mark poulson

Jeremy, The pleasure was mine, for sure. Did you photograph all those new punker paint jobs you had at the BAT? They were truely awesome. How's the yellow headed black bird doing on the Delta and up at Clear Lake? Mark P.S. I'm only Mr. Poulson in court. )

Typically, the solvents/liquids in sealer will penetrate, but the solids won't. I don't know, since Minwax doesn't need to be stirred, if the solids are in solution, or if there's some other magic chemical that would soak into the wood. If so, it would surely make balsa a lot stronger. But maybe at the cost of bouyancy. I use Minwax, too ( thanks Nathan), but I've never soaked my lures. I just dip, hand to dry, sand with 220, dip, sand again, and then prime. I also use Krylon primer (thanks again Nathan) as a primer/sealer. But then I seat my hook hangers and eye ties in epoxy, and epoxy the whole bait when I'm done. Having said that, when I used rattle cans for primer, paint, and clearcoat, I used to just hang the lures to dry after I used them, and then shoot another clearcoat onto them. I always thought water intrusion was a fact of life with wood baits, something you just learned to deal with. I didn't think you could make a wood bait water proof. It would be cool. Please report you findings. It's great to have a testing lab on the site. )

Yes, in my experience, you have to use some kind of a primer if you're painting metal. Which primer depends on what kind of paint you're using. I don't have any experience with painting metal lures, only metal on jobsites.

Do you guys shake your Createx before you use it?

It's the cheese fumes from those hats! )

Over size the hole, and epoxy the screweye into the lead. If you oval the hole a little at the max. depth by twisting the drill bit gently, it will make the hole bigger at the end than at the entry hole, and the epoxy will not pull out. The epoxy around the screw threads is at least as strong as any wood, so the screweye won't pull out.

Clamboni, Which wire do you use for you hinges, and what do you use to drill for the wire?

I'm with you Jason. Great cold weather/water crank. Tight wobble seems to be the ticket for lethargic SoCal bass.

And Happy Chanukah, from a Jewish carpenter.

Has anyone tried putting drops of epoxy onto self adhesive scale paper, and then cutting them out with an exacto knife? Seems like you could get just about any eye color and size you wanted. I'm going to try it the next time I clearcoat something, and have epoxy left over.

You could always use some protection.....bend the hooks over on a couple of sets of different size trebles, so you can test without risk.

Now that's a holiday visual, for sure! Hope you didn't set the hook too deep. When I was a kid, my neighbor's Mom was an ER nurse, and she used to tell us some really juicy stories about what came through the ER doors, but I never heard of fish hook decorations on a tree before!

Wow! I lust in my heart after your wife, or, more accurately, your test tank! )

On a semi-serious note, a sheet of plywood, or a 2'X8' rip, with 2X12 sides and ends, lined with plastic, would make a shallow test tank, cheap. If you have it outside, you can just put it together, paint it, and no plastic. As long as you make good cuts and screw the pieces together, it will hold water for testing, and, eventually, self drain. That might eliminate the problem of trying to drain it.

Are they oil based or water based?

What kind of paint do you use with the epoxy?

I'm kicking myself for all the kiddie pools I bought over the years. I could have just filled up my truck and let them swim in that!

BobP, Will adding a little water and shaking the heck out of it revive lumpy Createx?

Bob P., Can you recoat DTT without sanding? I use Envirotex Lite, and just wipe down with alcohol between coats. I'm too lazy to turn my lures by hand for half an hour, and I haven't made a drying wheel yer, so I hang my lures by the head after I coat them, and they drip dry/set/cure over a cardboard box. The finish is thinner at the head with this method. You post gave me the idea to hang them by the tail for the second coat, so the finish evens out. It will involve a little more eye tie cleaning, but the finish being thicker and more durable on the head should make up for any extra work. Thanks.

Oops. The 1/2" legs should be at 90 degrees to one another.

I just got an email with the perfect test tank. Big, cheap, and portable. A guy lined the bed of his pickup with a sheet of plastic, filled it with water and, voila! It's not too deep, but it's plenty big enough to test shallow stuff, and swimbaits. Plus it's portable. In this time of drought all over the country, you just drive it to the spot that needs water, and drop the tail gate. Of course, the picture I saw showed him floating in the tank in an inner tube with a cold Bud in his hand. I think the Bud may be the key to the effectiveness of the tank. I couldn't make out the brand of pickup, so I can't be sure that didn't have a bearing on tank performance, too.

If you want the control of doing it by hand, but some speed, just take an 8d finish nail, and put a 90 degree bend in each end, with the bent part being about 1/2", and facing opposite, like a flat Z. It makes running 1 1/2" screw eyes in or out a breeze.

Widowmaker, I tried those hook hangers, and they all broke shortly after I put them on. Maybe I got a bad batch. Have you had good luck with them?

Deepsessions, I'm surprised to hear that because of the conversation I had with Jeremy at the show. But that just shows everyone has a dog and pony show. It's the actual performance, in this case customer service or lack thereof, that tells the tale. Good to hear from someone who had actually dealt with them. Mark

Doug, Thanks for you words. He was a good kid, and it was a real waste of a talented person with lots of years left. Once upon a time, in a land called California, they used to sell solvent based contact cement only. Another carpenter and I were using contact cement to hang 4'x8' sheets of paneling in a large conference room in an office building. We'd fit a half a dozen sheets, take them down and roll the glue on both the back of the paneling and on the drywall wall, let it "dry" to the touch, and then set them in position. This was on a weekend, when the office building was totally empty, and way up on the 10th floor. We had been working for about an hour, when we both realized we were pie eyed. We had to go down the elevator and through security to get outside for some fresh air. We didn't realized that the office's AC had been shut off for the weekend, so all the fumes had no where to go. We managed to turn the AC on so we could keep working, and finished the job, but we both wound up with the worst head ache imaginable. Lesson learned. Proper ventilation and breathing protection is vital to your health.