mark poulson

What kind of wood or material have you been making your lures out of? As for air brush kits, there are a lot of websites that sell air brushes and all the accessories. Here's on, but I'm not endorsing it over any others. It's just one that has a lot of stuff, and will give you an overview of what's available. http://www.coastairbrush.com/categories.asp?cat=10 A good quality air brush will make your learning process less painful. It is still a trial and error deal, but I found the Iwata brushes the most trouble free, and the easiest to paint with, clean, and service. A .035 needle is fine enough to do good painting and still not require too much thinning or fooling around with the paints to begin with. I wouldn't go any finer until you've really learned how to paint, and are looking for something specific, like a fine detail brush. Like BobP said (a great source for crank info) stencils are your friend, too. I'm so bad at details that I use sharpies to draw the lines that other guys paint easily. I hate to sound like a broken record, but there are a ton of air brush threads here that you can access with the search feature. The more you read, the more familiar the terms and concepts will become, and the easier it will be for you to retrace your steps and find answers to the questions you are going to have when you start painting. Be prepared to struggle at first. Most of us did, and still do sometimes. Unless you're an artist, like some here, the learning curve can be long and seemingly flat, and then, all of a sudden, you'll find you can paint! All it takes is practice, practice, practice. Kind of like time on the water. Good luck, and let us see your stuff in progress.

I use a sheet of plywood that's leaned up against my shop wall, lying on the 8' side, for my painting and scaling "easel". I'm a carpenter, so I have lots of plywood lying around in my garage, when I paint. You could just buy a half sheet, 4'X4', and use it. I recomment 3/4" plywood, because it is heavy enough to lean from it's own weight, so you won't have to worry abot it falling over. You could make do with a 30"X30" piece, screwed to something solid at a comfortable height for you to work, or even use that piece of plywood on a real artist's easel. I just use what I have. I duct taped a24"X24" piece of closed cell foam onto the plywood. I have a 24"X24" section of tulle scaling cloth that I bought from a fabric store attached to the top by duct tape, directly over the foam, so I can drape it down over the foam. I put a series of 3" screws down the sides of the foam, to hang the lures from. When I want to paint a scale pattern, I suspend the lure between two screws, one on each side, with opened paper clips in each end of the lure, and a strong rubber band attached to one clip. I hook one clip on one screw, attach the lure to that clip, attach the clip with the rubber band to the other end of the lure, and stretch the rubber band until the lure is suspended between the two screws. If the lure is long, I pass the rubber band over one screw, and pull it down to another to get the tension I need. I make sure the lure is tight to the face of the foam. Then I drape the scale cloth down over the lure, and use plastic handled push pins to force the cloth down tight around the lure. I can paint one side at a time this way. I spray on the scale paint in light coats, and heat dry each coat well before I put on another. Once I'm done with my scale pattern, I remove the push pins, and carefully and slowly peel the cloth off the lure, starting at the bottom and moving up. I drape the cloth back over the back of the plywood, so it's out of the way, and hit the lure again with the hair dryer on high, to be sure the scaling is really dry and set before I reverse the lure on the hangers, and repeat the scaling on the other side. This let's me scale each side of my swimbaits easily. Typically, the backs of my baits don't need scaling, but I can rotate the lures so the back is facing away from the foam, and scale the back, too if I want to. I do smaller cranks this way too. Hope this helps.

504BASMASTER, First of all, thank you for all you've done for all of us. It is appreciated, and recognized for the sacrifice it is. Second, I would recommend you google lure making videos. That's a good way to see what's out there, in commercial terms. The search feature on this site will lead to hours of reading and resources. It would help us to know what kind of lures you want to make. Cranks, topwaters, swimbaits, the list goes on and on, and each has it's own quirks, which we would be happy to try and help you with. We've probably made most of the mistakes that can be made already, and I'm sure all of us would look forward to a chance to repay, in some small part, your service to us with our help.

I just ordered a quart of the green super soft. I figure it's worth the money to try it, and I think the phthalate is in the softner, from what I've read online, so buying the super soft green should help me avoid it. I can always add weight to get it to sink.

Thanks Jim. I'll check them out. Have you used the M-F sinking plastics? Is it soft, or do you have to add softner? I like to pour clear Ikas, and not having to add salt would keep them clearer, and, hopefully, softer. For me, the key to a good hookup ratio is very soft plastic.

I do the same with my hair dryer, after the urethane has stopped dripping and skinned over. But I break any bubbles with an artist's brush, dipped in the urethane, because the hair dryer seems to move the finish around when it's fresh. I think the heat accelerates the cure, and makes it hard faster.

Jim, I'm into my last gallon of Del's LoDuro, and would like to look at what else is available. Two questions. First (and don't laugh), what does M-F stand for? Second, I remember reading that there was a new plastic that didn't have phalates in it. Do you have any info on that?

I found I made two critical errors. First, I used the last of the plastic in a gallon jug, and evidently I had not shaken the gallon enough while I was using it, so the stuff at the bottom was really thick, and yellowed easily. That stuff went into the round file. Second, I was heating it too high. I used 4 oz. of plastic from a new gallon, well shaken, 1 1/2 oz of softner (I like my Ika bodies soft), and a pinch of heat stabilizer, and only heated it to 350 degrees. The baits came out great. Thanks for all the help.

That's scary good!

Thanks to all for the help. I'll try smaller batches and less heat.

I have only been pouring a short time, so, if this is a dumb question, please don't be too hard on me. I have been pouring flick shake worms and Ikas, typically using salt and softner in equal amounts, and heating my plastic to 360+- in the micro. I hand pour and inject. I decided to pour some Ika bodies with no salt. I heated 5oz of plastic to 360, stirring it several times during the heating, and the plastic had a slight yellowish tinge. Not the heavy brownish yellow from overheating (yes, I've done that), but enough so the Ika bodies aren't true clear. I stirred in my flake after heating the plastic, so as not to have it color the plastic. Am I doing something wrong? Did the salt I used every time before disguise the yellow?

I agree, the senko should be an easy hand pour because it is so thick.

Mixing Etex properly is really important. Mix the two parts thoroughly, but try to keep the air bubbles to a minimum. I use solo cups (from the salsa I get from my local Mexican restaurant) and a bare paper clip bent with a 90 degree tag end for my mixing, and a hair dryer to help bring any bubbles to the top so they will burst. I roll the epoxy around on the walls of the solo cup to get the bubbles to pop. Then I let it sit for ten minutes, to be sure all the bubbles are gone, and that both parts have truly blended into one. Be sure you get all the epoxy that's in the corners and hollows blended in well, or you'll have soft spots that won't set up. It isn't really that hard to mix it well. Just take your time and be thorough. I use the Flexcoat epoxy syringes to measure the two parts exactly. The tips of the syringes are tapered slightly, so you can drill a hole in the cap of each bottle, and push the syringe in so it's a tight fit. Then tip it over and load the syringe with as much as you need, and tip the bottle back upright before you take the syringe out. Make sure you don't wind up with air bubbles in the syringes, or it will throw the mix proportions off. I leave the syringes in the tops of the bottles, and the epoxy doesn't go bad. The syringes are cheap. Look at them here: http://www.fishingtackleunlimited.com/p/FTU/c-rod-building-accs/FC-S.html Wear latex disposable gloves, to keep the epoxy off your hands, and your hands off the lure. Finger print oil will make the epoxy pull away and fish eye. Mix only as much as you think you'll use. If you don't mix enough, it's easy with the syringes to mix up a little more, and it will blend into the first batch fine. Brush it on in thin coats with a soft brush. Too thick a coat will sag. Recoat after 12 hours, or whenever the epoxy has set. Three coats total. You can apply the second coat directly over the first, with no additional prep. It is meant to bond to itself. Be sure and soften any sharp edges. Epoxy has enough surface tension that it will pull away from a sharp edge. Have a small dish of denatured alcohol handy. Wipe off the excess epoxy from the brush on a paper towel when you're done, and then wash it in the alcohol several times until it's clean. That way you can use the same brush over and over again. Like RickJames said, turn it for at least 8 hours. I usually coat last thing, and turn all night. Then I put another coat on the next morning, and let it turn all day. I put the third coat on last thing that night, and it's ready to fish the next day. Of course, it does cure out harder over the next 24 hours, so waiting another day is always a good thing. Good luck. It is a great top coat.

Thanks. That's what I was looking for, although I was hoping someone here poured a head with more detail, and a trailer keeper on the back.

A fisherman lie? Surely, such a terrible thing has never taken place! Funny how, the older I get, the better drinking used to be.

Does anyone here make and sell full bodied spinner baits, like the Revenge deep runners? They have a body behind the skirt, so they have a small head, but are still heavier. I'd like to buy some, unpainted if possible, but I'd be interested in any that are available.

I think Pyrex cups probably suffer from "metal fatigue" after a while. All that heating and cooling, expansion and contraction, probably stresses the glass too much eventually. After my Wife had a Pyrex pan of potatoes au graten fall apart in her hands when she was taking it out of the over, I got worried and started asking other people if it had happened to them. It didn't exactly explode. It just turned into a thousand small pieces, and fell onto the top of the stove, leaving her holding little bits of glass in her oven mits. This was long before the internet, so I couldn't google it. Both my Mother and my Mother-in-law told me that Pyrex dishes break eventually. Who was I to argue with them?

Rofish, In the case of a rotisserie motor, I think the automatic reverse might be to protect the motor in case it's not loaded evenly. But that's just a guess. As for faster speed being better, you've made me take out my calculator. A 14" wheel, traveling at 1rpm, spins at 44" per minute. At the 7" diameter of the inner ring, it spins at 22" per minute. At either location, the lure turns over 360 degrees each revolution. By my actual experience, the only time there is sagging at those speeds is if the epoxy is put on in too thick a coat. I never vary from the 1/1 ratio by volume that the manuf. recommends when I'm coating a lure, and I measure it with syringes. I made my wheel big so I could turn many baits at once, so the thought of a center axis turner never crossed my mind. I think having the lure rotate at the center of the axis, suspended between the two points of rotation, would work. But it might have to be rotated at more than 1rpm, since the actual speed that the lure faces are traveling would be so slow. A lure that's 1 1/2" tall would only rotate at 1 3/4" per minute at it's tallest point, and the nose and tail, where it's attached, would be moving really slowly. I haven't tried that type of turner, so I can't really comment on how well it would work.

Husky said, "I'm heading back onto the roof for more chimney repairs so Good Luck and post some pics. TIA" Getting ready for Santa already, or making repairs from his last visit?

Rofish, I'm no math whiz, so I can't do Dave's math, either, but a 1 rpm motor and 14" wheels gives you a lot of room to maneuver. I've coated with D2T, Etex, and Nu Lustre 55 on it. I have one row of hangers out at 14", and another at 7", and the epoxy is the same on both of them. Plus, for whatever reason, my rotisserie motor reverses itself if I shut it off and restart it, so I do that every 15 minutes for the first hour. I'll bet the actual speed of the lure face as it turns that far out is probably not that much at either diameter. All this is assuming you don't overload the lures with too much epoxy at one time. Of course, it's too fast to fix problems while it's turning, but it's slow enough to inspect the epoxy for dry spots as it turns. As for how fast is too fast, I don't want to find out. Epoxy is a bear to clean off anything.

Predator Bass, a site sponsor, has a good selection.

That paint scheme sounds great. I am going to try Wildlife Irridescent Violet over that paint scheme, with the scale netting still in place. It gives a nice purplish glow without overpowering the underlying paint, and it's changes depending on the angle of the light.

The first one, by grunt muskie lures, looks almost identical to the BBZ 1.

Hmmm....so many decisions, so little time.

Maybe I'll have to buddy up with a dentist, and have him coat my lures!