mark poulson

I love it when you talk dirty! How did that get past the moderators?

I think a drop of crazy glue behind the second O ring would keep it from sliding down. I do this sometimes when I don't have a good seat for my skirt.

I tried a dremel with an abrasive grinding disc, like a cut off wheel, and it worked. But I wasn't able to use my drill press like an end mill to remove material, like I could with the jig molds I altered.

Funny how easy it is to do stuff when you actually know what you're doing. You need a basic skill set to do anything, and enough brains to understand what you're doing. My brother-in-law is an aerospace engineer, a computer expert, and a smart guy. But he called me when someone kicked in his back door, and he needed it repaired/replaced. He had an 1 3/8" thick door, so i bought him a 1 3/4" door, routed out the rabbeted jam so it would accept an 1 3/4" door, hung and locked the new door, installed an aluminum threshold and drip cap, and was done in a day. He had watched me periodically while I worked, and was amazed at how I knew how to do all that stuff. I told him I know it because that's what I do for a living, just like he knows the stuff he knows for designing spaceships for a living. I'm pretty sure he could learn to do what I do, but I'd be really challenged to learn what he does.

I don't cast resins, but I'd look at the Alumilite site if I were just stating. http://www.alumilite.com/ Also google Larry Dahlberg, and check out how he makes his resin baits.

If you're just starting out painting with an air brush, learning a quick, repeatable cleaning routine will save you endless hours of headaches and frustration. Like backing stuff up on you computer saves you grief, learning to clean your brush quickly and thoroughly while you're painting will do the same thing, and keep painting fun. Because I have a tupperware of clean water next to my painting "station", I backflush a lot while I'm painting, between every color, and let the brush nozzle hang into the water when I'm heat setting coats of the same color. I don't have to do a thorough cleaning very often, because I backflush so often. I made a little bracket out of wire that clips onto the side of the tupperware and holds the brush so it's tip is in the water. I also use the airbrush restorer, thanks to Ben. I keep it in a wide mouthed glass pickle jar,. I dip the airbrush into the jar, lean the jar until the nozzle and cup are immersed, and then shoot some air through the brush, to get the restorer into all the parts of the brush that have paint. That way, I can run it through the brush, moving the trigger so I get both the air passages and paint passages involved, and the restorer stays in the jar. That stuff will work even when you can no longer see through it because of the old paint, it's so good. Then I take the brush off the air line, and just let it soak for a couple of hours in the jar. When I'm done soaking it, I reconnect the air line, shoot it again in the jar to use the air to push out any loosened paint, and then put clean acetone into the cup and backflush. Last step is running some water, with a little dish washing liquid soap in it, through the brush, and then back flushing with clean water. When I do that much of a thorough cleaning, maybe once a month if I'm painting a lot, I pull the needle when I'm done and put some air brush lube on it, and put a drop into the trigger mechanism, so the O rings get lubed, too. Cleaning a little too often avoids the time-consuming work that results from not often enough.

Pike and muskys should love the Whopper Plopper, too, so upgrade the hooks to at least 2X Mustads, and use heavy braid. You might even have to use a short wire leader, in case a really big fish just swallow the bait whole. I've never fished for either pike or muskys, but they look like freshwater barracudas, and I've caught lots of them. Their teeth scratch steel jigs, so I'm guessing pike and muskys will do the same. Their teeth look just as lethal. I hope you get blown up, big time! All the takes I've had on the Plopper, bass to 6lbs and stripers to 10lbs, were explosive, like they were pissed at the bait. Good luck.

But, but, but...isn't there an app for this yet? I mean, there is for everything else. Hahaha Seriously, I'm sure there is some kind of a scanning program that converts whatever 3D object you scan into language to program your machine. I'm also sure it's expensive, or else everyone would be able to make their own molds.

Do the flames draw up the dross, and, if so, how? I am thinking it has something to do with oxygen being drawn up into the combustion, but that's just a wild guess. Maybe it's just magic.

Almost sounds like case hardening. The sand cast molds are hard down a long way from the surface, so I think they may use a different/cheaper alloy to cast them, since they don't need to be machined.

I use this tool http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Naked_Bait_Jig_Spinnerbait_Skirt_Expander/descpage-NBSE.html and an O ring to band my skirts. Once they are banded, I put them onto my jig or spinnerbait, and then use wire to tie them on. After they're wired on, I remove and reuse the O ring (thank you to whichever TU member suggested this method). An added bonus from using wire is that, if you leave long enough tag ends when you twist it on, twist them all the way up and orient it so the twisted tail is facing down toward the bottom or underside on the jig or blade, you can fold down the twisted tag ends toward the hook, and it becomes and additional trailer holder. I can throw a spinnerbait with a 3" grub as a trailer all day, and only have to fool with it when a fish bites off the tail, or it gets pulled off in the grass. Same thing with a jig.

I recently bought several of the Essential Do-It molds. In the past, I've easily+- altered molds to accept different hooks, or to add details. But these sand cast molds are much harder to machine for me. Now that I think about it, they probably use different alloys for the machined molds, because they are softer. My father was a machinist, so you'd think I would know about this stuff, but I'm a carpenter, so I know wood, not metal, and I give good house.

One of my most successful Lunker Punker-type surface glide baits was made from some old pine I had in my garage. It was very dry, and had pretty even grain. I had to laminate two pieces of 1X together to get a blank thick and tall enough for what I wanted to make, but it worked really well. It was very light and buoyant, and held my screw eye hardware just fine. Best part is it smelled great while I was working with it. Having said all that, pine has a lot of sap/pitch, so it doesn't take heat without bubbling. I painted my pine glide bait with solvent based rattle can paints, so it wasn't an issue. I never had to heat set my paint.

You can try coating the hook rash area with clear nail polish first, and the spraying on the Plasti Dip. That way, if the hooks rub off the dip in certain areas, your paint job and bait are still protected. I used it over an already top coated swimbait, to give it a softer texture, ala Butch Brown's glide baits.

And here I thought vaseline was for doorknobs, to keep the kids out. )

I have gotten even lazier, if that's possible. I thin my pearls and craft paints, but, if I forget to thin them or they begin to clog, I loosen the needle and pull it back a little, so the nozzle opening is much larger and can spray the thicker paint. I also backflush gently to clear the clog.

I use Auto Aire 4011 and 4012 reducer for the Folk Art, Apple Barrel, and Createx pearls. How much thinning you do depends on your nozzle size, and on what you're trying to achieve. I typically thin to a skim milk consistency, and use multiple light coats, heat set between each coat with a hair dryer. Getting the water out of the paint is crucial for avoiding bubbling of your top coat (read this as lure failure) and thin coats are much easier to dry completely. For me, I learned most of this stuff here, and from making my own mistakes.

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/30684-hooks/

Skimpy, Great video!

Are the claws on it ribbed at the end, like a rage tail?

I use and like Createx, Folk Art, Apple Barrel, and Wildlife Colors. I find the color I want in a water-based paint, and find a way to be able to shoot it. Fortunately, there are lots of air brush paints available, so look around for whatever colors you want. If you're just beginning, I'd suggest you learn how to use the air brush on a white poster board, and a piece of white PVC pipe, because it's curved. Once you've learned how to control air flow, and paint flow, you can play around with mixing color by shooting light coats of one color over another, until you really get a good feel for how an air brush can be used effectively. Or, you can do like I did, and just plunge in, paint a bunch of baits poorly, and learn from your mistakes. Hahaha

I know this is true, but I wonder why it works.

Good luck. I hope you enjoy the whole process.

If it's a water-based sealer, a water hose and high pressure nozzle will clean it easily. If it's solvent-based, they may just cover it tightly between uses, and never really clean it. Small electric concrete mixers are so inexpensive now, they may just replace it if it gets too gunked up.

I used to see cabinet installers carry CO2 tanks for their finish nailers on jobs where it was hard to get a compressor up to the work area. They were really careful how they handled those tanks. I bought a pancake compressor instead, because I was young, and didn't mind lugging it around.