gunnie3035

I didn't look at them very close but some big hammer type SB molds are on ebay right now. Also some money minnow molds.

A lot of factory baits contain dents, Even some of the more expensive cranks. Don't sweat it just paint and clear. The epoxy wil still give ya a smooth finish.

LV & LVR is a different bait. The LV is a little thicker and usually heavier than the LVR. IMO the LV will run straight no matter how fast you crank it, but I don't throw it on 20lb test either. IMO the LVR is more of a grass/rip type of bait. Both have a small pocket on the head to keep them down. The LV is one loud son of a gun while the sound on the LVR is still loud but you don't hear the rattle 25 ft from the boat like the LV. The BBB copies are pretty decent lipless baits for the price. I would say they resemble the LVR more than the LV. If your looking for a deep runner lipless ya probably want to go with a real LV500.

You can also remove the cap and expose the needle. This will give you a super fine line. If you move it fast enough you won't get much overspray. Just becareful you dont bump the exposed needle on something.

You can dip the end of a paint brush and flip the bristles with your finger. It works as good as any method.

A light tent and a quality SLR camera.

What part, the heat, scales, transparents, etc?? I got a little of topic......LOL I assume you want the scale and transparent info. Think about it this way; build a square box or round or diamond, doesn't really matter the shape or how big/small. Now spray paint at a 45 degree angle and see what happens. The back of the box will receive more paint than the front of the box because more air is hitting the back of the box thus carrying more paint. Naturally the back of the box will be darker than the front. Now turn the box around and shoot a different colored paint from the opposite direction. Use a paint similar in color like gold/copper, red/deep red, silver/gold works good for fish scales. What would happen if you spray the box at 90 degrees or straight on. It would all be the same color, right? This is what you don't want thus the reason I said never spray scales straight on even if your only using one color. Basically what I'm saying is you have two different colored paints in the same box with one side being slightly darker than the other. So what your doing is shadowing or making it look like its raised off the surface. Now think of your netting material as a whole bunch of tiny boxes stacked side by side. If your using pearls to shadow your "boxes" you can take a transparent thin it down a little and spray over the pearl at a 45 degree angle from ONE direction only. I stress one direction only with transparents over pearl and one direction only if using a single color. Nobody and I repeat Nobody can do detail work on a bait using Createx pearls. They are layering a paint with a combo of pearls and transparents and/or using shimmers. Dont be fooled by the sales pitch..... This is a lot of extra steps but if you want to paint baits like the top dawgs on Ebay then you must do the work. The biggest mistake people make is they think a simple shad pattern is 6-8 steps when it is more like 20. Its actually kind of a stupid hobby if ya look at it from a square inch point of view. I will probably get kicked out of the painters union for this but that super fine sparkly glitter looking stuff a lot of these painters use is called prizmatic. I'm not sure if I spelled it right but it is an automotive glitter coat. It can be sprayed through a brush with a .5mm tip but a touch up gun works better. Available at any auto paint store but it is about $90 a quart. It is super cool stuff.....

Heat setting between coats is gluing the paint on the mesh to the body of the bait thus the reason it peels. Heat after you remove the mesh. The 3D effect is caused by spraying the paint from one direction only. For instance you can spray gold from the tail forward on a 45 degree angle. Turn the bait around and spray copper or maybe silver from the nose back. Naturally more paint will gather at the back corners of the mesh from the direction your spraying. Never spray scales straight on. When the mesh is removed it appears as raised scales. Once you get it down you can play with thinned transparents over the pearl. It may look like a blue pearl paint was used but really it is a silver pearl with blue transparent. No heat, no tricks, no special paint, just one paint over another.

Paint a light coat of white first. Then hit it with the flouro color. This will brighten the transparent color.

I use 'bands on all jointed baits. If you use a thin 'band you will hardly notice the inner joint is not painted. Generally speaking even the factory paint does not get in tight on the joints nor does the clear. An exacto knife handle is the best way to hold lipless jointed baits provided the bait is small enough.

I do what Bob does but I first paint the line w/some watered down white then add the flouro yellow.

I'm not sure why tackle painters don't use retarder but it is cheap and can make your dry tip troubles less frustrating. If I have a paint that requires constant thinning [like regular createx white] and I have used 1/3 of the bottle just refill it with reducer and and about 10 drops of retarder.

ditto on what Riverman said. If you will make your mold so you can pour the bottom half first [rather than all at the same time] you can tinker with having less MB in the lower half making it more dense and then pour the rest of the bait with more MB. This sort of gives more balast and the denser material will hold the hooks better. BTW: I wouldnt use epoxy on resin. It will work but don't expect the same results as you get on wood or plastic. From my experience your much better off using DN or a similar product on resin.

It is pretty hard to screw up a slammer bait. The toughest thing is the lip placement. No balast needed either. The weight of the hooks and hangers will take care of it. I used popular and had a guy turn them on a lathe to get the right shape. Although an easy bait to build it still takes time. The problem with building/painting topwaters is nobody ever looses them so its hard to make some $$ working on them. I'm still throwing an original slammer I bought 6 years ago.

One side of the bait will ALWAYS look better than the other.....

I think I got my last sheets from US Plastics. Don't know about titanium rods but several of the big players are using graphite rods rather than metal.

The cheap harbor freight brushes work pretty good with a DN 4:1 mixture. I don't know for certain what tip size they are but I would guess about a .5. And if you plug one up it is only a $10 brush. Might want to look at U-Pol #1 Clear. It is an auto clear in a rattle can. It isn't epoxy or DN but it works good for jointed baits.

I can shoot createx gold straight out of the bottle at 25psi but silver and copper takes 30psi in a HP-C with a .35mm. If you want a good shooting gold try Auto Air. The pigment is finer and it shoots real good out of the bottle but doesnt have the coverage of regular createx. Auto Air aluminum is chunky but if you filter it with mama's panty ho's if gives a decent chrome look. Use the missionary ho's not the fish stockin ones.....

From my experience dipping a base coat creates some clear coat problems with resin made cranks. For some reason if you dip a resin bait with white paint and clear it with Devcon the 2-ton will bubble on you when the bait gets wet. It doesn't seem to matter how well you heat set or how long the clear is allowed to dry. Furthermore DN will peel the paint right off the bait. I can spray a white base with the exact same paint on a resin bait and use 2-ton or DN w/o any problems whatsoever. I'm not sure what the difference is but keep this in mind if your using this type of crank.

Dried paint my friend. As Mark said run some acetone. I would just let it soak in the cup for about 30 minutes and back flush. Dont be afraid of the acetone boogie man. It won't hurt a darn thing.

I will go the other direction and say your thinning the paint too much. IMO if you can blow paint at less than 10psi it is too thin. Regulators are good for getting you in the ballpark but painting fine lines is a feel that comes with time. If I remember right the standard CS is a .35 needle. Ya might have to drop down to a .25 for super thin lines/paint. If it were me I would hold up a comb and paint your 3 lines and then go back over it again free hand with a slightly darker color. The blow out would give it a cool 3D effect.