mark poulson

Most of my shrinkage is due to hot plastic (thank you Frank). Try injecting at lower temps, around 310-315 F, and see if that helps. A thicker bait will shrink more, so also be sure that you keep your mold spru topped off with hot plastic, so it can be drawn down into the mold as the plastic inside cools and wants to shrink.

Someone here on TU gave me this tip years ago. I use blue Nitril gloves to handle lures while I am painting. No more fish eyes from finger oil.

Try adding the glitter to Createx transparent base for your last paint coat, before you epoxy. You can brush it on, as long as you have really dried your paint scheme first, and you don't overbrush it.

If these will work they seem like the perfect solution, so you can use any hook you like.

I just hate to waste the time pouring and powdercoating a jig for a chatterbait, and then have the eye break when I try to open it.

Since the hook shank below the eye would still be tight in the mold, couldn't you open the area around the hook eye to allow an opened eye hook to be inserted? That way, if a hook is going to break when it's being opened, it'll be early on in the bait making process, before too much labor is invested.

They all look great!

Dave, I don't know where to post it. Ask Nathan. He knows the site best. I like square bills for shallow runners, and round bills, coffin, or contour bills for 6-12'. Deeper than 12', I like round bills. They seem to get around/over obstacles better.

Dave, I could watch your videos all day! To my untrained eye, the widest action was with the round bill, and it seemed to tighten up as you went from 7 to 10. Would you post this video somewhere on this site, so we can refer to it from time to time? Did you ever reconstruct your test tank?

Several years ago, when Butch Brown began making his custom glide baits, I tried that Plasti-Dip spray, to see if I could get that kind of a soft textured bait. It worked, but you have to keep a coated bait away from soft plastic baits, or it will melt, and ruin the paint scheme.

I use a coat of clear nail polish around the sst hitchhiker I use for attaching the soft plastic worm tails to my rat baits to provide a barrier. Short term contact isn't a problem, but leaving a worm in contact with an AC1315 coated bait overnight will cause softening of the AC, and will ruin the paint scheme. I leave my worm tails attached all day when I'm fishing a rat, but I try not to leave the worm lying across the bait, and I remove them at the end of the day, and store them so they are not in contact with the bait.

No, I don't. Sorry.

It smells, like a lot of other solvent finishes. I use a box fan blowing past me to an open door when I'm dipping. To me, epoxy has very little smell, and I don't bother with a fan when I'm using it.

I have and use KBS for crankbaits. But for jigs, chatterbaits, and spinnerbaits with Createx paint finishes, I use clear nail polish from the Dollar Store. It does the same thing for a lot less, and is much easier to apply and store.

Wasn't he the original drummer with the Beatles?

I like it. It holds up really well, and doesn't seem to change the paint scheme colors, except to deepen them a little. I have not tried it over a chrome lure, so I don't know how it would affect chrome. I use it for all my one piece lures that I can dip. I do wait until I have several lures painted, so I minimize the open time, but the screw top pickle jar/plastic layers/bloxygen has made storage perfect. No skinning. The next batch I dip I'll let them drip back into the dipping jar, to see how that works. I fish lures after two days, but I think it takes about four days to get really hard. For me, even after four days, it still gets hook rash, so I put a coat of clear nail polish over the path of the belly treble.

Enjoy the process. I learn something new every time I make a lure.

Use balsa. Make your bait a little larger. Use thinner wire/lighter hardware. Use smaller hooks and split rings. Use a lighter top coat.

Go to a tool repair shop, buy compressor oil, end of story.

When I switched from a mason jar with a double layer of plastic to a screw top pickle jar with a double layer of plastic, I've had no more skinning. I use bloxygen, too.

It was always an adventure, but I could find it through my profile. This time I just scrolled through the Hard Baits Gallery until I found one of my pics, clicked on it, and then I was able to open all of my gallery pictures. I saved the location in my favorites, and it looks like this: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/profile/14932-mark-poulson/?do=content&type=gallery_image&change_section=1

Thanks Nate.

Do you let the KBS drip back into your dipping jar?

I've found that the SpikIt dye markers I use on my soft plastics don't bleed, at least for me. http://www.lurepartsonline.com/Online-Store/Lure-Dyes/

There's a stick at the top of the Hard Baits Forum about PVC. It's not everything, but it's a good overview.