout", and you'll find a several threads on dripping lead pots, and a bunch of remedies to your problem. Hope this helps, good luck!

Do you melt-down scrap lead (tire weights, flashing, etc) in those pots, or do you melt ingots in them?

Sounds like you should be OK, Brad. I'd suggest smoking the mold cavities when you get a chance. All the best pourers I know do whatever they can to prevent problems-- and make sure everything is ready to go-- before they start pouring. Pour all the cavities with no wire inserts or hooks, and keep pouring until the castings are coming out perfect. You may have to pour quite a few "blank" pours before the mold is warmed-up enough. Be aware that lead may drip from the hook channel during the warm up. Once everything is pouring great, and the mold is hot, you can add your hooks and wire forms and pour your spinnerbaits. Let us know how it goes, that bug-eye spinnerbait mold sounds interesting. Good luck, and be safe!

If I understand Brad correctly, what's happening is that the larger 'details' in the mold (the bug-eye) are filling out, but the smaller details (the thin lip around the eye) fail to fill out. Pouring into a cold mold will usually give castings with only the larger details, and as the mold warms, the detail on the castings become progressively finer. There may very well be additional causes, but so far the most likely suspects are: 1) Lead not hot enough, and 2) Mold not hot enough. With a little more info, we'll get to the bottom of this. Cheers, all.

Brad, No worries, that helps narrow it down. The suggestions above by Turkeylegs should get you headed in the right direction. Initially, this sounds like your mold is not hot enough, but let's start at the beginning: Is this an aluminum mold, or a plaster, bondo, silicone, etc mold? What are you using to heat your lead, and how are you pouring (dipper, bottom-pour, etc)? Where did you get your lead? Are all the pours bad, or just some?

Brad, You'll get a better and more accurate reply if you give us some more details. There could be a zillion explanations for the question you posted-- and you may get a zillion answers that won't fix your problem. If you can explain your situation in more detail, I'm sure we can give you a solution.

What do you mean by "plastic skirt material"? If you mean the nylon fiber material such as "ocean hair" or "supreme hair" that many fly tiers use as a 'synthetic bucktail', then yes, that stuff works great. Far easier and quicker to tie than real bucktail, far more durable, and consistent from batch to batch. The skirts stay on and don't get pulled-out and the fibers don't break or rot like bucktail. Good stuff. Supreme hair has very good action in the water, actually has more wiggle action in the water than real bucktail. Bucktail fibers are stiffer-- which is good for some things too. Since the nylon fibers compact down very tightly, you can actually tie a very dense skirt with the synthetic bucktail-- too thick if you're not careful. I still tie a few real bucktail skirts on saltwater jigs, just to be traditional I guess. However, the advantages of the synthetic stuff are such that most of my jigs are straight synthetic now. Rockfish and halibut chew up real bucktail too quickly. Here's one reason I use synthetic bucktail: TU Forum Home - Luremakers Photo Gallery - lingcod- the sharp end Hope this helps, good luck!

In my experience, sanding alone will not solve the paint-pinhole problem, which is why I recommended in my reply above to not sand until you're sure all pinholes are fixed before-hand with the primer-dipped toothpick. You can proceed with painting and see what happens, or you can apply another light primer coat and treat any pinholes as described above while the primer is still wet. Be sure to let the primer coats dry completely. Do not sand this coat unless you must, and sand VERY lightly if you do. Wipe down lightly with alcohol after sanding to remove any sanding dust. If what you mean is that you don't see any pinholes on your molded baits, then that's not surprising. I don't see 'em until they pop-up during priming. If you have a separate adhesion problem, please describe it. Most recommend priming. I do. I'd suggest you not jump ahead to the question of not priming until you solve your current pinhole problem-- as not priming may cause separate problems that we don't want to even think about right now. Solve one problem at a time. That's what works for me, perhaps someone else can shed some light on your problem. Good luck!

Like KcDano said, did the spots look like pinholes? In my experience, spray paint (rattle can) primer is notorious for making paint-pinholes on non-porous, non-wetting surfaces that have, well, pinholes. Doesn't have to be alumilite, any hard surface with tiny holes in it may show pinholes when priming. Maybe someone knows a better fix, but here's what works for me. First, hold the can as close to the bait as practical-- the futher away you spray, the more likely the pinholes are to form. Second, if a you see a pinhole, touch it immediately with a toothpick dipped in primer (spray some primer on a piece of aluminum foil, and dip the toothpick in that). That's usually the end of that pinhole. If you miss a pinhole and find it later, do the toothpick trick again. Let dry completely. If there's a slight blemish in the primer coat, sand lightly with very fine sandpaper or put on a second light primer coat if you're sure all pinholes are fixed. A wipe down with alcohol won't hurt, but probably won't prevent pinholes of this type. I suspect the problem doesn't stem from the specific primer type-- although dipping in a can of primer may avoid the problem in the first place. Not sure what the preemptive fix for pinholes is, seems like it's hard to prevent them 100% of the time. I just use spray primer, and attack any pinholes that may form. Hope this helps, good luck!

Lots of steel ones these days. The ones I see most are silver powdercoated and stamped with weight/type, such as: 25Fe. Some just have a weight stamped on, and some are unmarked. If you still find zinc ones in your neck of the woods, keep 'em, they might come in handy some day. If I could get a bucket of zinc tire weights these days, they would get put to good use.

Sounds like you did get some zinc ones in the melt. What a drag-- I can see why you'd avoid ww's after that experience. I see a lot more floaters these days, as you describe, but I find them to all be steel here, fortunately. Used to see a few zinc ones occasionally, but I haven't seen a zinc ww for years. Could be different in another part of the country. When in doubt, toss it out. With the metals market as it is, zinc tire weights may be a thing of the past. Which thread was that with the melt separation?

Your painting skills are not terrible. Those are fish killers!

Nope. When working with ww alloy, lead pourers need only observe the standard safety and hygene precautions inherent with handling lead. Note that metallic arsenic is not the same stuff as 'white arsenic' (As2O3) or arsenic trioxide, the poison. At the small percentages in ww alloy, metallic arsenic will not escape from the melt to pose a hazard. All the sources I've ever read indicate that these minute levels of metallic arsenic do not pose a threat to the hobby lead pourer. Some more prominent sources (Fryxell, Marshall) discuss the potential toxicity of cadmium contamination in scrap lead (specifically battery lead), but state unambiguously that the arsenic present in antimonial lead alloys presents no danger. So, I'm inclined to believe them, and not be suspicious that they're pooh-poohing a potential risk. Again, anyone who read this: metallic arsenic in ww lead does not pose a toxic hazard. Anything is possible under our Sun, but I suspect that any zinc contaminant in your lead would more likely have come from a 'lead-free' zinc wheel weight, or other small zinc die-casting. Usually what happens if a zinc ww gets into the melt, and actually does melt, the zinc will float around on top like oil on water. And, somewhat like an oil spill, the zinc coats any metal surface it comes in contact with, leaving a hard, shiny coating. Usually that coating can be flaked off, as it hasn't had time to etch the steel pot, which is coated with a protective layer of oxide and grime itself. A hassle none the less, but fortunately fairly rare (to my knowledge). The way to avoid this hassle is to melt down your ww's at no higher than 650*F (340*C). Wheel weight lead is completely molten at about 505*F (265*C).Zinc melts above 750*F (400*C), so any zinc ww's will float to the top. If you see a suspicious floater, skim it off asap. If your melt is above 750*F and a zinc ww melts, and you see it, carefully skim off the floating puddle of zinc asap and dispose of it. If you raise the temp, the solubility of zinc in lead increases, and the zinc will dissolve. However, when you pour ingots, anything more than 2% zinc will usually separate out as a weird-looking blob on your ingot. Discard that batch of lead. If you have zinc contamination at levels less than 2%, you'll notice right-away, because mold fill-out will be severely reduced. Small pours are almost impossible. Once lead has been contaminated by zinc, the lead is ruined and cannot be recovered for pouring. Just as an aside, tin and antimony will also attack (dissolve) steel, although at much slower rates than zinc. Takes much longer contact with steel for this to happen, and is only a factor in industrial settings. Very old type metal-- re-used again and again-- will often have a small percentage of iron as a contaminant because of this, but it causes no real hassles. Good luck, and be safe!

At first this seems like a simple question, but definitive ww alloy percentages for the ww's any one given person is melting, is difficult to pin down. It's best to take all numbers as average values. As well, since it's impossible to know what you had 10 years ago, a basis for comparison with the ww alloy you have today will likely be hopelessly imprecise, and most sources of ww alloy percentages give no indication of when the data was made anyway. I have noticed that newer ww's bend and crack, exposing a frosty surface, whereas the older ones would snap, and expose a rougher, more crystalline fracture surface. That may be a clue. The annoying rub is that ww alloy is changing all the time. Different manufacturers may use slightly different alloys, and those change with the metals market. However, we may be able to shed some light on this. Really old ww's-- say pre 70's-- apparently used 9% antimony as a primary hardening or strengthening component. The average composition reported in the past few years is 4% antimony, 0.5% tin, up to 0.25% arsenic, and the balance being about 95.25% lead. Stick on's are pretty much 99.5% lead. Now, with the recent meteoric rise in metals prices, it's probably safe to conclude that the more expensive components of the alloy have been reduced wherever possible. That means antimony. The 0.5% tin fraction has likely remained unchanged for decades. That small tin percentage is required for some fairly important chemical and practical reasons, so it's probably not going anywhere. The candidate metals for solid-solution hardening of lead are limited, so significant alloy component substitutions are unlikely to happen any time soon. The cheapest option is to tweak the chemistry. Arsenic provides considerable strengthening power in small amounts-- more so than a greater amount of antimony. And it's cheap. However, arsenic must be combined with antimony to harden lead properly, but no more than about 0.25% arsenic is needed in ww lead. Older ww's had, reportedly, only about 0.17% arsenic, and more antimony. The newest batches, I suspect, average more like 3% antimony, 1/2% tin, a full 1/4% arsenic, and 96.25% lead. That's enough of a change to notice a difference. Could also be some hardening contributed by very low-percentage metals, but that's not worth too much consideration. Lead shot uses arsenic as a hardening agent, along with antimony. The more arsenic, the harder the shot, and I think the value ranges to about 1% arsenic. Antimony promotes a more grainy, brittle fracture, but arsenic makes the lead tougher, and the crystals smaller. This makes the shot not only harder, but less likely to shatter during firing, like a percentage of bismuth shot usually does. If the ww lead fracture appears smoother and more 'frosty' and less grainy-- as I saw-- it would match a reduction in antimony and increase in arsenic. I also recall the lumpy clumps that would stick to the sides of a pot of melted ww's. Just a guess, but I suspect that may have been due to less thorough refining of the scrap lead (battery lead) used to make ww's. Battery lead contains all kinds of things, and it may be that the lead is being refined more thoroughly to retrieve those alloy constituents. So we don't see those wierd crystal 'lumps' floating around in the melt as much, or clinging to the sides of the pot. Hope this helps, as opposed to being confusing! Good luck!

Nope.

I've looked everywhere too. Krocs are the equivalent of the bucktail jig-- in the right size, they'll catch just about everything that swims. Problem is toothy fish bite 'em off. The Stamina "fingerling casting spoons" were the closest I found, but still a ways off. They are stamped from 0.05" thick brass, and are not nearly as heavy as a kroc. Krocs are stamped from thicker brass so they can be used for distance casting as well as trolling. Because of this heavy design, krocs have a snaky, slithery action that lighter spoons cannot match. Spoons stamped from thinner material have a more erratic 'fluttery' action, as oppsed to the rhythmic, sinuous action of the krocodile. Aside from the action, the casting distance also suffers. I bought some of the Stamina fingerling spoons, but I'm not going to buy any more. It's not a surrogate for a kroc. Nothing you can buy as a blank-- that I have found-- comes close to a Luhr Jensen krocodile. Gator Lures makes a spoon that looks like an obvious knock-off of a kroc, or maybe it's just coincidence. It is available in packs of 6, and at considerably lower cost than LJ krocs. Shape and action are very similar to a kroc-- closest I've found-- and (whoo-hoo!) it's available in 304 stainless steel. Weight/size is much heavier than the Stamina spoons. You could get a multi-pack, and make a project of painting them the way your son likes. Click here: Gator Spoons If it doesn't have to be too close to a kroc, the best option is the Stamina spoons. Hope this helps, good luck!

Do you want the blanks to be exactly like krocs, or will any vaguely-similar casting spoon work?

An afterthought... If you're still pouring those 3-5oz jigs, you may be able to remedy the heat damage done to the tin plate on the hook eyes. There's an inexpensive product-- as miraculous as it sounds-- that will stop heat transfer in metal. Non toxic, no fumes. Could be that dipping the hook eyes in this will solve the damage: HEAT STOP TM HEAT CONTROL PASTE at Brownells Good luck!

Yes, your instincts were correct, the zamak alloys have good corrosion resistance. The melting point of the zamak alloys is about 725*F (385*C). That's about 100 or so degrees F above lead, so it's do-able, but those addidtional 100 degrees should not be dismissed out-of-hand. It does require additional effort and safety precautions vs working with lead. You can snip the sprue with dykes or wire cutters. I took a pair of dykes and ground the 'flat' side completely flat-- like gate shears. It's stronger than regular gate shears and that cuts the sprues nicely. I use them for lead as well. You can pour in regular metal molds. Smoke the cavities before each pouring session, or use a stearate spray-on mold release. If the sprue is designed correctly, you can snap it off like you do with lead. Zinc is hard, but not that hard. The real hassle lies with mold pre-heat, and dealing with overpours. An overpour that locks the mold closed cannot quickly and easily be unbent from around the mold-- like you could with lead-- both because the mold will be really hot, and the zinc flashing needs to be manipulated with pliers. Not fun. Yup, if tin was cheap, wherever possible I would substitute it for lead. The lower the melting point the better, and tin is just 'nice' to work with. I pour jigs from 3 to 24ozs, and hard lead is really the only thing that will get it done. Aside from tin and tin alloys, most alternatives to lead have a number of challenging hurdles to overcome. Hope this helps, good luck all!

This is certainly true of pure zinc or anode zinc, but many zinc alloys are a different breed of cat. A small change in alloy components may result in a major change in physical and chemical properties-- not unlike steel. Common zinc casting alloys such as zamak (Zn, Al, Mg, and Cu) have good corrosion resistance, and are often used for marine fittings on boats. Thank goodness we have lead and tin to work with! I have no need for an alternative to lead, but if I did, based on my experience with it, I might very well be working with zinc. Zinc alloys have the advantage of being fairly tough and hard, but are still relatively inexpensive and easy to work with. A neighbor friend of mine casts several-ounce zamak jigs and sells them informally during the summer at garage sales. They do catch plenty of rockfish. Back when I was working with zinc, I used stainless crucibles to melt the zinc or zinc alloys in. Most anything stainless would do. Ordinary drawn steel or cast iron melting pots weren't up to the task. In the environment, free zinc is eventually changed to zinc oxide-- the same stuff you take in lozenge form to reduce the effects of the common cold. Lead does the same, forming the toxic compounds lead oxide and chloride, but unless you're a bird and grind it up in your crop, these compounds by themselves are not bioavailable and not water-soluable. Hope this helps, good luck.

Dave, The issue isn't one of corrosion, galvanic or otherwise. In the case of several of the metals on the do not use list, the culprit is erosion. The reason that zinc plating (galvanizing) works so well, is that when you dip clean steel into molten zinc, the zinc actually forms an intermetallic compound (alloy) with the surface steel. Put another way, the zinc is actually fused to the steel, and is not just a separate surface layer. Not all metals will do this, but some will. Those that can form an alloy this way will actually dissolve the other metal, regardless of it's melting point-- exactly the same as water dissolves sugar without needing to melt the sugar. So, molten zinc will slowly and steadily dissolve or erode steel. The inside of a steel pot used to melt zinc will soon have a layer of zinc permanently fused to it, and dissolving it. If you don't pay attention, eventually you'll get a pinhole stream of zinc spurting from the side or underside of the pot. Not good. Let me tell you, it gets your attention pretty quick! I have no experience with melting gold, but all those metals (except pewter, as far as I am aware...) have the potential to readily attack and erode the steel liner of the pot. I sincerely doubt that your average lead pot stands any chance of melting most of these metals, but better safe than sorry, I guess. Hope this helps, take care.

PhilB, no worries-- I know that sometimes it's just a reaction to type out what one's thinking and hit: submit. No offense taken. For the record, and for anyone new to tacklemaking: I encourage questions. I often ask questions, even about topics I'm well-versed in, so I can learn the latest trends...... and maybe even pick up some new info. This is just one of the ways people learn. But people also learn by doing. I'm not saying not to ask a question before trying something, I'm just saying don't be afraid to try something new. To me at least, there's a huge gulf of difference between those two concepts. Asking questions is good. Trying new things is also good. I don't see the conflict-- as in my world, both things work together to further my abilities and enjoyment as a luremaker and as a fisherman. Cheers, and good fishing!