One Sock

I sorta did a firetiger stickbait, it's in the gallery. PM if interested

Willy is right, as long as your not waiting a long long time, the second color has to be very hot, you can still get a nice weld. I pour laminates and can pour 16 halfs then go back and do second colors and still get a really good weld, of course the second color has to be extremely hot anyway to do good laminates as it's a very thin hole you have to pour into anyway, I never have a problem with seperation, obviously if you want the colors to blend both colors need to be hot, but good luck doing that in a 2 piece mold

Looking at the picture on bassproshops, it looks like the MF trans orange with a tad of pearl would do the trick for ya. It's almost dead on to what I see there

wow, I was looking at the picture that came up on the link instead of scrolling down. I can probably match the picture that came up with some watermelon grren some pearlescent, green and blk flake Here is what I came up with just from memory of looking at the pict, yesterday

try the mf watermelon non bleed and mix it with the smoke gold pearl, that should get you in the general direction, I'll see if I can mix it up tomorrow and post a pic

MF has some nice hi-lite powders, I use the blue neon and green/yellow a lot, some suggest a matchstick size of this or a pin head of that, when using hi lites you should have exact measurements as sometimes a little more is a little more too much, especially when I am making a motoroil or something where the hi lite needs to change the color drastically

too many variables, everyones recipies would have to be the same, you might be bale to determine with an approx density, but never exact as there will almost always be a differnce in salt content from first stick to last, one might be slightly more than another depending on pouring methods Then not only the water variable but also the line and hook being used to fish such bait. You should see the difference in wiggle when fishing a GY on 4 lb test as opposed to 20 lb braid also the difference when using a 2/0 ewg as opposed to a 20 octopus hook, you can get free fall rates by dropping your baits into a swimming pool and comparing them to others.... Really want to blow your mind.. buy 4 or 5 packs of hand poured sticks on e-bay. not only compare them to each other when dropping them in the water, but compare them against their own, take two sticks from a 50 pack of almost any hand poured bait, and I will almost guarantee that the fall rate is not identical. i have done enough research on this, from stirring after pouring every two sticks, from pouring at 375 degrees as opposed to 350 as opposed to 325 and so on and so on. it casn be mind boggling, weight your sticks on a gram scale after making 50 -100 you will find a bunch do not match up exactly. it's very interesting stuff. It's why you can't sell sticks on e-bay for decent money anymore, too many people who could give a rats ass how they fish that are making sticks. want to make premium stick baits? do your homework and experiment, you will also come up with some phenomanal colors :-) and always write everything down. I have a bunch of fantastic sticks made at 3 am that I have no idea how I made them :-)

I don't understand the problem.. If someone orders something like a custom mold, aren't these things made clear ahead of time before all the work gets put into something? If not then the blame is purely on the end of the person selling the product. Now granted you can make things clear and still have a jackass of a customer to deal with, but I know for me, if I wanted a custom mold and sent it to machinist "a", and he came back and said hey, I can come pretty close to that, but there is a chance it won't be exactly what you want and it will cost 145.00 for it. and if it isn't what you want it will cost shipping back to me and extra charge to change or modify it( up to XXX.00) and shipping back to you ....but once I have it all done to the way you want it, the molds would cost you XXX.XX. I would have all the information I need to make a decision. I find that in most customer service related incidents that failure to properly communicate is the root cause for any dis-satisfaction for the parties involved. example: hey mold machinist, I sent you a sample bait can you make me a mold and how much? mold machinist: sure it's 125.00 plus shipping customer: Great send it out to me Customer: hey this isn't what I wanted, it has 3 ribs instead of 4 Mold machinist: Ok send it back I'll fix it Customer : Great Mold Machinist: it;s done and it's gonna be 85.00 plus shipping Customer : what? I already paid Mold machinist: You paid for the first mold not this one Customer: But you didn't make it right Mold machinist: But that's the chance you take. Customer: i want my money back then Mold machinist: forget it no way pay me for my work Customer: Not gonna happen your a rip off Now don't get me wrong, I know this goes both ways, the above is just an example: Here is a revised version hey mold machinist, I sent you a sample bait can you make me a mold and how much? mold machinist: I can do it but it might not ba an exact match, are there any features you absolutely must have? My set up time and custom work is around 45.00 per hour and it would take approx. 3 hours. This will not include shipping or any revisions I might have to make if your not happy Some custom jobs have to be revised 2 or 3 times to get them right. Let me know customer: Ok sounds good, I would like it the same length and would prefer 4 ribs Mold machinist: I can do the length and ribs, howver the head will be a bit bigger than the sample Customer : sounds good let's do it, how much do you think it will run Mold Machinist: I can do this in about 4 hours @ 45.00 an hour, but again that doesn't include any revisions if your not happy or shipping which would be 5.00 Customer : Ok sounds great Mold machinist: Ok it's done it was 3.5 hours the total is 157.50 plus shipping of 5.00 for a total of 162.50 Customer: awesome cant' wait to get it. Mold machinist: sending it out tomorrow Customer: Got the mold and it's everything I was hoping for. Thanks again Mold machinist: No problem glad you liked it. if you need anything else let me know Customer: Oh I will do more business soon. thanks The lack of communication is a two way street and without communication from both parties and a clear understanding what is expected. You are bound to fail eventually. In the customer service world it only takes one bitter customer to cause you lost revenue and future business. One thing I have learned over the years is if it isn't in writing it isn't true, people have a way of forgetting what they were told or twisting the words out of context or not remembering everything that was said, so i would say that if you have a clearly defined agreement in writing and everyone agrees to it, you will have far less problems. just my take on things, I have been known to be wrong before. Even if it was over the phone, what was said and what was expected needs to be put in the form of a letter or e-mail or something just to make sure that everyone agrees what they can expect from the transaction You will never go wrong this way, Again Just my opinion take it for what it's worth

No don't use wood als check the temps on your plastic, the hotter the plastic the more likely you will get some bubbles in it, stir good and then stir again

Not possible, it's not a paint, but if you want purple fingers for a while just shake up some indigo without a cap on it :-) Seriously LC has some nice plastic paints but limited colors, I use them on frogs but they might be better suited for airbrushing, but if your gonna airbrush soft plastics, you might have too much time on your hands

This year's chatterbait???????

It's adjustable, but it has a low med and hi setting not sure what the temps are but I always keep it on high. It seems to work well. I just ripped apart a small sandwhich maker thingy I bought for 5 bucks, the kind that you put the sandwhich in and it toasts it when you close the lid..... the temp is a bit hotter, I'm gonna experiment with that as well as they are rather small and won't take up much room on the tables

You can use a hot plate and get the metal measuring cups from wal-mart, when doing multi pours, I only use small amounts of plastic anyway for multi pours, so the smaller meatal cups can hold the plastic i need for secondary and third colors and it all stays the same pouring temp, different strokes for different folks I guess

I hear ya, I don't even feel like fishing in this heat and when I don't feel like fishing it's too damn hot 8:33 pm right now and it's reading 95 degrees outside

Looks like either a cabellas or a bass pro shops xps type lizard

Oh don't get me wrong, you pay first then I pour. I get quite a few custom requests and always want the customer happy before they get the order. I don't do the whole sample thing unless it's a custom request and even then it has to be a significant order. I'm very confident in my standard colors and never send samples on regular colors

I just use alluminum molds for all my baits, I don't do anything special. The only thing I can think of is I use canola oil to clean my molds, I do it quite often also so as not to leave any residue in the molds Here are the baby bass laminates that I was using on vacation, for those of you that make laminates and fish, these were really producing well

Yeah, it's been in the high 90's out here in ohio, my friend in Pa says the bass are in full swing attacking anything that moves..... high is 70-80 degrees during the day and high 50's to low 60's at night. I miss those temps...

You go through all that????? In that case I need some purple and gold sticks with green and blue hi-lite and orange and chartreuse flake;) J/K But seriously, my camera is capable of very good images, unless it's a really big order, I think I'll stick to sending an image, if they like it, i'll pour the order..but like you... I did get burned on a 100 count of mustard seed sticks, however they wound up producing some nice fish:yes: