mark poulson

I am just a hobby pourer, but I don't look for the cheapest stuff, I look for what works. It's like glue in furniture carpentry. A glue might be more expensive, but you use relatively little in the actual construction, and if a glue joint fails, you've wasted all your labor, and that is the most expensive part of the piece. The same is true with making baits. I'd recommend you start with one of the suppliers who sponsor this site, and see if their products work for you. Then you can find out what successful pourers use, and why, and decide if you want to switch, based on what your needs are. People who make and sell baits can't afford product failures, so they use stuff that works for them every time.

Salt is optional, but it does give baits a natural flavor when the fish bites. I think they hold a salted bait longer, because it tastes like a live prey item. But salt will make baits stiffer, so that's why some people add softener. I do add softener for senkos, because I add lots of salt to them, which makes them stiffer, and they need to be soft enough to shimmy on the fall. I also add salt to other baits, like creature baits and craws, but not enough to warrant additional softener.

You're right, you can always to that, as long as you have the original master.

I had trouble with split rings opening on big blades, so I found some small #3 regular split rings whose wire would fit through the swivel hole once, and used them. I put them onto the blade first, and then threaded them onto the swivel and rotated them until the split in the ring was at the swivel hole. The wire was too thick to go through twice, but they work just fine, since the swivel still turns, and the blade swings free. No more lost blades.

What brand of colorant? I guess I should quit trying to make orange from red and yellow, and just order a bottle of orange! Did I ever tell you I'm cheap? Hahaha

Those look great! Give me a call when you're up here, and I'll stop by to say hi.

Buy a small bottle, so you can have it on hand if you find your baits are too stiff. I only use softener when I add salt to senkos, and then it's a teaspoon to a cup of plastic.

Since you can make molds and prototypes, that would be the safest method for me. That way you always have the master, Let's hope you get it perfect the first crack out of the box. Then you can have your master to mount over your workbench, to remind you of the whole process, and to give you a shot of "atta boy" when you're dragging.

You can use a table saw, too, with a jig. The main thing you need is a way to keep your round blanks properly oriented, so the cuts will be symmetrical and parallel to the center line of the blank. Round things like to rotate when they're being cut.

If making a mold isn't too difficult or expensive for you, I'd suggest you make a mold of your original, and do all of your experimenting on poured prototypes. That way, you can try a lot of different things without the worry of ruining your original. After you've gotten the bait to perform like you want, you can make a second mold of the finished bait, with any alterations you've made. You can even keep tweaking your prototypes after you've gotten the bait to do what you originally wanted, and try really different things, like adding a bill, without fear of ruining your had carved master. Having identical blanks to play with is really great.

I do it with a hair dryer, and it's not really heat setting, just quickly drying water based air brush paints. Many of the water based air brush paints, like Createx, are, first and foremost, T shirt paints, that are heat set with an iron after they've dried so the molecules of the paint cross link and become waterproof. That's why you can wash painted T shirts in a washing machine without the paint dissolving. I don't know the temperature that is achieved to cause the cross linking, but it's way above the temperature that's safe to apply to a plastic bait before it melts or cracks. So I use a two speed hair dryer. The lower setting drys paint just fine, and the higher setting, if the dryer isn't held too close to the bait, dries the paint faster. But you have to be careful, or you'll ruin your bait. If I'm using a water based top coat, like a concrete sealer, I do hit it lightly with the hair dryer after it's lost it's wet look (typically 15 minutes after dipping) and then again every 15 minutes for the first hour. That cures the sealer enough for me to do a second dip after an hour, and I can fish the bait the next day if I do the 15 minute hair dryer cycle on the second coat, too. Otherwise, I would have to wait 24 hours, according to the label on the can, before I could dip again, and another 48 hours before I could fish the lure. I only paint for me, and I'm impatient, so I like being able to paint and topcoat a lure one day, and fish it the next. Heating epoxy with a hair dryer before it's set will cause it to flow, which doesn't help when you're trying to get a good finish on the bait. Epoxy sets by a chemical reaction, and, while heat usually accelerates chemical reactions, it isn't needed with epoxy, and can do more harm, from sagging, than good. I do know of people who use heat guns to dry air brush paints, but they have to be very careful, because they are so hot. It is too tricky for me, so I don't use one.

Wow! What orange did you use? It's perfect!

I use Bang, Yum, and Yamamoto oil based scents, because I think the fish do taste it when they bite, and I think it helps them hold on longer.

I spray with a heavy body primer because I'm too lazy to sand my baits really smooth first, and the primer fills the surface flaws nicely, so my paint jobs look better. I need all the help I can get. I do paint directly onto the bait without primer sometimes, but I always seal the PVC with runny super glue first, to stop it from offgassing and creating bubbles under my Createx paint when I heat set it. Usually I only get bubbles when I dry the paint on the high setting, or have the hair dryer too close to the bait, trying to speed the process along.

Pleas let us know how that works out for you.

Wayne, I got cold just reading that! It only gets down to freezing here a few days a year, but it gets cold enough, in an unheated garage, to turn epoxy into a semi-solid. The weather has already started cooling here. It's down to mid 50s at night, and high 70s during the day. The water temps never got above 75, but they're down to 70 now first thing in the morning. It's enough of a change to make a difference to the bass in the Delta, which have Florida genes, so they don't like cold. Both the stripers and the salmon have started their fall runs, so it's time to break out the spooks and swimbaits.

I think you're smart to do that. Heat is definatly the enemy of scents.

If you shoot that with green pumpkin/orange flake on top, and orange/red flake on the bottom they will get bit bigtime! That is exactly what a red swamp crawdad looks like. The mottled effect will be killer! I wish I could do it, but I'm too cheap to buy a double injector and laminating block. So I pour the bellies first with the orange, and then inject the green pumpkin over it to get the top and claws. As long as I shoot the gp at 330, the two bond well enough to not delaminate.

Al, do you even have a problem with Pro-Cure scents going bad, or turning moldy/rancid? I left a bottle in the boat over a season (I forgot it was in the compartment), and when I opened it the stuff had turned a nasty dark yellow, and stank.

Raw lead will oxidize in a soft plastic bait, so you should plan on coating it first with some kind of a primer. Rustoleum etching primer would probably work, but I've never tried it for that. but I've sprayed spinnerbait and chatterbait heads before painting them with Createx. That stuff sticks to lead heads (and spinnerbait wire) like glue, so be sure to cover/mask off anthing you don't want painted. And the fumes are nasty, so spray it down wind, and/or with a solvent filter mask. I try to spray it outside, with the wind at my back, or with the big garage door open, and a box fan behind me blowing out in cold weather.

I use a hair dryer shot on the side of the soft plastic epoxy resin bottle to heat it and get it to flow. The hardener is more viscus, so it flows more easily, and I usually don't need to heat it. In cold weather, I do heat both.

That is a fun video. Thanks for sharing.

Didn't I read somewhere that that lake has smallmouth?

I mix glonation powder paints into my soft plastics all the time.

Would these work? https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Blade_Runner_Swim_Bait_Insert_Weighted_Hook/descpage-BRHSBI.html