carolinamike

I agree 100% Jim. Green pumpkin's #1 around here, but so far watermelon is king in Texas. Hag's first inital order did not even include green pumpkin but of course you know I told him that green pumpkin is a have to. It excels well for him, but watermelon with different color flakes and different laminates are what I make the most for him. It really made me feel good to see this post, the color was kind of a joint effort between me & Hag on the development point. We first did the color without flake, after we sent 3000 to him, he decided he would like it better with the flake added. The color's kind of a knock off of another company. We just put a different twist on the idea. It was really surprising to see some of my work pop up like this, needless to say, Tigerfire made my day!

Yes Tigerfire I find myself making this color a lot. Nope Jim, it ain't green pumpkin.

Don't know how it was made, but it's definetly custom and very patriotic!

Well it's been almost two years since we decided to up the operation from hand pour to mass production. With the idea being buy our own molds, and make our own baits. This quickly turned into producing baits for other companies. Last year we were lucky enough to have a bait featured in North American Fishing Club magazine and done very well on the product review. Well, the Hag's Tornado has made the Nov/Dec issue of FLW magazine in the buyer's guide for 2010 section. It really makes you feel good to see something you have made go so far. Production of these baits started in Dec 2008 and so far it's been a very good year for the Tornado. I'd just like to say thanks to Jerry and all of our other TU friends that's cheered us on since I've joined TU. I like the changes to the website, but it's going to take some getting used to. God has really been kind to us this year and I pray His blessings to you all.

Clemmy, try telling that to my customer who has invested thousands of dollars in molds. It'll always be custom to him, and yes that's exactly what I'm trying to say, every bait out there is custom to the person that developed it, produced it or sold it to another company for mass production. I have one bait in my private label line that's a very small bait that I actually started out hand pouring, then hand injecting and now machine injecting. I've sold millions of these things and replicated colors thousands of times, and I will always feel this is my custom bait, as any bait developer would. It's just that I hear a lot of people talking about hand pour, hand injected, it's really just a matter of pride. Be it hand poured, hand injected or machine injected, it really comes down to the person doing the work that makes a quality product. I can mass produce almost any type of soft plastic, be it super soft to saltwater hard. The word custom as it relates to this industry covers a wide area. But no matter how you look at it if you developed a bait today and let's say sold it to Strike King and made your millions you would announce to the world that you custom designed that bait for Strike King and to you it would always be custom.

Clemmy, I understand what you're saying in a way, but I feel you're classifying the word custom wrong here. I'm currently working with a customer developing new colors that are unique to his custom baits. This customer has spent years in developing. A lot of time has been put into testing prototypes, not to mention numerous revisions made to baits in order for them to have the custom action that the customer desires. So he's got his dream now with a lot of money to invest to mass produce his custom products for the market. So now because it's being made by mass production to be sold to everyone in his custom designs and colors, you wouldn't consider this to be a custom bait anymore? At some time or another I believe every bait in the fishing industry is custom to some poor old soul who spent a lot of time and effort in testing, developing, retesting and revising to come up with a successful product for the mass market. I understand what you're saying about the crankbait market and the plastic market's not that much different, but I'm sure Ed Chambers at Zoom still feels he has custom products, even though they're common to me and you. Like I said, I kind of understand what you're saying, but I also feel like you're saying that when I do custom work that goes out to you and everyone else in the mass market, it ain't custom no more. Let's not forget about us poor fellows that really work hard to help develop baits, although most companies almost never publicly acknowledge their injectors, we still take pride in the custom work we do and the products we produce.

Deke95, Glad I could help you out. It's nice to find good people in this business isn't it? Thanks for your willingness to share the information on patents that you found out. This is just such a shadowy subject, you never know if you're getting the right answers. From what the attorneys have told me, the basic decision is always left up to the judge, which in turn leads to who can afford the most representation. Things are setup for the big boys for sure. FishingBuds, Stanley is definitely the larger player in this game as far as money goes. It started with Lake Fork, Grande improved on Lake Fork, Hag improved on Grande and Stanley copied Hag. FLW magazine is featuring an article in the Nov/Dec issue about the Hag's Tornado. I think Grande is scheduled for the Jan/Feb issue. I think also in this issue they're going to do a comparison of the baits. Tommy's in the process now of coming out with a 6 1/2" Tornado worm and a ringed craw bait. The drawings look great! I think the Hag's also has the most variety of colors.

Bassnut, Even though Zoom's trick worm has a flat bottom, it's still definitely an injected bait. Del's right the softness of the plastic has everything to do with the action of the bait. For instance, our 6 3/4" finesse worm (trick type worm) has 78 cavities, most injectors make their plastic a little harder because those 78 worms hang on a bar and cure for 24 hours before packaging. This is done so that the weight of the worms does not break the runner (the center core of the mold) the worms are attached to. When you're doing high end injection, time is money and you don't want to spend time picking up worms off of the floor. One of the ways we keep our baits softer and keep action to the bait is we break the runner in several places, that way we don't have so much weight suspended.

Potter, When I was doing hand pours, I always had smoke with LureCraft plastic. Remember you want good ventilation. If you're trying to get a clear bait with no bubbles, stir gently and slowly. Stirring too fast will incorporate air into the plastic. If the plastic was clear, then I don't think the plastic was too hot. Usually if clear plastic gets too hot it develops a yellow tint. All this will come with practice. The key is figuring out what not to do wrong as much as it is what to do right. When you get your heat and your pouring down, another way to be sure to get consistent color is to weigh it. A good starting point is about 1 gram of coloring per 20 oz of plastic. A lot of people use drops, but then you're hoping you squeeze the bottle the same every time, or hope that you don't add two drops when you only meant to add one. Doing it by weight, you always get the same color every time. A little more tricky to learn, but you'll always have confidence in your colors. carolinamike

Delw, I agree with you 100%. In my opinion, which was what my last post was about, was just that, my opinion, and meant for the cheerleaders, vendors and everybody else to read. Nothing personal towards anybody. If I could help you as well as Bear on anything or anybody else for that matter, I'd be glad to. But just in the last little while I've noticed a couple of threads besides this one, kind of veering off to the bad. I'd just like to see TU as a pure thing(to be able to set competition and arguments to the side), and stick to really helping with solutions to problems that plastic luremakers have. I've seen the video of the hand injector doing the core shot bait and have to admit I'm very impressed, but with any piece of equipment, be it injector or chain saw, training and knowledge are a must. The main thing I like is people are actually seeing for themselves that the injection process has nothing to do with the integrity of the bait. It's more what components are used and how much care is put into the actual production. Delw I logon daily to TU and am impressed and surprised everyday with all the new things that come up. I haven't posted a whole lot here lately, we've really been busy. I just don't want to see TU turn into some of the same things that other fishing forums have. Take the great ring worm war of Texas for instance. There's just so many people gotten bad and hurt feelings and now a lot of people are mad at each other, I just don't want that to happen here. Everybody just seems to get along so well and somebody's always willing to help out. Again, this was just an opinion in general and not aimed at anyone. Your friend, carolinamike

Like I said, leave the arguing and heated discussions for the PM department. Bear's injectors seem to be kind of a new product that a lot of people are interested in. If you have concerns with safety and need instructions on how to use the product, then by all means you should privately talk to the vendor, be it by phone or PM. It's not right for any vendor or member, that is a member of TU, to publicly bash or try to pin down the other one. TU's about giving and receiving help, not about selling products. That's what Jerry was kind enough to put the classified section in for. All products in the plastic industry end up getting improved on. The way this is usually done is someone uses a product and is somewhat satisfied with the performance but figures out a little bit better way to make it work. It's things like this that should be posted and done in a way as not to badmouth a product but to say, "Hey this is what you can do to make it a little better." Whether it's an injector, a mold, a pouring pot, or a color. All bashing does is make the moderators have to work harder. I have received and given advice now for awhile now on TU. I've noticed that most arguments like this usually end up between two vendors selling similar products. The bottom line for the vendors is CUSTOMER SERVICE. If you figure out a better way, then contact the vendor privately, he could agree and you could actually help put a better product on the market. Hand injectors have always been a touchy subject. For my hand injections I use an old pressure pot. And man, I know how those things get bashed. But I've made so many safety improvments on mine that I think it's a fine instrument of destruction. But I'll guarantee that there's people on here that will tell you it's a bomb waiting to go off. Another thing is a lot of people profit off of TU, through sales and free plugs. If you're going to bash somebody else's product and you decide you just have to publicly bash it, you need to sit back and think about what TACKLE UNDERGROUND has done for you! And figure out if it's fair to TU before you make the post. Remember, the vendors aren't the main ones that need help, it's the members. Just one redneck's opinion. carolinamike

I always found it easier to use a 5 gallon bucket for one reason, I used to use LC hand pour plastic, we all know it has a little more settling than others, it always made it convenient for mixing. A 1/2" electric drill and a $5 paint stirrer from Lowe's done the job. It was convenient just to dip out what I needed and then put the lid back on, even for smaller amounts. Unplug the drill, wipe off the stirrer and the dipping cup, set them on top of the bucket and it was as easy as that. After you get down toward the bottom, just slowly pour out what you need. Just make sure when you empty it from the 2 1/2 gallon container that it's really mixed up well and you don't leave anything on the bottom of the container. Just thought I'd throw something different in there.

Guys this has made for interesting reading. The first thing I'd like to say is LET'S PLAY NICE. I just don't want to hear, "I'm gonna take my ball and go home". All jokes aside, it's a good idea to use the Viton O-rings. This is what's used in high production injection machines. This is made of a chemical resistant material that will withstand temperatures from -15 degrees F to 400 degrees F. In a hand injector they ought to almost last forever. The old injection valves I had on the machine used two o-rings. Some of our larger baits we run we actually do crank it up to 400 degrees F, and they hold up fairly well. Even with the high production use that we put them through, most of the time they would last a couple of months before I would have to change them, and we're talking thousands of cycles in 2 months time. So you should be able to avoid o-ring wear. As far as flashing goes, I still use the pressure pot I made as a sample shooter for single cavity molds and have had to use up to 15 lbs of pressure for one or two of the complicated molds. If a single cavity mold is clamped tight enough, with normal pushing pressure on a hand injector, there really shouldn't be any flashing, unless you're really bearing down on it. I shoot a lot of prototypes for samples, and in small molds flashing shouldn't be a problem. Guys, any of us that has been doing this for any amount of time should surely have common sense and awareness of hot pressurized soft plastic. Any application no matter who makes it or sells it, should be done very carefully. Of course accidents are going to happen, just use common sense and take precautions. I think if we know of a problem or have a concern about any product that's sold by a TU member, let's be kind enough to PM about the problem and not discuss it openly. Guys remember this is the plastic business. Knock offs, re-do's, and badmouthing seems to be the norm, no matter where I go in this business. TU's about helping each other out, let's leave this for the PM department. Share the love,

Matt, I'm lucky being strictly production now has taken me out of the retail game, but of course, being that I make the Tornado, Tommy's sales do affect me directly. As far as the patent goes, things have gone way too far for a patent. But just think, if someone like Lake Fork who kind of started this thing and would have done their homework on patents, it's hard to tell what might have come of it. As far as the patent itself goes, there is actually TWO DIFFERENT TYPES of patents: a patent for the design of the product then there is also a patent on a function of the product. It was this type that I ran into with Zoom. They have a ridge on the outside of the chunk tail. Their patent claims that this one small ridge is what causes the unique action of the bait, along with a lot of other key points too. If the patent would have been approached in a manner that the rings made the bait perform a special way, then a patent could be possible if it would've been done early enough (we're talking years earlier). Most baits that have patents have the patent # on the packaging. These are easily looked up online throught the US Patent office. Of course, they're worded for lawyers to read but you can usually get an idea of the main points of the bait because the same parts will keep coming up in the patent over and over. I guess now it's just left up to who likes what product the best. Bountiful, You're absolutely right, Tommy does fair business and honest business. He deals mainly with Mom & Pops and already has a very good customer base. He has very reliable customer service. I don't care what kind of business you're in, if you conduct your business the way you're supposed to, I've always found that the Lord takes care of you.

Smallie, I hoped that someone would get around to pulling up the website. I thought the whole opening statement was hilarious. Stanley's been around a long time and from what I hear, Lonnie's not in the best of health these days and I don't want to bad mouth them, but if there is such a word as "knocker offer" it could apply here. Acuna, You're right the ring worm war of Texas has been something else, it's hard to say who's going to come out on top on this one. Sometimes I really wish there was more cooperation among companies in this business, but competition will always prevent this. But truthfully, there should be enough business for everyone. As far as Academy goes, I've kind of heard through the grapevine that they're actually working out a deal with Stanley, but look at the Senko and the Sweet Beaver, hundreds of knock offs and both baits still sell very well. Pike, I agree with you that sometimes it is more profitable to sell than to compete, but the problem on this deal is the offer that they made just didn't seem to be sufficient, being that first year that the bait's out, it made as much as the offer. So it's really hard to say what to do in this case. Do you hope that sells are good next year and you equal the offer or do you sell, not feeling confident that you'll do as much business as the year before. But the way it was worded to Tommy was "OK, you don't want to sell, then we're coming out with a knock off" and actually told him the name of the worm. That just goes to prove that you're right, if what a big company has planned doesn't work out, the alternative plan is already in place. Living by the Golden Rule, the man with the gold, makes the rules.

Well Guys, We had a very interesting situation to come up today and thought maybe some of you would get a kick out of this. And yes there is a lesson to be learned on this one. I know some of you read some of the other fishing forums so some of you might know about the dispute between GrandeBass's Rattlesnake and the Hag's Tornado worm. Ring worm type baits have been around for awhile. This thing started out in Texas and GrandeBass became real popular, with basically two styles of this worm. The Hag's Tornado came along with the same type of design except in different sizes and has a neat rattle chamber design. We are lucky enough to be producing the Hag's Tornado, anyway, today I got a call and Stanley has come out with the Sidewinder, a ring type bait with a little bit different tail with a rattle chamber. Now all is fair in love and war (war being the plastic business). The thing that a lot of people don't know is that several months back Stanley approached both companies about buying them out. To make a long story short, I know Hag's didn't feel the offer was fair. After refusing to sell, the gentleman from Stanley told him that they were knocking off his worm and were going to call it the Sidewinder. Well it happened. Guys, I've been one of the main ones to say I didn't feel like a patent was necessary, but tonight I'm sitting down to a big plate of crow pie. I can't help but think what the offer from Stanley would have been if this was a patented bait. Matt at MattLures has always stood up with several others on TU for patenting baits and tonight I'm in total agreement. Although it's expensive to obtain and can be even more expensive to defend, in a case like this, it just makes you wonder what could have happened if this had been handled differently. I guess the lesson to be learned here is if you come up with a good idea be careful how you move forward with it. Just the other day, we had to sign an extensive confidentiality agreement just to look at a drawing of a bait, so there are a lot of safety precautions you can take. In the past if I ever offended anybody by my stance on the patent issue, then I truly apologize. Oops, almost choked on a crow bone! Maybe this will be an interesting conversation for a couple of days, who knows.

Guys help me out with this one. What is the claim? I did read over but I still don't understand exactly what they're saying the soft plastic is doing to the fish. As far as trout fishing goes, my state did ban the use of scented soft plastic for trout fishing. But that was mainly because that poor guy flopping that fly back and forth on the water was watching the guy on the bank with a spinning reel and a Berkely Power worm catch fish after fish after fish. The claim was that the scented bait caused the fish to eat if faster, but the swallowed hook was the issue here not the soft plastic. I've been fishing soft plastics since I was old enough to hold a fishing rod, I can't tell you how many times I've pulled up a largemouth with a rubber worm hanging out of his butt. So I always figured this too will pass. I'm 47 years old and I have never once seen a fish that you could say for sure died from soft plastics. I've seen fishing line with a lead sinker hanging out of the fish, I even had a largemouth that two legs and the tail of a lizard was hanging out and it wasn't plastic, it was what was left of the real thing. Not too long ago I caught a smallmouth with a crawfish claw sticking out of his butt. So knowing that fish eat, digest and pass all of these things, I'm just really confused. I've caught many fish that didn't look healthy(largemouth with big heads and little bodies) and have cut these open and never once in over 30 years of fishing have I found a swollen or rotting piece of plastic. So if somebody could just give me the roundabout of exactly what the problem is or is it the same problem everywhere. Or is it more of an environmental issue than an issue with the fish itself.

Machine laminates are all about pressure and temperature. Also remember darker colors absorb more heat. Your problem is your darker color is hotter than your lighter color. As a rule of thumb, you always start out with equal temperature and pressure. Timing mainly has to do with making sure that your bait is fully formed. I've been working today on a color that's similar to what you're after. For some reason a darker green such as watermelon or black melon always wants to wrap a lighter color. Baby bass is another color that is very hard to laminate, things have to come together just right. You're more than welcome to have your injector to contact me. PM me for contact info, and maybe I can talk him through what he needs to do. It's two different machines but the principles are the same. Sometimes you even have to let the temperatures meet, what I mean by that is if one temp is dropping and the other is rising you may have to wait for the moment in which the temps line up to make the actual injection. This will slow down production some, but it's better to be a little slower and make good baits than waste plastic. If I need to talk to you more about this, like I said, PM me. There's a couple of guys out there that don't like for you to tell machine secrets. I agree, it's silly. Out of 67 shots this evening, there was probably 15 that only half the laminates came out right and it was all because one temp was hotter than the other. I'm not sure how big your bait is, remember, the further plastic has to travel, the more it forgets what it's supposed to do. It may not seem like it, but you guys are on the right track, that's the way my first ones came out.

Guys this is probably going to surprise a lot of you, most of your large injectors will dip some baits in ice water to retain the shape of the bait and to keep the bait from stretching when the runner is hung. The reason I know this for sure, I'm fixing to start a bait for a company that injects from the side of the bait. If you hang it, it causes one side to bulge out, so it looks like this one gets an ice water bath before being hung. But like everyone else I am concerned about the water being around the plastic, but my cooling system is a large container of water that is open to the air and so far there's been no problems.

Recently we've had another incident to come up or should I say one of our customer's did. I think some of you know we produce the Hag's Tornado for Mr. Hagler out of Texas. He recently received a letter from Bass Pro Shop which explained to him that he was guilty of trademark infringement. You see, BPS has the Tornado spinnerbait and they have trademarked the name. He's been on the market about six months and his bait is doing very well, not to mention that he just ordered $2000 worth of hats and shirts. To have to change his name would lead to a phenomenal. After meeting with his attorney, and being assured that he was definitely guilty of infringement, he asked his attorney to write a letter and plead his case to BPS. Believe it or not, they agreed to let him use the name, they did put a few stipulations but nothing that will be hard to follow. Just think about how much clout BPS has, not to mention money and power. I think this says a lot for an organization this big. It's a breath of fresh air to the industry. The more I learn about the plastic business and the more I'm involved, it doesn't take too long to figure out that it's very very very competitive! To have a company this size to give the small businessman a break says a lot. I now feel that BPS, to be a big box store, has some stand up people running the operation. I hear so much about big companies pushing little companies down and of course we had our little run in with the Z company, I thought maybe you folks would like to know that there are some folks you can actually get along with in this business. Not really sure if this is the place for this thread, but it is about a plastic bait. Hope everyone is doing well in TU land.

Matt, I forgot to mention those come in 2.5 inch and 3 inch. PM me if you want their color list.

Hey Matt, How in the world are you? Sending you a PM.

Contact Bear Baits, if he don't have it, he can get it, and burple is the name of the color. Burple is purple when it's out of the water and brown when it's in the water.

Bear, Is the hole on the bottom smaller than the one on top? If so, then it's definitely a shrinkage problem. What happened by flipping it over, if the hole is bigger, when the plastic cools it's pulling back the other way, if that makes sense to you. In other words, the bigger hole was allowing it more room to shrink. By going from the other end, it cooled faster at the big hole end, not allowing the shrinkage. I kind of felt sure it was a shrinkage problem and if it works better from a small hole instead of a large hole, then that kind of summed it up. Hope that helps you understand a little more of what was going on.

Chris, True pigment will not bleed, but dyes do bleed. That's the reason that non-bleed chartreuse is a little opaque (you can't see through it). You can't really get a totally clear true pigment. Automate red (the color used in red shad), clear chartreuse are severe bleeding colors. Cherryseed, redbug and blue fleck also use automate red, so these colors will bleed. I've never had any trouble with watermelon or green pumpkin and you can make these in a clear plastic that you can see through, but you accomplish this by just weakening the color. But on all of our baits that are two colored be it laminates or tails, the non bleed chartreuse works great and I can honestly say that I've never had it to bleed once. I thought this might help you understand a little more why some colors bleed and some don't.