mark poulson

That was super duper! Hahaha Seriously, I wonder how it will hold up to hot plastisol.

Isn't there something you can spray your empty pot with to keep it from rusting when it's sitting for a while?

Ray, Just cook up 1/2 cup of plastic and play around until you get a color you like. Close counts. There are no two crawdads or minnows in real life that are alike, or that match the GYBC bait colors.

I'm sure you could make a hard bait body, with hooks, and attach a center wire hitch hiker, like the one's Owner makes, to it for attaching a soft plastic tail. I do that to attach plastic worms as tails for my hard body rats.

It works really well. I put a thin film of unwatered silicone directly onto my master first, to be sure it's in all of the detail fully. I wait 24 hours to remove the master. The watered silcone adjacent to the master would probably help the unwatered stuff to set faster, but I don't want to take a chance.

Cadman, For us hobby makers, is there any difference in performance if you just leave the weed guard out, and fish the jig with a hole in it?

The architecture of the wings is incredible. The vein patterns, the colors. Do you think wings developed from hairs on the back?

What is a sprue saver?

On the subject of color, we all know that bass living deep develop a lighter color, and it takes them a while to get darker when they come up shallow. We all know that nature does stuff for a reason. I'm sure this is an adaptation to the lower light penetration at depth. It must help them be harder to see. So I wonder if their eyes adjust, too, to make them more successful hunters in low light. To me, that would be just as helpful as the loss of pigment in their skins. If their vision does adapt, maybe they are much more sensitive to red when they first move shallow, before their eyes readjust to the shallow water light penetration, and that's why it's such a good late winter/early spring color.

Dave, How long did it take you to train that dragonfly (damselfly) to hold that pose? Sorry, couldn't resist. That is a beautiful photo! It's amazing how colorful nature really is!

Use a digital thermometer to be sure you get your plastisol up to 350 degrees on the first heating, so it converts to it's clear stage. If you don't, it will never "set", and will always feel sticky/gooey.

U Da Man!!!

John, I made a thin, long spybait out of PVC, and was worried about it's strength, especially because I add my 1/4" lead wire ballast by drilling holes up from the belly. The bait was 1/2" thick, so there was only 1/8" of material on each side of my 1/4" ballast holes, which ran up about half way from the belly. I used 7/8" .072 screw eyes for the line tie and rear hook hanger/prop shaft, and a Spro swivel for the belly hanger, and they held up fine. Since wood has grain, if you orient the grain to run the length of the lure, it should be fine. I find that wood has more strength than PVC in a bending application, and is more flexible, because of it's cellular grain structure. I caught several stripers to 5lbs on that spybait, and it held fine, although the #8 trebles did bend out some. Here's a picture: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/gallery/image/13886-20141217-070125-resized/

I do dip the lips, and they do come out clear.

Having a flat face on the bottom gives the bait a slower, more erratic fall, to attract attention. I don't know of any molds that offer that feature, but it does work.

I buy mine here? http://www.barlowstackle.com/Plug-Screws-Cup-Washers-LipsbrHook-Hangers-and-Connector-Links-C120.aspx

Stop playing with frogs!

I only use water based air brush paints, so this is from that perspective. I find that the only wrinkling I've experienced was with Wicked White, as both a base coat and in a bone color mix. I think it may have something to do with the fact that Wicked White has some solvent in it, and it is also very heavily pigmented. If I put it on too thick, I think it skins over too quickly and traps some of it's own solvent, so it's never really set. I don't have that problem with regular water based air brush colors. If you're using water based paints, thin coats and heat drying each coat is really important. A thick coat will be soft, and the AC1315 can soak into it before it's solvents flash off. I haven't tried using it on solvent based paints, so, if that's what you use, that may be a problem. I would try shooting a clear coat of transparent Createx over it first, to act as a barrier, so the solvent can't penetrate before it flashes off. Do some tests on scrap to figure out what works for your painting process.

Try creating the scales once the foil has been applied. That way, you can make any cuts you need to in order to follow the curves, and burnish it to meld the seams, without destroying the scales.

I had silver leaf (real silver) applied on a job by a painter, years ago. I remember he applied something to the surface first, and then used a really soft brush to apply the silver leaf. Maybe this will help: http://www.wikihow.com/Apply-Gold-Leaf

X2!!

For me, the nice part about using the premade belly weight/hook hangers is I can install them crossways, so the trebles don't scratch the belly nearly as much.

Has anyone come up with a modification of an existing arkie jig mold that uses a shorter hook, with a figure 8 sst open eye wire attached for the line tie?

I use a hook with a deeper bite to put more of a keel on my soft frogs, so they turn belly down when they land. It's a fine line between a hook that's heavy enough to right the bait and still let's me retrieve it relatively slowly. I use a hook with no weight on it's belly. I like the Owner Beast hook with the screw lock keeper.