Matt Moreau

Dont know the number off the top of my head but Mustad has a similar hook that is much cheaper than the Gami's and still very good. Just an FYI... you will get more hits on this if you post it in the Wire Bait forum

Those look great Mark. I havent tried Azek but I do use the PVC trim boards form lowes... should be basicaly the same thing I imagine. The dust is killer and gets all over but other than that I love the stuff too. Could be more bouyant but hey cant complain!

Thats cheatin Pete!!! hehe Those do look very nice indeed. I have often wondered but neevr asked.... What type of action do they have?

Hi and welcome! The search feature is a good place to start like mentioned by EDL as it has more info there than you could imagine. To answer your question.... It really depends on the look you want. The blanks I have bought from Predator and Bustin Bass do not require a base/primer. I would recommend you clean the baits to get any oils or contaminants off. Then if you want a clear and/or translucent body you would not want to prime the blank. If you dont want a translucent body then you should prime. I use a custom made primer. I mixed One 2oz bottle of cheap $0.33 white with the same brand gray(craftsmart from Micheals was on sale). then I reduced by 50% with my home brew reducer. this gave me 8oz of primer for a $1.00! the light gray covers really nice and is easy to put white or light colors over it. hope this helps.

The 1 inch diameter ones fit just around and RC 2.5. I put it around the whole bait and leave a little extra on the tail so when it heats up you can crimp it with needle nose and have a handle. Do a search on it and you will find the post that got me to try it.

Future is a product made by pledge and its my understanding that it is used as a reducer. You would add it to your acrylic paints to reduce them. Some colors and paints would need a 1-1 ratio but others wouldnt as pigment and viscosity differs. Start small and just keep adding until you get a milk like consistency. Do you have a link to this article as I would imagine that there is more to this equation.

WOW....$50.00 for a balsa crank bait?

I buy mine at Fry's Electronics but I imagine that tons of online sources have it. Just be sure not to apply too much heat and bubble/melt the crank that you are trying to mold.... not that I did this or anything!!!

I do the same as Tim and hold the majority of my stencils. I make them from those flexible cutting boards u can buy (found at dollar store for packs of 2)... But if you want a stencil that is in the shape of the bait you can buy Heatshrink tubing and shrink it onto the bait, cut your stencil then cut in half and you will have a custom stencil that sits in place hands free.

I have Mark. I have bought both and fished both... The bustin baits have a lower ballast positioning and smaller non fixed bb's that rattle compared to predator with 3 large bb's and the ballast is up near the centerline of the bait. Not to mention that funky hole on the bottom where you can change the ballast and what not. So 2 very different actions and sounds. Personally I prefer bustin baits but its all up to the person throwing it. One thing to consider is that the bustin baits are over twice as much!

Ya but unfortunatley they are not true Lucky Crafts. I like the baits and have ordered a bunch of them but they are definatley knock offs. The Bill and gill patern is slightly different not to mention the action is a tad off. All in all a good bait though and one of the best RC knock offs I have seen.

Man I hate to hijack this thread maybe we should make a new one? Dave I had the same thoughts but my early tests with balsa didnt go very well. I think I may have screwed up a variable and just never tried again... But it seemed that the same amount of balsa compared to cork was less bouyant. I thought at the time it was because the balsa somehow took up the moisture in the resign or something and once it did lost its bouyancy wheras the cork naturally repels water... I dont know and I should probably try some experiments again as my old theory sounds goofy now that I think about it.

Personally for a lipless bit I wouldnt choose 2ton... Reason being that the edge of the bait acts as the bill and you dont want that to be smooth and rounded like 2ton will do when it levels. I would choose somthing like DN1(S81?) where you can have a nice edge up top. I have no scientific evidence to back this just my thoughts.

Hey Bob, It's kinda tedious but I hand cut the corks with a kitchen knife into little cubes. I molded my first baits so that they sit like they would in the water. Thus they sit upright in the mold. I was thinking that the cork would rise to the top and it would balance out for me being denser on the bottom... I found with the mixture of micro ballons I do this isnt the case as the mixture is still fairly thick and I prefer to inject it with a large cathader tip syringe ($2 at my local hospital supply). It seems that once I inject the cork doesnt move too much and gives me a pretty bouyant bait that is much stronger than if I used more micro Ballons. The draw back is I have A LOT of imperfections to fill on every bait. Since my earlier experiments now I just use PVC pipe to mold baits in like one of the tutorials. PS, works great!!! Then once the bait is molded I inject the resign into the tail section. I dont care about how they sit as i found it doesnt matter that much... Once I weight and put hardware they sit and run perfect. I do this method on my crank molds but they are fairly big at a little over 3 inches. I can mold a smaller one and try it if you like Bob, but i would imagine it should work fine. I have to admit though in one of my posts about a year ago Rookie coughed up the secret of using cork and not MB in his resign baits. He didnt go into detail about how it was done or anything but me living an hour from Napa I knew i had to try it... every time I go wine tasting now I ask for some corks and I get a bag full from everywhere. I have atleast a 5 gallon tub chocked full ready to be chopped up. If anyone has a better way please let us know... Or Rookie can you devulge any info on your process?

I havent used alumilite but I have used a couple other resigns... This is just what I have found.... When using micro ballons in a 1 part ballons to 1 part A and 1 part ballons to 1 part B mixture it made the resign somewhat "soft" and had microscopic holes all over. So I sealed the lures with a 2 part epoxy of your choice (I use devcon 2 ton thinned with DA) then sand to get good adhesion and paint. Lastly Topcoat again with topcoat of your choice... for topcoat I like 2 coats of Etex for resign lures. Now I use half the amount of ballons and fill my mold with chopped up cork.... then inject the resign. It leaves a lot of imperfections but makes a much more bouyant and stronger bait. I then proceed to do the rest the same.

Its all about your needs. I started with a pancake 1.5 gallon husky and that thign was loud and ran 24/7. It was horrible so I sold it and researched what I wanted/needed. After asking lots of questions and research I found that most people recomended a 20-30 gallon OILED compressor for my needs as I wanted it for the shop too. So i looked on craigslist for a week and found one 5 mins from my house for $40. Been using it for 4 years now and it runs like a champ. I chose an oiled unit because I just cant see an oiless unit holding up to the abuse. You would never buy a car with an oiless engine from china would you? JMHO!

for the baits I repaint that I cannot or just dont want to take apart I use rubberbands. use the smallest diameter ones you can get away with and just wrap tight around the joints. then I spray with auto clear and it works fine. I cut the rubberbands off when i am done. Another way I used to do this is by putting a drop of super glue in the hinge and let it set up. wen done painting and what not I took a dremel with scrap wire and cleaned them out. then I would take a knife and clean the excess too. I havent done tis in awhile as its kinda a pain... plus u can only do this on a few hinge systems ones like on slammers. I just mainly use the rubber band method now if I dont break the lure down.

Good Call Mark! Part A and B do not weigh the same so weighing them is not a viable way of measurment. I use 1 syringe labled A and 1 labled B to measure the Etex and I also lable the bottles accordingly. I bought a pack of 100 vet syringes size 3 cc with the slip nozzle for about $10 on ebay so I am not worried about changing them every once and awhile. People use medicine cups and while I use them to mix in I dont like measuring expoxy with them. its just a little to viscous for me and I dont feel I am as accurate. JMHO!

For a few lures that I have done for saltwater I twisted my own out of welding rod/piano wire. It is a little teidous to bend but if you pay a little more and get surgical grade SS it makes it easier. I have a welding supply shop I goto... they gave me like 10 rods for free as they had a pack open. I think they were 1/8 diameter and 316 grade SS. Not much could damage these after twisted up.

its harder to work with than D2T but I like the end product much better. now I use D2T thinned to seal my baits and Etex for topcoat.... Just ensure you let turn overnight and mix exact amounts of part A to part B or it will never harden.

I havent had any issues with the smell of the solvent based urethanes if that what you are talking about AJ. Usually by the time the lure has fully cured and is ready to use any scent has dicipated that I can tell. As for Epoxy they are pretty much odor free as you can get. I would be catuious of waterbased urethanes though as SOME *cough* *cough*....MOST do not hold up well to prolonged water exposure. The new DN water based one seems to be an exception and I do not have any experience with the one AJ uses. Just my 2C!

Createx = C-tex

DN has 3 different top coats now as they just came out with 2 new ones. The one referred to most is the moisture cured urethane which is a great product if you can figure out how to store it. Personally for the $40 I spent on it... I wasted half because it cured in the 3 jars I put it in even using bloxygen. The people that use it and know how to make it last love it. I know the lures that were coated with it are rock hard and almost perfect. Personally tho it was a pain for me and I dont use it anymore. do a search on it.... more info than you can read in 6 months out there. Epoxy....I use 2 different ones. 1. D2T.... I use this for a sealer thinned with denatured alchy. work time is about 5-10 mins to get it on a lure and on the turner. sets up pretty fast and can be handled in 24 hrs. Lure turner is recommended but not a must. 2. Envirotex Lite or Etex... This I use for my top coat... its more finicky and harder to use than D2T but a lot thinner and leaves a great finish... lure turner is a must ! handle time 48-72 hours 3. A lot of other epoxies will work like the one the Rook mentions above. Another popular one is Flexcoat. Just remember with epoxy its wise to invest in a turner! Auto clear is the best in my opinion. I usually wait until I have 5 or 6 baits painted and then mix up a really small batch and spray it on. I use a clear pill cup like you would get at a hospital or on nyquil to measure it in really small batches. I dont have much waste but the down side is you ABSOLUTELY need a respirator and really well ventilated area. I have to wait for decent weather and spray outside while wearing my respirator. There are a lot of other top coats all of which have their + and – so its really user preference as to what you like best. I recommend you using the search feature as all these topics have been discussed in great detail already.

I have tried most of the above places and have no complaints about any of them. I pretty much buy from coastair now as they match any price and ship fast but I live on the west coast. they also have cheap extra bottles for paint with your choice of top which I love. Chicago AB was pretty cheap at 2.70 but they screwed up a couple orders and were slow shipping. They did however send me a couple free bottles of paint that they shipped the wrong color on and always fixed the problem. If your on the East coast you may want to try them. TCP global has a huge selection of everything you can imagine and ship super fast but are a tad more pricey and didnt match last time I checked. Dixie was ok but have only ordered 1 time. Never tried AS.

The Etex box says if you want a dull finish to sand with 600 grit and then wax with caranuba.