carolinamike

Swingoil, that is great that they offered you your money back, afterall, it was the right thing to do. You are also a great customer to be willilng to sit back and wait especially when you purchased the molds to sell baits from. Bear's Baits has always been a leader when it comes to customer service, that is one of the main things that has kept him in business all these years. Unlike other companies that still advertise questionable products for sale. He is very quick to handle a problem the right way. He himsself will take the chance on losing money rather than letting his customers, he is very well known for setting examples for newer companies to follow. I hope all involved in this gets it straightend out and I also hope that Do-It is not infringing. Like I told one member, it would make the fix to my molds alot cheaper and easier.

Saltfisher, Color Technologies, Spike-It, and LureWorks are all the same company and the largest plastic component supplier in the industry. Thats what makes a list of their colors so hard to make, they just have so many. If you need a certain color that you dont see on their website just call them and ask for it. In 14 years they have never not had a pigment I was looking for. If you have them to match a color then you will be asked to make a minimum purchase, their pure coloring (not broken down) goes a very very long way, but keep in mind that its very messy to deal with. This form you cannot use in drops, you have to weigh it, but they will be glad to break any of it down for you to make it hand pour friendly.

Since lureworks supplied del and the coloring is the same. How much closer can you get?

Has anybody got an update on this one yet? Swingoil, I seen the molds were over $40 bucks a piece, thats over 1600 dollars your just having to sit on. I noticed on their forum that their thread is already down to the bottom of the second page. With all of the bragging about the great customer service, I hope you've heard something by now. I talked with Bear and I'm hearing that one of his baits may be involved too, he said if that was the case then he was definatly going to pull the mold from his website and offer anyone their money back who wanted it.

You didnt mention wether or not you sealed your mold, be sure not to skip this step.

Hey Jerry, I know you're doing your best to fight the bots, spiders and scrapers, but for the past 4 days I've really been gettting the oops message a lot. I mean a whole lot. Just thought I'd make you aware of it. I kept hitting the refresh button on the computer and it finally let me in after about 6 tries. I looked at the bottom and there was only 67 users on the forum, this included everyone. Didn't know whether you were aware of this going on so much or not. Thanks for all you do.

Since Del stopped selling plastisol and coloring he has probably run out of the smaller bottles or either he is selling the larger quanities, getting rid of the rest of his stock, I'm just guessing. Keep in mind there is a couple of different shades of watermellon. LureWorks has the largest selection of pigment than anyone else, what they show on their website is only a fraction of what they actually carry and they will sell it to you broke down or in its pure form, and their prices are good also.

If I'm not mistaken, his coloring was coming from Color Technologies, which is now Lureworks. They don't let anyone distribute their product now, they distribute it themselves.

Guys, keep in mind that the UV aditive works best with bright colors, such as white and yellow. Its really noticable when you have a white bait out in the sunlight, sometimes white coloring gets a slight yellow tint to it. The UV brightener helps to reduce the yellowing, just think about some laundrey detergents that advertise that they make your whites whiter, its because they use a UV aditive.

Saltfisher, you got it, one color then the other until you fill the mold. Cant wait to see your pictures!

Great job, are you using a twin injector? Looks like you've got laminates down pat, next try a pulse laminate thats done by injecting one color then another, this will give you swirls or bands, its just according to how fast you alternate the 2 colors.

Good looking baits Bob! I make a ring worm for a company. The thing about baits with alot of rings is that it turns the mold into a heat sync, but I'm sure you already know that.

Rebel, what does any of those links have to do with Zoom's patent? One of them is just a link to register on his forum, another is about Strike King from August of last year, and from what i've read some people have already recieved these types of letters for other baits. The only thing the links do that you posted is confirm that someone didn't do the responsible thing to ensure that there were no patent infringments. Just guessing and hoping is not the proper way to handle a situation like this, the bottom line is Caney Creek, by Do-It, should assume all responsibility and should stand behind their reputation of great customer service. A customer shouldn't have to wait to find out if they can use a mold after they purchase it especially when they've spent their hard earned money. Someone should step up to the plate and not force the customer to take the loss, that would be quallity customer service.

Rebel2345, like I said I have been folowing along with this, and yes I have read his forum. I couldn't help but notice that in his last statement he says "he thinks" everything will be fine and that we need to just wait a while, in the mean time Frank has a thousand dollars worth of molds that he has to just "wait" on. Do you feel like this is fair to him? Its obvious by being a good customer and purchasing 40 molds that his intentions were to sell the baits, how is waiting profitable to him? Caney Creek should have immediatly stepped in just as soon as the customer recieved the letter and offered to change the mold or to refund his money, but no, they're continuing to advertise the mold on their website for sale and they're not sure if they are infringing or not. Again, the customer is suffering due to someone's lack of knowledge of patents, they just didn't do their homework. It dosen't matter what the bait looks like, if Zoom's patent points are included on the bait, then its patent ifringment. The only way to know for sure is to run this past a patent attorney, it shouldn't be left up to an inocent customer. I bet if it was Bear Baits or Del's you would have a difference of opinion, and if it would've been Bear or Del's they would have immediatly pulled the mold off of their website, and I know Bear would have given a refund to anyone who wanted it. His company would have taken it on theirselves and not told a good customer (such as Frank) to wait and see what happens. I know what I'm talking about on this one, I went through the same thing with the same patent and I hired the patent attorney, like I said the looks of the bait has nothing to do with it. If I was making molds that were not custom and sold genericaly, then I would do my homework on every mold that I produced, that way I could be sure my customers would not have to go through such an inconvienence. Its not fair to spend your money on a mold and be told you have to wait before you use it. Is that good customer service and is that standing behind your product? Rest assured, if it would have been any other company my opinion would have been the same, and I would have stated it.

basshunter, Bob is giving you some very good advice and Anglinarcher has made a very good point. But I think another way to handle this is to ask the moldmaker. If he assures you that the mold is not in infringment, then ask him to back it up with a refund in case there's any problems. And also ask him if he's had it checked with a patent attorney if he says it's ok to sell (that is if you have concerns about it being legal). If you don't get an answer that makes you feel good, then by all means stay away from selling the bait. It should be the moldmaker's responsibility and not the customer's, unless it's a mold you've had custom made.

I've been following along on this one and I personally feel that before they design another chunk they need to step up to the plate on this one. They have sold a mold that is possibly a patent infringing product and they're always bragging about their customer service. Well it's time to put your money where your mouth is. I feel they should do a recall on this mold and either refund the money or redesign it at no cost to the customer. I really don't think it's fair that one of their customers should even have to consider the legalities on something like this, mainly because someone didn't do their homework. They should do the legal battling themselves and not just leave their customers holding an unusable product. This is not one person's custom design, it is a standard company distributed product and it's something that they need to address and take care of. After all it would be the Christian thing to do. This is just my personal opinion.

Lureworks has a great UV additive. You don't use very much at all. If you use too much, it's going to give the clear plastic a little bit of a blue hue. But under a black light your baits will glow like a white t-shirt in a disco.

I know for sure that is definatly not a Strike King patent, if you check there website they dont offer that bait, and like I said I know the guy and from my expirences with him I'm sure he keeps the right for his self. Like Bob said, I would get the patent number from a pack of Strike King baits, and then check with the U.S. patent website.

Guys, Look for a resturant supplier or bakery supplier. This is what I did and I get the Morton purex fine salt in 50 lb bags for 11 bucks, I drive 45 miles to pick it up , but its cheaper than paying UPS freight on it.

smallmouthaholic, I clicked on that link that you gave and that is not Strike King's Patent unless Strike King bought this company. The tube design without the arms on it belonged to Vertical Lures, I actually produced some tubes for him for a little while, and if you will look on Vertical Lures website, they are advertising the bait that the patent is showing. So, I don't know if they worked out a deal with Strike King or not. But Eric is listed as the inventor of the patent and that's who owns Vertical Lures. So that one has got me a little confused and Vertical Lures says on their website that it is a patented bait. So I'm not sure who owns that one.

Bob, keep in mind when Zoom first came out with their chunks it was the greatest improvement that most jig fishermen had ever seen. You had to carry around all those little jars of the Uncle Josh pork rinds, they were messy, dried out easily and you were very very limited on colors. Plastic chunks were so much easier to deal with. A small bag of 5 chunks could be kept in any tackle box and the colors were endless. But these days you're right, there's a lot of just as good or better products on the market when it comes to chunks or jig trailers. But I have caught a lot of fish using Zoom chunks. Some people design jig trailers that are totally different and mistakenly incorporate patent points from other companies and most of them don't even realize that they've done it.

I got lucky everything turned out great. Just remember there's a lot to be said for gloves and cold water. A little bit of scarring but besides that I'm good to go. As you can tell from the picture, not really enough scarring to notice.

I pulled this back up for new members

Rick you can bet I'm counting those days too. My mold is a two color mold so I can make it with different colors on the ends of the tails. That's what made my hand pour chunks so popular. It was something that Zoom didn't do. And also it was back in the days when it was either Uncle Josh's pork rind, or Zoom's chunks. There just wasn't too many choices back then. The finger turned out great. Scarring as you would expect, but I have full mobility, and best of all there was no skin grafts. Especially when I was told constantly that skin grafts were going to be necessary. Just a plain case of Somebody Higher Up watching over me.

Bill, I went over and read some of the posts that are being made about this subject and so far there is nothing but bad advice being given. It does not matter if it looks like the bait or not. What matters is the patent points and where they are located. One person even suggested that if they had the money, to fight them. Keep in mind that if it's taken that far, that there's not really any backing out of it. I have personally dealt with Zoom's lawyer, he is not a nice fellow and does not like to be challenged. If you lose a case like this, it can result in having to pay as much as 3 times what the company says that you made from the product, plus lawyer fees. Cases like this do not go before a jury, it is decided by a single judge. And most of the time, the patent holder wins. You can bet with $12,000.00 worth of molds I can't use, I investigated this subject extensively. Someone needs to advise that gentleman to be very very careful. Do-It may have the money to challenge this, but most individuals don't, and if they do the odds of winning are very slim.