mark poulson

Fish Pirate, a TU member and commercial lure maker, says Klear Kote is the epoxy most commercial/mass produces of lures use.

duplication

As a lifelong carpenter, I LOVE wood. It's weight, it's texture, it's smell, the thousand and one things you can do with it, how it looks when it's been stained and finished, how incredibly strong and flexible it is, "these are a few of my favorite things". ) But AZEK PVC is what I make my hard baits from. Having a beautiful bait ruined by water intrusion is heart breaking.

I use another UV cure resin, Solarez. Here's a link for comparison: http://solarez.com/products/solarez-polyester-gloss-resin/ $23 for 32oz. I have used it for several years now, and am on my second quart. I did use a large part of the first quart for repairing my son's surfboard. Plus I used some to make a resin mold for some detailed soft plastic baits. I dip my lures in the garage, with all sunlight blocked out, and let them drip back into the container. Once they've stopped dripping, I wipe off the drop that's still hanging from the bottom of the lure, and hang them in my UV nail light box for three minutes. It gives a hard and strong coating for my PVC lures. I've probably dipped 50+- lures/lure sections so far, and I still have most of the quart left.

Would soaking it in something like borax help to preserve it?

Since you're just starting, consider using Azek PVC decking instead of wood as a building material. It's as buoyant as poplar, strong enough to hold screw eyes, machines well with sharp tools, and is totally waterproof, so no sealing ever needed, and no lure failures when sharp teeth penetrate the top coat. You will need to wear a dust mask when you sand it, because the dust hates sinuses, and has electrostatic cling, so it sticks on stuff sometimes. But the freedom to be able to test without fear of water intrusion alone makes it a great choice for home made lures.

I have some Marabou and some bucktail that was given to me 10+ years ago, from a friend who used to tie salt water feathers. The hide on the bucktail is pretty aromatic, but it still works. The marabou is kind of stale smelling, but it seems okay, too. Maybe it was from an old time supplier. We lived near Oxnard at the time, and the stuff was bought from a local tackle store. It was before the internet. I'm pretty sure that, if a batch of material was bad, someone in the store would have known pretty quickly. I guess that kind of thing is the downside to the internet, along with the death of mom and pop shops of all kinds.

I think it wouldn't stay put, like the engine paint seems to. It is a wood glue, and is sucked into the pores of the wood to give it something to grab. POP is porous, and that gives the Elmers something to grab. I doubt that it would have enough grab on aluminum, even if it's somewhat rough.

Maybe that can be another way to add to a crawdad pattern. Does the dip peel after it's been cut by the hooks, or does it still adhere to the bait where it's not cut?

If the elements are already covered, that should be enough. It is the concentrated heat from the exposed element that makes them hot spots. A metal pan covering them should spread the heat out more evenly. Try it first, before you start putting foil over it. You never know what it might do. My wife ruined the self cleaning feature of the bottom of my double oven by putting a piece of aluminum foil over it. The ceramic panel in the bottom overheated and shattered. The oven still worked after that, but it was no longer self cleaning.

I use sst screw eyes and pins. There is a long thread here about this. Try looking up glide baits in the search feature at the upper right corner.

Sounds like they had an adventure. An adventure is anything bad that doesn't kill you. A disaster is anything that does.

I am careful that the jigs don't hang directly over the heating elements while they cure. That will overcook them.

Hahaha I took a lot of crap from my rich clients, but I never gave it back to my employees or subs. I had guys who worked for me for more that twenty years who are still my friends. And almost all of my clients are still friends, too. The very first client I ever had as a general contractor told me, "Good work makes good friends", and I took that to heart. Plus, doing a good job for a fair price feels good. I made a good living for 35 years from referrals. I gave good house.

A quick and easy method is to use solvent based sharpies. The colors won't be vivid, but, if you're just wanting to take the shine off a chrome trailer hook, the black sharpie will do the trick, and it's last for hours. They're cheap, and easy to keep in the boat or backpack.

Cost of materials is always a fraction of the cost of labor. Time is money. That was true when I bid work as a general contractor, and it's really true for anything. Your time is valuable. You only have one lifetime (with apologies to Shirley MacLaine).

I've had twisted wire hanger unscrew, too, because I did too nice and even a job twisting them. I guarantee you won't unscrew or pull out a soft sst wire that's bent into a U with 1/8" bend overs on the tag ends. D2T is very rigid, and will hold those bent tag ends forever. And the U shape, vs the twist wire, eliminates the potential weak point created by bending the wire as it is twisted. Plus it's faster and easier. Did I mention I'm lazy? Hahaha

I agree that a sst wire embedded in epoxy is stronger than a sst screweye threaded into a bait, even if, as I do, you install the screw eye, run it back out and coat the screw's threads with super glue and run it back in, so the threads cut into the bait are stronger. That's the reason I only use heavy mono or fluoro when I throw swimbaits, so there is always some give in the system between the fish and the reel. Those 8" swimbaits have enough weight to give a big fish plenty of leverage to either open a hook, or cause the hook to pull out when they shake their heads, unless you can keep constant flexible pressure. I use straight heavy braid for Whopper Ploppers, but I have the drag backed off a little, and I thumb the spool if I need to.

Will sealing the bondo mold cavity with runny super glue, like I do with bondo lure repairs, make it more stable?

That should do the trick! If you hand painted the scale pattern, you have the patience of Job. Be sure to use a wire leader, heavy line, and a stout rod, or you'll get your heart broken when a big nasty bites off that beautiful lure you obvously worked so hard on.

The D2T epoxy I use is stronger than either the lure body or the sst wire. It is a glue epoxy, designed to be rigid, with no creep. I glue them either into PVC decking, or PVC trimboard. I haven't done it in wood for a long time, but, when I did, I drilled my holes and sealed them with the runny super glue, which penetrated into the wood around the holes and made it much stronger, before i epoxied my hardware in. The epoxy bond to the drilled hole, and it's grip on the wire tabs, is stronger than the wire itself. I am using soft sst wire. I don't remember the gauge or spec. I bought it a long time ago. I have also epoxied Spro #8 swivels into semi-tight holes as hook hangers. I had one which got frozen, and when I tried to free it up with some pliers, the wire just twisted off without moving the epoxied-in barrel of the swivel. if you're confident about the epoxy/wood connection, as long as the sst wire has some sort of a 90 degree tag end to anchor it in the epoxy, you should be good to go.

I set my toaster oven on bake, 250 degrees, and 30 minutes, too.

That sounds like a fun project. I hope you have the time to complete it, and post the results.