mark poulson

Have you tried soaking all the parts, including the assembly that's at the bottom of the brush, where the air hose connects, in acetone? Every once in a while, I break down my brushes completely, and do that. Then I reassemble them and do a backwash with acetone, and then with air brush cleaner, to get the system purged of the acetone and ready to paint. All my cleaning and backflushing between coats eventually forces dirty water back into the brush, and it needs to be thoroughly cleaned every once in a while.

Looks like you nailed it. Congrats.

You're right, Bob. They are very "proud" of their painted weights, and not shy about charging for them. I used to break off texas rigged worms, but now I go back and shake them free.

Dieter, Thanks for the props. I would be afraid that the wood hardener would penetrate so much it might affect the buoyancy of a balsa bait, and that would defeat the characteristic that makes balsa so unique. Plus,I don't think it's that hard. It only reinforces the cell structure of what ever wood you put it on. So here's what I do for balsa baits. For balsa baits, which I only repaint, and do not make from scratch, after I've sanded them down to raw wood, I put two coats of the runny crazy glue on them, letting them dry between coats. It penetrates, dries fast and really hard, and is strong. I don't think it would be practical for a production run, and propionate is probably the way to go for that. But for a one or two lure repaint, it works really well. Is it time to fish in Germany yet? Those big pike should be coming shallow soon. Throw that perch swimbait, and hang on. Mark

I use a sharpie. It only holds up for a little while, and then I have to touch it up. I'm just trying to kill the shiny silver, not match the hatch. Vinyl paint is soft, and I think it might kill the sensitivity that sets tungsten apart from lead. I might try nail polish, which dries hard.

Amen!

Chris, I have never poured resin, but I've read a ton about it here. Try using the search feature to find some of the threads that have already discussed this at length. Also, go to the websites of the different resin manufs., and check out their step by step instructional videos. If I didn't enjoy carving so much, I'd be pouring, for sure. Good luck.

Looks great!

When I want to do a transparent finish on a plastic lure, I scrape as much of the old paint off as I can with the back of an exacto knife blade, because its faster, and then wet sand to get the rest of the paint off. Then I dip the lure into clean acetone, to remelt the plastic and get rid of any scratches. A quick dip only. Then I paint right over the plastic, with no primer. Both Createx and Wildlife Colors stick just fine to the cleaned plastic.

I would suggest you keep the ballast out of the tail section, and as much toward the head as possible. Otherwise, on a slow retrieve, the lure swims in a head up position. You want the tail to be as buoyant as possible, so it swims horizontal.

When I made wood baits, I found pine best for larger one piece top water baits, and poplar best for jointed swimbaits. I sealed them with Minwax Wood Hardener before I water tested them by soaking them for a minute, and then letting them dry for at least 24 hours.

Congratulations to both of you. You deserve that kind of exposure, and recognition. And props to you, Snax, for getting John involved. Karma.

Clamboni, The dust collector system I built has two 1000cfm fans mounted on the exterior wall of my garage, and a home made cyclone filter system, so I can run m wood working machines and not breath the dust. I built it so the majority of the dust falls into a full sized plastic trash barrel, and the reallly fine stuff is caught by one of those spun plastic green washable filters. I get just a hint of dust below the fans on the outside, but nothing worth worrying about, and the system moves a lot of air. So I'm pretty sure, if I build a three sided spray booth, with filter either on both sides, or on the bottom, it will handle the water based paint. A filter on the bottom makes more sense, now that I think about it, because it wouldn't get hit directy by overspray, and would probably last much longer. Thanks for the idea.

Copy a store bought lure that runs the way you want it to when you troll it. And "T" your hooks, by bending two of them out until they face the opposite way and are flat, and you'll cut way down on hook rash. You have to find a brand of hook you can bend without breaking, or losing strength. I've had really good luck with Owner stinger hooks, which are welded so that one of the hooks is in line with the hook eye, so benging the other two hooks out makes for a treble with a flat side that automatically rides agains the belly.

What you want is a fan that doesn't generate sparks when it operates. Those fans with motors that have the same kind of brushes that power tools have won't work. You can see the electrical arcs when they are running where the brushes ride on the rotor. I don't know the name of that type of motor, but it's not what you want for a spray booth. I used some used kitchen exhaust fans I got off a job when I made my dust collector for my garage. Kitchen exhaust hoods have fans that are enclosed, so they can't start a fire. I'm thinking about modifying one of the runs of my dust collector to make a spray booth. I have been a little more cavalier about my spraying up to this point. I wear a dust mask, and spray toward the open overhead garage door opening. I'm lucky that it's usually warm enough to work with the door open. But now I'm intrigued with the idea of making a spray booth that's attached to the dust collector. I only spray waterborne paints, so fumes won't be an issue, just dust particles. It would be nice not to have to worry about overspray, and dust.

I use both the gap filling crazy glue and D2T for installing hardware. I've never glued two halves together, but I'd imagine D2T would work for that, too. It's super strong, and totally waterproof. If I were going to try laminating, I'd cut some small blocks and experiment with both of those glues. If they didn't work, I'd try gorilla glue, and some of the PVC glues that are available. I would also PM JR Hopkins, who has laminating PVC down to a science.

If it turns out handling the lure is the problem, buy some disposable latex gloves at your local drug store.

What about Bondo?

If you can, do your sanding in front of it, too, with a dust mask on. I'm a 62 year old carpenter, who didn't wear anything but a handkerchef for a dust mask when I was young, because we didn't have dust masks back then. Now, if I do any sanding at all, I wear a mask. Otherwise, my sinuses are so sensitive to the dust that I'm up all night with a bad runny nose and sneezing. Too much dust over too many years.

That's right. It will dry crystal clear.

Try this: http://www.luremaking.com/catalogue/catalogue-index/catalogue-items/eye_screws.htm http://lurepartsonline.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=1439

I think bassinhomer's right. Most fishermen want to fish, not manuf. baits. There are always people, like me, who make "boutique" baits that are variations of someone else's design (read Scott Whitmer's Triple Trout here) that are imitations, not copies, and who will make use of a tried and true design concept to make their own version. When I first started making swimbaits and was concerned about making an imitation, Bill Siemental told me not to worry about using someone else's ideas, because all swimbaits were knockoffs/versions of some original lure from the '60s. He has been in the swimbait/lure designing game for thirty+ years, and has been involved with many of the most sucessful swimbaits out there, including the BBZ line that Spro makes. I am a much better lure maker than lure designer, although I have come up with my own designs and ideas. And, at least for me, the making, and the catching, is the fun part. Selling is incidental. And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Share whatever you're comfortable with sharing.

My experience with vinyl paint is that it reacts with soft plastics, so it's no good for jigs and blades.

I made a two part mold by making a wooden box out of 1X2 pine and 1/4" masonite top and bottom, and then cutting it in half, and adding a pair of hinges to one long side. I mixed the POP until it was like loose pancake batter, poured it into one half and smoothed it. I "buttered" the masters that I was using for the mold with some of the POP, using a soft brush, to make sure it filled all the cracks and crevices in the master, and pushed them down into the POP until they were half buried. I used the same brush to even out the POP that had been pushed out of the way by the master, and removed some excess. Then I used the brush to smooth the POP as much as I could. I let it sit for a day. Then I brushed some pam onto the POP face around the masters, and let that "dry". After it had soaked into the POP, and lost it's wet look, I closed the mold halves together, and removed the top fact of the box, which was held on with screws. That exposed the bottom half, with the masters and POP. I again buttered the masters with POP, and slowly filled the open face of the mold with POP until it was even with the top of the mold. I reattached the top, and used a vibrator to try and get any air bubbles that remained to rise up away from the masters. After another day, I opened the mold, and took out the masters. I put the opened mold into the oven on warm, which is about 170 degrees, and left the door open a bit. I left it in the oven for about an hour, turning it end for end half way through. After it was cool, I painted the insides of the chambers that the masters had created with a 50/50 mix of white glue and water. When that dried, I put on another coat, and let it dry overnight. I used a dremel with a wood rasp bit to open sprue holes in the tops of the chambers, made sure my vent holes were clear, clamped the mold closed, and poured. It worked fine. A couple of things I did might help you. I put drywall screws through the sides of the mold to act as attachment points, so the POP wouldn't fall out after it had dried and shrank. And I used mesh drywall tape to reinforce the POP by laying strips into the mold before I filled it, to give the POP a little more strength. Once I'd figured out, through trial and error, how to make molds, it only took me two hours to make another, leaving out drying time.

Frank, That's a really clever jig. If I did lures with a hand saw, I'd copy your idea in a heartbeat! I do lures in batches of 10 or 12, so I use power tools as much as possible. Every once in a while, I forget to cut the joints before I cut out the profile on the band saw. When I do that, I crazy glue the cutoffs back onto the lure body, and I can still cut the joints on the table saw.