carolinamike

I think the Hag's Tornado worm has already beat you to it.

Steve, also keep your temperatures as low as possible. The cooler the plastic the better the laminate. Cooler will also give the plastic less opportunity to swirl.

I think that one reason micro bubbles don't work well is because of heat expansion. If your plastic gets too hot I personly think that the bubbles burst. In those micro hollow spheres that air has to expand and go somewhere. The softer the plastic the better it floats. I've used lure craft's super soft to make a 10" finese worm and it would float a 2/0 gamagatsu hook with no bubbles at all, when the water tension would break it would sink very very slowly.

Lure works has one of the best purple flake out there. What type of bait are you making and what size flake are you using? Some shapes just take more flake than others. I've never had any bleeding or fading problems with Lure works purple, but there are some shapes that I do that take more flake than others even though they both basicaly take the same amount of plastic. I did notice that you said you were doing a finese worm, if it has alot of ridges it will take more flake then a slick bodied worm. Also, try lightening up on your watermellon color, the more translucent the better the flake will show.

Bass4me, if you could post a picture it would help. Some of us old guys have a hard time keeping up with all of the different colors out there now and it will help you get more responces too.

Well it was back to the burn center today guys. 3 1/2 hours there and 3 1/2 hours back, but I got a great report. NO SKIN GRAFTS. Also no more bandages. I do have to keep sunblock on it 24 hours a day 7 days a week and a strong moisturizer. But I can get back in the river, so smallies watch out! I am having to wear a compression glove now. I've got more pictures for you though. The first two are from 2 weeks ago that was the last visit to the burn center. The next one is today's. If you notice the funny stripes across my other fingers that's from the compression glove and take my word for it, they gave that thing the right name because it has compression. Again thanks so much for all the prayers and well wishes. The doctor really thought it miraculous how the wounds closed up and healed so quickly. I know Someone Higher Up is watching out for me. And wizard you're absolutely right, when it comes to hot plastic, no matter what the situation is, there is no room for complacency guys.

Gary, I'm a plastic manufacturer and all I do for a living is work in the fishing industry. If you will read my comment more carefully you will see that I said the industry as a whole was very hard to get information from unless someone was making a buck. No one said anything about TU. I'm a very big supporter of TU and give information anytime I can. I would not have asked the question on TU if I didn't think I could get an answer. But all of a sudden you've proven your own point you won't tell me but you'll tell my friend. And you put in red text I don't know of a single machine designed for cutting fishing lures as a first priority unless it is homemade. So didn't you just answer my question without all the sarcasm? Most of the technology used in China and manufacturing started in the US, so my customer can pick up the phone and call China and ask for a bait to be made. They say no problem send it to us. So there's no one in the US that would be willing to do this? Again no helpful link or information, just sarcasm. Bester, I didn't figure a duplicator would make a completely finished product. There would have to be some shaping work done, bills added, painted and so on. But I do appreciate your comments, thanks. There you go bluetickhound, that's some of what I was looking for. My customer is the type of fellow that probably wouldn't have a problem with the expenses, especially if he could pay for it for the cost of 3 or 4 years production in China. To me as a manufacturer when any person mentions any kind of product being made in China I think of very very large amounts. Finding out this information is very similar to what I went through trying to find out about plastic production equipment. And the first time I did find it, the folks wouldn't sell it to me. But I did have another person from the hard baits send me a link of where a duplicator can be purchased and I think he said for around $15000.00. To me that's not bad for a new piece of production equipment considering it's half the cost of a plastic machine. Thanks so much for your information. biggun, you a good man. Us NC boys got to stick together. I'll send you a PM back. Thanks.

I think the state of Texas have troopers that sit at the state line that wait for anglers to cross into Texas, and I think if they dont have some type of watermellon red bait they can be arrested or sent back across state line . I know one thing for sure watermellon red flake is king in Texas, a have to have in that state.

Gary I understand well the process involved in making crankbaits and I know it's nothing like plastic, but like plastic, wooden crankbaits are mass produced. A link or maybe a contact on a reproduction lathe is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for, and I'm sure you can buy one built and not have to build it yourself, just like plastic equipment. And like plastics getting information in this industry as a whole is very hard. No one shares unless they can make a buck. Yes I understand well that if there's any curves and other details that some hand work will have to be done. But with the precision belt sanders that's on the market now that's really no problem with a little practice. One thing about mass production, it's repetitive. Again, I personally am not looking for this information, just trying to help someone out. And I'm not asking how to do it, but where can my customer have it done in the US, or where would be a contact to buy some of the equipment that you've mentioned to set up his own shop? People raise cain about companies taking their products overseas to be produced, one thing about the folks in China, they're readily available with information. That's one thing about trying to get work done in the fishing industry in the US, information is so hard to come by, even my own customers (some of them) don't want anyone to know who produces their baits. If you or anyone else could list some contacts for the type of CNC machines or lathes that you are certain they use for crankbait reproduction, it would be greatly appreciated. There are people that design crankbaits, send them to the producer and say this is what I need. Somewhere in the US it is as simple as that. But like I said I'm having trouble finding this information. Biggun, thanks so much, that's exactly the kind of information I'm looking for. Like I said I'm sure the machines are out there for sale somewhere.

Greg, Toadfrog has given you a good start. You will find that all across the country that some form of watermellon and green pumpkins are a standard, different colors of flake will vary from region to region. I basicaly started this same sort of thread a few years back when I done a product test with North American Fishing Club magazine( which is a very economical way for a small person to advertise ) I think the name of the thread was "Colors across the U.S." or something like that. If you could find that thread, there was alot of good colors named for all different parts of the country, I used this information to pick out the colors for the test. If you can find it I think it will be a great help to you, there were some great posts made and it really helped me alot.

Garthsnooks is right, too big too fast in this industry especialy, has been the downfall of alot of small bait companies that have just started out.

Listen to Xfactor on this one, he's absolutley right the plastic market is wide open for the next new big thing, and even after the patents there will still be knock offs. Look at one of the last big baits, the sweet beaver(which is a patented bait) there are so many different versions of that bait in every way, shape, and form you can think of. Then you've got to keep in mind the cost of defending that patent, can you imagine Reaction's legal fees if they tried to sue every company that has tried to knock them off in some way or another? The other way that people cash in from new designs is that they take into considoration that it usually takes a big company 6 to 12 months to get the production mold made and do packaging, marketing, and so on. some companies instead of having patents and defending patents take the 6 to 12 month period to flood the market with the product, establishing a primary customer base with the ability to supply the demand no matter how big or small. Take Yamamoto's sinko for instance, there are a million stickbaits on the market now but there are those people that are going to throw yamamoto's and no one else's, keep in mind that this method is a huge gamble mainly because you're never sure how much product you will need, demand is very difficult to predict. Then you will have to consider marketing which is super super expensive, for example a 1/6 of a page ad in one of the most popular B.A.S.S. magazines i think is running in the neighboor hood of around 9000 bucks a month, even the very small ads are very expensive. some companies will be honest enough to tell you they cant be sure exactly how much business those bring in, word of mouth will always be your best marketing tool. then you've got your production mold cost then you do your production cost analysis then you think do i have time to do my own production and market my product too? then you start thinking about production equipment

Bluetick, my customer has been doing his homework and he is in agreeance that China is the place to go for cost efficeancy, but he is also considering them producing an unpainted product and then having the artwork done here in the states, this would give him some control over the finished product. So anyone that does air brushing on a large production scale feel free to chime in or PM me Littleriver, thanks so much for the link, i'll be sure to pass the information to my customer (if he hasnt already read it) one thing, he is wanting to use a different wood besides balsa I know reproduction machines are availible, the type where you can put the blank in one part and it replicate several baits at one time very fast. I can pretty well find out the secrets in the plastic industry, but where does one start to find out about this type of equipment, again any help given would be very much appriceated thanks, Mike

Hi folks, Carolinamike here. My thing is soft plastics, but i have a customer who is hunting for large production of a wooden crankbait. Can anyone tell me who does this type of work or where the equipment to do this type of work can be purchased, so far his best(cost wise ) is China. So if anyone has any other alternative some information would greatly be appriciated thanks, Mike

FLYguy, dimples in a plastic bait has nothing to do with venting. The dimples are caused by plastic shrinkage, the softer the plastic the more shrinkage you get. A medium hard to a hard formula plastic will take care of your dimpling problem. Keep in mind that the thicker the bait the more shrinkage will occur. A good example is the Z company lizard, almost all of them have a shrinkage dimple in the belly. Venting will not stop dimpling, venting is done to prevent air in capsulation also the more venting you have the faster you can fill the mold. I'm currently dealing with the same problem for a company that has a thick swim bait but they want it produced in a super soft plastic, and truthfully i dont know if its going to work or not. So far its not looking good with the prototype, i'll know more when the production mold comes in. As far as dimpling goes, a harder plastic should solve your problem.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Well, the story continues, rather than wait till the 12th (tomorrow) we decided to seek a second opinion. So I called the burn center in Chapel Hill NC. At first they told me to come up there immediately and come to their emergency room, but being that we're 3 1/2 hours away they arranged for us to be there by 1:00pm the next day, which was this past Friday. My local hospital hadn't even cut away any of the blisters to examine how extensive the burns were. When we arrived at the burn center they immediately cut away the blisters and admitted me to the hospital. Saturday morning the washing began. After my fingers were scrubbed clean I had a team of six doctors come in and examine me. Anyway, the diagnosis is 2nd and 3rd degree burns borderline skin grafts needed. So they told me to come back Tuesday (yesterday) and I got a good report. They said I had made remarkable progress and if things kept going like they are the skin grafts probably would not be necessary. Now I'm having to go through the rehabilitation and stretching exercises. And the stretching exercises I think are the worst of all. In two weeks I will have to go back to the burn center and be fitted with a compression glove which will correct the blood flow in my finger. Again I'm posting this to stress please please be careful. Keep something to immerse your hand in or somewhere you can pour cold water on a burn. This alone would have kept my burn from being so deep. And if you can work in a glove, then by all means do so. Here's the latest pictures. The first two are from Friday when I first arrived at the burn center. The next two are from Tuesday (my last report).

90% rubbing alchohol should help you out a lot. It will remove any oil or plastisizer on the outside of the bait and make for a better bond, it's also a cheap way to go.

That insight was my idea. I discovered that about 15 years back when I was a custodian working for the school system. The wax was a polymer based formula that spread and bonded with heat. It was actually used with high speed buffers but it makes a very long lasting coating and if you will actually soak the mold overnight make sure you have all the excess wax wiped off. Let it sit for a couple of days and dry. Then do about six thin coats, it also makes for a super strong POP mold. I've actually dropped them on concrete floors and only had the corners to chip instead of the whole mold shattering.

The accident happened Sunday, the hospital sent me to a general surgeon today. The general surgeon tells me that there's nothing he can do about that, that I will have to see a plastic surgeon, if it was my appendix he could fix it, but he can't do anything about my burns. So why did my hospital send me here? And now the plastic surgeon says he can't see me until a week from Thursday, so it looks like pain pills and silverdine ointment for the next week. Ya'll ever notice how pain puts you in a bad mood? Anyway here's pictures from 2 days later. Not looking good at all and my index finger is really swelled now. I'll keep you guys up to date and again please be careful.

Thanks guys I appreciate it, although I don't know if carelessness deserves sympathy. The burn is bad enough but if I would have had some water around I could have stopped it from being as bad as it is. Just a simple thing that I had done hundreds of times before. One little bump and I was in the Emergency Room for 5 hours, 3 shots of dilaudid, 1 percocet, just to make the pain tolerable enough for me to go home. And now a trip to the surgeon's office in the morning. But now that it's happened there's not a lot to be done except to heal or that's what I'm hoping anyway. I think my wife thought I was crazy when I had her taking pictures in the ER with her cell phone, but since the dirty deed was done, I thought it would be a good opportunity to show everyone what not to do.

Well, not practicing what I preach bit me in the butt yesterday. I cannot stress how important it is for hand pour folks to keep some sort of bucket or bowl with some cool water sitting to the side in case of emergencies. Here's the story... Yesterday I had to put watermelon candy on the machine, I haven't used that color in awhile, and we do store our barrels outdoors, so I always test a cup of plastisol in the microwave to make sure there's no water in it. All was going well, I heated a cup of plastisol for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I brought it out, stirred it up, no water so I'm good to go, right? As I started to sit the cup down, I bumped it on the edge of the table, which resulted in fresh from the microwave plastisol splashing on my hand and rather than taking a moment and bringing a small bucket of water out to the microwave with me, I opted to skip this procedure. Anyway, as the cup went down I bumped the edge of the table resulting in one big slosh, which immediately completely coated the back of my index finger, went down between my index finger and my middle finger, resulting in a very painful experience. With no way to immediately cool the plastic down, I was forced in haste to wipe it off of my hand, which resulted in removing the skin from my fingers also. Here's the pictures. The last one is the look of severe pain, they had just taken it out of the cool water, removed the skin that was hanging, applied ointment and wrapped it. I had it immersed in ice water the whole time, so when it was dried off, everything warmed up very quickly. I'm telling you it was just like I had gotten burned all over again. I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow to find out if skin grafts are going to be necessary. Please be careful and keep a bucket of cold water close by when doing hand pours!

The topic of the post is "How much would be too much?" the actual post ended with "How much would you pay?" when you knew from the begining you have to have $600 per unit and sell $180,000 worth to make your investment worth while. I think if you would've stated this in the begining you would have gotten better responces. The idea is new for the smaller folks but all of your large production machines not only circulate material from bottom to top but it also stirs it at the same time. I can do the same thing as this machine and produce 40 baits every 2 minutes (demolded) and all I do is mash a button. I'm all open for new products, there is one or two new machines premireing at Icast this year, but when you say you have something that is the best and produces the best product, from a manufactorer's point of view you should have some visual details about the product. Sounds like this gentleman is very inovative and at the start of a very good idea and I think there has been some very good comments made in this thread but I think a lot of it has been taken as critism when it should be looked at as consumer advice Camrynekai, sounds to me like you're on your way. For 600 bucks you know your consumers want something that can produce a large amount of baits to help pay for itself, but you've got to be open minded when you say you have something new. I'm glad you posted this thread there is alot of skilled guys on here and even though there were probably some things said that you didnt like you did hear what the need of the consumer was. Use your inovvation and your skills to fill these needs, don't just say "I don't like what i read" and stop your development of something new but take it all in with an open mind and fill the nich. This is how small companies turn into large companies.

Yeah I've built my whole business on flat open pour silicone and POP molds. Lurecraft used to make a smaller stick bait that just had a very tiny slit going through the mold to pour through. It was a very good mold and made a great 3/4 round bait. All of my private label big molds were modeled after these types of baits. There were very very few 2 piece molds available before David Alexander (Bear's Baits) standardized hand injection. The old open pour molds made baits that caught a lot of fish and it was easier for people to tell it was a hand crafted product because of the flat side.