mark poulson

Thanks for the heads up Sonny. Hardness is one of the best features of PVC, so I can see that using a spackle-like matl. would cancel that out. I'll stick with the poly acrylic for now. Dipping seems to put on a pretty thick coat, so dipping two or three times should give me enough coverage to achieve a smoother, not perfectly smooth, surface for painting. I'm not looking for perfection, just something that works. I'll let you know how it works out.

longhorn, I went back to Lurecraft, and this time I actually read the choices on the left, instead of just using the search feature. Doh!!! Anyway, I found the paint for soft plastics, and read the choices. I think the paints are probably acetone-based, and that's why they dry up so fast. You have to make sure the cap's screwed on tight, like dip and dye. Anyway, as soon as my unpainted swimbaits get here, and I can see what the actual soft plastic tail's color is, I'll order some of the paint. Or I may just try sharpies, like I use to color the Triple Trout soft plastic tails. Thanks for the info., and the website. Mark

Huginn, Thanks for the knock on the head. I should read more thoroughly. Is that the same kind of stuff as Famowood, which I also have plenty of onhand? Dave, Both board look alike on the finished face and the back. The end grain on the white board does look and feel coarser. If I can't make the blanks smooth enough easily, I'll go back to the beige, and just put another coat of primer on to get the coverage. That's what I get for being greedy, and thinking I could outsmart Murphy's Law. Things just don't seem to work out the way we plan. Maybe it's just fate, that we're doomed to work harder than we want to, no matter what. Can't catch a break. I guess the other Murphy, Eddie, had it right when he said, "If sh*t was worth something, poor people would be born with no a$$holes."

Jacob, I double dipped the batch of gliders that I had already primed in Minwax Polyacrylic, which is what I used to use as a wood sealer. It seems to have filled a lot of the voids. I'll find out today. Huginn, I like the glue idea. I have it by the gallon, so I'll try that. Thanks for the idea. Dave, I was totally surprised bythe difference in the texture from beige to white. The stuff I got is too coarse/pitted to even paint without some kind of a filler. If I can use Huginn's idea, and just coat them with yellow glue first, or dip them in the Minwax, then it's no big deal. Otherwise, balsa butcher, Sorry to drag you down with the rest of us.

68KingFisher, I'm on myway out the door right now. It opens at 6:00.

I had used the biege 1"X 5 1/2" decking for my lures, but found out it was also available in white. Since I prime my lures white, I thought this would help to make coverage easier, so I ordered a piece of the 1"X 5 1/2" decking in white. They are not the same, at least in terms of texture. I had been able to sand the beige to a smooth finish, but the white has a much coarser texture, and does not sand out smooth. I found this out when I primed a batch of 5" gliders, that I had made out of the new stuff as test pieces. While the matl. actually sanded and machined a little easier than the biege stuff, it was still strong, when I did a pull test with a screw eye. I primed them, and saw that all the little nooks and crannies, to steal from the English muffin commercial, came right through instead of filling, even with several coats of primer. I'm probably going to dip them in Minwax Polyacrylic, to see if that fills the holes and lets me get a smoother surface. Otherwise, I'll have paint one up and see if the crappy surface shows through in the finish, or use bondo on the whole surface, which is a royal pain. Fortunately, I'm glad I have these smaller gliders to use to solve the problem. I have already cut out 12 jointed swimbaits from it so far, but I hane not gotten into the shaping and finishing yet, so I still have time to play around and solve this problem. I remembered that someone here said they were able to heat burnish their PVC, so I tried that, but it didn't work. Drat! If anyone has encountered this problem, and solved it, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm looking for a source for paint for the soft plastic tails that come on some hard body swimbaits. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Mark

Shane, I couldn't find it on either lurecraft or netcraft. Any other ideas?

I actually looked at the primer, and, since I had wet sanded it with 400 grit paper before I fished them, they actually have a gloss. And being wet accentuates the gloss. But you bring up an interesting point. A friend, who builds lures, uses a flat top coat for just that reason. He keeps saying that fish aren't naturally glossy. But, in the water, his lures are shiny, too. So who knows? I guess it's "whatever works".

Dieter, It stinks that you lost your test pond. Maybe you could contact the owner, explain that you test with no hooks, or hooks bent over for weighting and action only, and see if he'll let you use it. That way, you could be his security guard! There are lots of public golf courses with ponds that hold big bass. But you can't get permission to fish them. Only the employees do. I know a few who have stocked their courses ponds, and catch big fish all the time. It is fun to know there are big bass ten minutes from my house. I'm already scheming and planning a trip for tomorrow morning! Mark

Shane, Thanks for the links. I'll check out what they have today. Mark

John and Jacob, It was fun. Actually, I was shocked that there was a bass that big left in the pond, after I'd heard the big ones had been removed. As I was leaving, I stopped to talk to a park employee who was dipping some of the snot grass algae out of the shallows, and he told me he'd caught a 21" bass out of there. He said he was there when they shocked the lake to do a fish count and test the fish for mercury. When they started to remove the biggest bass, he made them put them back, and only take the carp, which were really prolific and out competing the catfish for food. So, I guess that shows you don't know what you don't know. There are still big bass there. He said the bass chase the bluegill first thing every morning, so I may have to take a morning trip up there with a walking bait, a bluegill surface swimbait, and a frog. And my license, of course.

I made four more 5" surface gliders, like the ones I just posted in the gallery, and wanted to test how they walked before I painted them. I primed them flat white, put on hooks (a feather tail hook), and went up to the local pond, which is in a man made park in the middle of an old oil field. I know they stock trout there, strictly put and take, and I was told that DFG shocked the pond and removed a dozen really big bass that were eating the trout. So I just go up there to test lures, not to fish. Well, this afternoon, around 4:00, I was up there, testing each of the lures. I was walking the last one back, over a shelf and up onto the shallows, when I got pulled down bigtime. A kabloosh, and then I felt weight. I swung, and I was on. Thank goodness I had a heavy frog rod, rigged with 50lb braid and a 17lb mono leader, because the pond is full of debris and weeds. I finally got her to shore, and she had the lure sideways in her mouth, with both trebles stuck in the sides. A 5 lb fatty! No camera, but there were a few regulars there who enjoyed the fight almost as much as I did. They were cheering me on. I had my fishing license in my pocket, like I always do, but I never thought I'd need it there. Just shows you never know what will happen when you go fishing.

John, That's a really clever tool, and system.

Green with a little red gives you a brownish green. There's a paint mixing thread on the hard baits forum with a video that explains how you can get brown by mixing any secondary color, like green (blue and yellow) with it's primary opposite (red) to get brown. Think of the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, as the corners on a triangle. It helps if you draw a triangle on a piece of paper, and label the corners red, yellow, and blue. The secondary colors, green, purple, and orange, are half way between the two primary colors that make them. Mark them on the triangle, too, half way between the primary colors that make them. The primary color that's opposite that secondary color on the triangle is what you add to get brown. Depending on the kind of brown you want, you can add yellow to purple, or blue to orange, and get the same thing, but slightly different shades and tones. I just use my fingers to make a triangle, and figure it out. I'm a carpenter, not a painter, so I never remember from one batch to the next. I use avacado green and red to get my green pumpkin, but that's in airbrush paints. I haven't tried it yet with my powder paints, but the next batch of jigheads I dip I will.

That should work if you brush out the tail before you thread it on the hook backwards. To me it looks like he leaves plenty of cord unbrushed, and that's the part that's threaded on and tied. So.....where did you find the material?

I just ordered the three unpainted swimbait set, to play with. Thanks.