mark poulson

CLM, Not all motors are "dimmable", and not all dimmers work as motor speed controls. That may be the problem you're having. I know I've run into this on jobsites, but you'd have to talk to an electrician, or a motor supplier, to find out exactly why, and which motors/dimmers work. Mark

A good rule of thumb for what kind of casting material to use is something someone here posted earlier. Sorry, I don't remember who, but it's a great tip. Soft master/hard casting material, like POP. Hard master/soft casting material, like RTV.

Are those quantites for a gallon of water?

Great idea for the gold foil effect. I'm going to try that. After all, you were right on about the Venture Foil, so how far wrong can I go?

I am not a good painter, so, to add fine details, I use solvent based Sharpies. Then I shoot a coat of Createx clear over that, and heat set it, and dip in my final clear coat. I've tried stencils, but I've found the Sharpies are easier for me to control.

One thing to remember when machining wood is that the faster the cutter speed, the faster it will scorch/ burn with a dull cutter. Sharp cutters are vital, and much safer.

If you use a screw eye/hinge pin method, you can adjust the screw eyes in or out to fine tune your lure's swimming action.

I wet sand with 400 grit, mostly to break the initial strong surface of the factory clear coat, and to remove whatever that can remove. But I sand lightly. I don't want to get into the actual plastic body. Then I scrape the majority of the old paint off with the back of an exacto knife. I use the point of the knife to pick out paint from any details that might have some left. Then I dip the lure quickly in clean acetone, once or twice, until it's clean and smooth. Most clear crank bodies are made with a hard plastic whose surface can be "remelted" with acetone, to get rid of small scratches and imperfections. I dip quickly, so I'm not soaking the lure and risking damaging it. I am just trying to get a clean, clear surface. I can just paint my waterbased paints, like Createx and Wildlife Colors, right onto the acetone cleaned surface, without primer. It works well for me.

Thanks Jim. I'll do that. I was looking forward to using garlic PAM to add scent at the same time, but my local markets, both Vons and Ralphs, stopped carrying it. Drat! I had also thought about freezing the lizards, but getting them flat and in position first is the hardest part, plus the fact that the legs attach pretty high up on the body. If they were frozen solid, then I could add some modeling clay to fill any voids before I put them in the POP. But, assuming I can had pour this open lizard mold, I won't have to worry about making one out of POP. Mark

Jim, How did you keep the legs straight, or in line, when you put the masters into the POP? I've tried it with lizards, and they came out a mess. I was thinking I might have to glue them to a flat surface, and pour around them. And, while I've got your ear, do I need to use a release agent, like PAM, with an RTV mold? I just got a two cavity lizard mold from Lurecraft, and I am anxious to try to pour some, but I don't want to ruin it right out of the gate. Thanks in advance, Mark

I find that using a darker base coat, and lighter scaling colors, gives the most contrast. It's what I use for my black crappie and bluegill patterns. For trout, I typically use a pearl white belly and lower sides, pearl silver upper sides and back, and then scale with my green sides and shoulders, and my pink side strip, if I use one. Trout have such fine scales that it is really subtle, so that's why I don't try for as much contrast. I'd suggest you play around on a test sheet, and see which method and color combination works for your tastes.

Slightly off topic, but a plastic question. My neighbor works with plastics in aerospace. He saw me pouring on my driveway, and asked me what kind of plastic it was, a polyurethane or a silicone. I told him I had no idea. It was Del's LoDuro Poly. I'm guessing the Poly stands for polyurethane, but it's just a guess. Can you guys help me?

+1

Pete, When the subject of plywood pulley wheels came up, I immediately thought of your curve sanding discs. They would make great pulleys, too. The groove could be V'd with a wood rasp, or a router. Dave, Your formula for ratios is what I was scratching my brain, trying to remember. I was going the 2piR route, and the smoke was starting to come out of my ears. CedarLakeMusky, You could mount the motor to a plywood base, and then adjust the tension of the belt by moving the motor away from your drying wheel until it feels semi-tight. Then screw it in place on your work bench. I wouldn't make the tension too tight, or you might overload the bearings on the motor.

Jim, Thanks for the kind words. I've started using diluted D2T to coat my POP molds, and it works much better than carpenter's glue. I got the idea here. I mix the two parts of the D2T really well first, and then add denatured alcohol, in a 1/1 ratio, and mix it really well, too. The mixture is thin, and is absorbed into the POP without losing any of the details. Two coat, one right after the other, works for me. I still spray both halves with Pam before I pour, but the epoxy is so hard I probably don't have to. I just made a senko mold, and found out I'd made the vents too big when the plastic from my Cabela's Cajun Injector went out of the bottom almost as fast as I put it in the top! I would up with a bunch of hollow worms, with big air bubbles on the insides. I used bondo to fill in the oversized vents, and I'll pour another batch today to see how it works with the smaller vents I cut in the bondo.

Before you take a chance on ruining your mold, why not make a single cavity POP mold and try it with that first? Or just use a Don Iovino worm welder to melt some lumps onto your senkos after they're poured.

Amen!!!! The hair dryer is your friend. A paint job never failed because it was too dry.

Maybe you could reduce the speed with a pulley system, so the motor has a very small pulley, and the dryer wheel has a large one. That way, it would take many motor revolutions to turn the dryer wheel once.

It's a drag when small stuff like kids and jobs get in the way of important things, like lure making and fishing.

You can eliminate finger oil fish eyes by wearing throw away latex gloves from CVS, or any drug store. I always have a small tupperware (sandwich meat container) with clean DN in it (a small amount) next to me whenever I'm doing epoxy. I can use the DN to thin the epoxy, if need be, or just to clean the brush as soon as I'm done with one batch. The gloves get cleaned when I clean the brush, and I can reuse a pair, as long as it's the same side out, several times. I use the same gloves for painting.

If you're wanting a cheaper setup to start with, Badger has siphon airbrushes that are less expensive. If I were you, I'd save up and get a better brush to begin with, because it makes learning to paint so much easier.

Wow! Talk about a cool piece of equipment. Does your Mom know what you do up in your room? Seriously, that's terrific. A question from a carpenter who is computer/CAD illiterate. Could you space out the blanks a little, and use a round over bit first to do some of the edge forming, before you use the straight bit to cut them out? Is there some way you could register the blank stock, like cutting it to exactly the same size and shape first, so you could cut 1/2 depth from both sides, and eliminate the straight cutter altogether? Or leave just a thin mid section to hold everything in position before you cut the blanks loose with the straight cutter? I'm just riffing here, I have no clue what you can do with that machine. But it does set the imagination on fire!

BB, Your lure looks great, and I like your scaling method. Kris, You can get various stretchy scale materials by checking out the plastic mesh bags that produce is sold in at the big markets. I've used the fine mesh that holds garlic cloves, the mesh from both avacados and tangerines, and also a lufa. The scale pattern on the lure you posted looks like a tangerine bag was used. With stretchy materials, you can vary the scale sizes from front to back by how much you stretch the material. My basic mesh is a piece of tulle cloth that I bought by the yard at a fabric store. The material is stiff, until it's gotten a coat of Createx heat set on it. Then it's a little more flexible. I scale paint the lures one side at a time, by suspending them in front of a leaning sheet of plywood with dense foam attached to it, and then draping the cloth down over the lure, and pinning it tight to the lure with push pins that go into the foam backing. The two sided book that Nova and Brad use makes scaling both sides at the same time easy, so you don't have to change paints as much. I'm just used to mine. To get additional effects, I layer different size and patterned scale materials. Look at the black crappie in my gallery. It's regular tulle scale with green avacado netting over it. I hope this helps. Good luck.

If I had an original lure design that worked for me, I sure wouldn't send it overseas to be produced, or it would be knocked off in nothing flat. I don't have the money to give a maker enough volumne that he would think twice about ripping off my design. Copyright infringement, and patents, mean nothing overseas unless you have the money to enforce them. If you're serious, I would suggest you investigate a local manuf. who might be able to help you, and with whom you could stand a reasonable chance of protecting your design. At least in the U.S. there are laws against ripoffs. I think most small makers who want to go big wind up selling their designs to a big company, and get a royalty. I'm thinking specifically of Bill Siemantel, and his BBZ 1. I think he sold it to Spro, but I know he is still involved with the further designs and development. He has a website, http://www.thebbz.com/. You can go on there and ask him yourself. He is a very approachable and down to earth guy.