mark poulson

I would guess that it would just not bond and peel off, because it cures out much more rigid than soft plastic. Even though Etex is "flexible" it isn't made for soft surfaces. It is meant as a protection for hard surfaces that expand and contract, like bar and table tops. Etex has great technical support. Call them and ask your questions. I've found I can color the tail of a BBZ lure with solvent-based sharpies, and that will hold for a while, but it needs to be redone pretty often. Here's a BBZ bait I redid a while ago: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/gallery/image/11500-six-inch-spro-trout-repaint/

JR, The concrete sealer I use, AC1315, WILL NOT WORK. It is softened and melted by the plastisol. Thinned D2T epoxy is the best sealer I've found for pop molds.

I do that with my hand pour aluminum Fat Ika molds. Sometimes I do three colors. Just be sure the next color is hot, so it melts into the previous color and bonds. Use heat stabilizer, so you can reheat without burning your plastic.

Ben, How quickly do you have to clean your air brush after spraying, and does it require anything special in the way of cleaning?

I use Bait Junky's soft.

Soft plastic (plastisol) kicks over and becomes clear at 350 degrees, so that helps me remember what temp to set my toaster oven to for curing my lead heads.

From what I read online, that air brush is a single action brush, so you can only spray the air and the paint at the same time. A dual action brush has a dual action trigger that controls the air and the paint flow independently. If you put an inline air valve into the base of the brush, where the hose attaches, you can cut down the amount of air, but the paint flow can't be adjusted. It's pulled along by the air flow, so more air, more paint.

Fun video! Thanks for sharing.

Travis, What you said about switching from Elmer's glue to thinned D2T rang a bell for me. I did the same thing, years ago, and haven't had any more mold issues.

I don't think I can do that for my bait making. I'm not computer literate, and my rotten kids, who are, have left home! I just barely started keeping a kind of fishing log, on the week-at-a-glance planner I use as my calendar. I used one for forty years for my business, so it's easier for me to just add details about my day's fishing on it, and it's there for reference in the future. If I remember to do it.

I fill my second half of my two piece molds full of pop, , brush some pop onto the exposed masters, lay the first half face down onto the second half, squeeze out the excess pop, and then turn the two halves over, so the wet half is on top. Then I tap the wet half box with a rubber screwdriver handle to help the pop settle down around the masters, and to help any trapped air to rise up away from the masters. So far, I haven't had any problems, when I use small bar clamps, under just enough pressure to hold the halves together, while I pour or inject. Maybe it's because the meeting faces are mirror images of each other when I use this method.

If you had a wooden tip, would you even need to warm the injector more than just putting it into the hot plastic for a few seconds?

JR, My experience with pop is that it doesn't like to be dropped, no matter how thick. I actually line my plywood boxes with fiberglass drywall mesh tape, to give it some reinforcement. That way, I can get away with thinner molds with them being too fragile, but my boxes are the major reinforcement. I always coat the box with some sort of spray-on clear, so the water from the pop doesn't reach the box before the pop dries. I still haven't mastered laying my soft plastic masters onto the open face of the pop mold without having an irregular face when I'm done. I know the smart way is to glue the masters to a flat surface, glue my 1X frame around them with hot glue, and then fill the frame up with pop. Once it's full it's a matter of laying in the mesh, and then pushing the plywood back down onto the wet pop, forcing the excess out of the sides, and then attaching the plywood. But that is a method I haven't tried, yet.

Maybe I have more trouble drying my pop molds because I always make shallow plywood boxed for them, so they are more protected from my clumsiness.

When I made my first pop molds, I had that problem. For me, it was because I wasn't waiting long enough for the pop to truly dry before I sealed it. I was in a hurry. Surprise, surprise! As Dave said, moisture that is still in the pop before sealing is trapped by the sealer, so it's important to make sure the pop is really dry before sealing. This is the first time the automatic translation to pop has helped me, since I type for crap.

What price do you put on sanity? Lure making keeps me sane, or, at least, from getting any crazier!

Dieter, I admit it, I never got in the habit of taking notes, so putting details down when I'm posting a photo here is my notebook. A while back, I made several versions of the same crankbait, but with different ballast positions, when I was trying to make a hunting crankbait by using movable ballast. Thank goodness I took pictures and posted them, or I could never remember what I did that worked.

Correction. That's for 1 cup of plastic, not 1/2, and 1/4 cup blast media, a large tablespoon of salt (for flavor) and the tablespoon of the HD additive. I also use a little heat stabilizer, so I can reheat to 325+- as I go, without scorching.

I just posted two pics in the Soft Baits gallery. Let the games begin! Hahaha Monte, I'm trying your recipe next.

I don't shoot hula grubs, but I do shoot fat Ikas, and I use 1 part blast media sand, 1/4 part kosher salt, and 1 tblspoon of the Do-It (Caney Creek) HD sinking additive http://store.do-itmolds.com/HD-Sinking-Additive_p_307.html to add flexibility, to 1/2 cup of plastic. I don't salt my skirts, because I want them to float up on the pause, or as they are dragged/pulled along the bottom.