carolinamike

croixboy, We can supply you with 1,000 up to 100,000 and we specialize in Mom & Pop businesses because we are one. Shoot us a PM, there's a lot we can talk about. Thanks,

Smallie is correct about consistency of your POP. Also if it's too wet it can cause your bait to float. But with enough practice you'll figure out the right consistency and you can actually make a mold without gluing the bait down. The weight of the plaster will actually hold the bait down. Here's a picture of two that I made. I just laid the bait in a small plastic dish that originally had a microwaveable meal in it. I didn't use anything to hold them down. The plaster was just right to hold it down for me. The gold colored one was made of dental stone plaster, and it is 3-4 yrs old. The white one was made from regular POP that you buy from Lowe's or Home Depot, and it's about 7 yrs old. They both make great baits still to this day.

I always mix my POP up in a 16 oz. plastic cup and then tap the cup on the table and the bubbles will come to the top. Then if you kind of swirl it around, you can work the real small bubbles to the middle and skim them off. Do this a couple of times, then use your coating on your bait. Make sure it's at the consistency that it will pour, start at one end of the mold and work your way to the other, pouring evenly, that way you push the air out to one end.

Ryan, Sorry, hit the wrong button. We buy ours from Hagen's.

Ryan, We

Sorry Jigfish, didn't get a chance to get any pictures. The crowd was unbelievable and with the lighting, I'm not sure how good they would have turned out.

I do the hand pours in a 12 x 9 concrete building right outside my back door. The big stuff, I do in a large garage separate from the house. It's a 20 x 28 concrete block building with a finished 20 x 20 work space. Here's some pictures of the hand pour operation.

There are some plastics that do well when re-melted, but most of your larger manufacturers' plastic does not do well at all, simply because once heated, you change the chemistry of the plastic, therefore you cannot achieve the same product as you started out with. You can however, chop this plastic up and mix it with raw plastic to recycle. I do know LC does well in re-melting, but another plastic that I'm using will not give me a good product when re-melted by itself. Don't get me wrong, you can re-melt the plastic and get a bait, but the quality will be poor and it's probably going to smoke and stink a lot.

Just got in from the Classic Expo in Greenville, SC. Lot of new products, a whole lot of swim baits. A couple of months back there was a thread talking about baits being copied, I was lucky enough to catch the demonstration at the large fish tank of GY's Senko. They actually promoted the bait as the most reproduced bait ever, I thought this was a very good way to look at other companies. The place was packed. Bill Dance, Forrest Wood, Ray Scott were there. I did see one hand pour booth but I'm pretty sure these baits were made in Mexico. Besides the crowd and the parking it was a really neat trip.

Thanks for the feedback Bruce. I was playing in the shop this weekend and just thought maybe someone would have some kind of idea. Just thought maybe I could figure out something before Monday.

I recently had a request for a bait in a clear chartreuse, a color known for bleeding. I received my coloring today and it is a powdered coloring. Out of 30 different pigments or more, and 8 years of pouring plastic, this is my first encounter with powdered coloring. I normally weigh my other coloring. I was just wondering if I use this coloring the same way. I'm mixing large batches, so the number of drops wouldn't help much. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The presto pot sounds real interesting, especially the way your heating two colors. Do you have a picture or two you would share?

You have the same trouble I'm experiencing, after 7 years the only thing I can tell you, you just have to learn your pots. All of mine are different, I don't really have one that heats up the same as the others, and Del is absolutely right on the way the heat control works for the Lee pot. My problem was even with the pot turned all the way down, it was still burning plastic. The dimmer switch did eliminate the problem. I actually have one pot that I have to start it heating 10 minutes before the others when I am doing 2 colors. For some reason this pot heats up slower than the others. But once it reaches temperature, it actually runs hotter than the rest. The only other thing I know you can do is add a temperature control, similar to the one on LC's pressure pot. PM me and can tell you where to get one but I'm not the person to tell you how to hook it up. I do know if you do this, you will also have to mount a temperature sensor on the pot. I'm just not sure of how much expense you will have in it after you're through. But again, after getting to know each of my pots, we do very well with them.

Bruce, Yes you can reuse the runners. It's called using regrinds. You have to run them through a meat grinder and then dump them into the raw plastic, but you have to be careful of your ratios or you produce junk. It takes every bit of 20-25 minutes to heat up and be ready to go, but it's really not worth doing for any less than 4 hours, and unlike hand pour plastic, plastic produced in this volume has to cure 24 hrs. You really have to handle the baits as little as possible because they will dent and have permanent impressions. You are more than welcome to drop by anytime, we're not far from Charlotte. But if you come, you've got to bring a cheese hat, my 10 year old loves the picture. Seasonal Depression, Thanks so much for the compliments, we're hoping to do better.

Here's a rack full of baits around 2 hrs worth of work, full runner of 54 baits (single bait to the right), and then the pump system, which actually does the injecting. It's funny, the heating system and pressures and all the other things that you play with, adjust and learn with a small homemade injector is the same way with the big machine. I'm still learning. Bruce, I looked at the the docks, can you believe there's baits to be made and he's building a house? He's got to get his priorities straight. I'm from the South, some of my friends bass boats cost more than their houses, and they're both on wheels.

Bruce, not exactly hand pour but definitely tackle making. The picture of the bait just shows a full 54 bait runner when it comes out of the mold. I would like to post it in the photo gallery but we're concerned about using photobucket. Would there be any objections to attaching more pictures to replies to this post? I also have pictures of the agitators, pumps, and the heat exchangers, if anyone is interested in looking at them. We're just not very experienced in posting pictures yet.

The machine is up and running now and we've made baits the past two weekends. We only have one mold, we are waiting on the others to arrive. I thought maybe some of you guys would like to see some pictures of the machine setup. The first picture is just of the machine with drums and everything ready to fire up. The second picture is of the presses which hold the molds. The third picture is of one side of the mold. We have more pictures of finished product and other parts of the machine, but 3 is the maximum to attach, so if you are interested in seeing more, let us know and we will be glad to upload them.

Chad, Shoot me an email via my website and we'll talk about this more. Thanks

I have 6 Lee pouring pots, 2 small 4 large that we use in our hand pour operation. Everyone of them the temperature is different. You will find the lower the plastic gets in the pot, the hotter it gets. After a year of trial and error and no matter how low you set the temperature, I was still burning plastic. One day while shopping at Lowe's, I discovered a dimmer switch for a lamp. You plug the dimmer switch into your outlet and then plug the pouring pot into the dimmer switch. This gives you a whole lot more temperature control. I don't use an automatic stirrer, I just stir regularly with a butter knife while I am pouring. This helps me to keep a closer eye on the plastic. I use LC 536. When your plastic is coming out of the spout, if it is smoking, then you are getting close to burning and most likely you are going to have a color change. Remember each pot is different. I've got one that you have to set on 5 to heat it up, 3/4 of the way through I have to turn the temperature completely down and adjust the dimmer switch. I have another one that I only have to turn the pot up to 4 but halfway through I have to turn the heat down. I think you will find this true with most Lee pots and remember if you are adding salt, it tends to heat up faster and hold heat longer, so you really have to pay attention here. We've used them for years. Just be patient, learn your adjustments and write them down so you will remember what you have done.

Brent, Sorry for not replying sooner, been trying to get the machine up and running. The only large worm is a 6 1/2" finesse type worm. We are in the future planning on adding some larger worms. We're just mainly starting out with your basic stuff to get the ball rolling. The crayfish is a good looking bait. I was wondering as far as the manufacturer of your mold did you deal with them yourself or was it through the company that's making your baits? I made my first serious shoot with the machine Saturday. We turned out 1134 pieces per hour with a 54 cavity mold. As you can guess, we have been real busy. Again I apologize for being so slow to respond.

Hi Brent, I tried to call but didn't reach you. My suggestion is to have Zorn molds make your mold and we'll be glad to produce your baits for you. Large scale production molds are expensive but if properly cared for last forever. Zorn set the standard for the soft plastic injection industry and you will not find better people around to work with. Ray Guess is the all-seeing all-knowing plastic guru. His company does fantastic work and he is just an absolute pleasure to work with. Molds probably start anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 dollars. It's according to what you want in the bait. If you want a two color bait, for instance a chartreuse tail on a worm or either a two color laminate, then your mold will have to be made to accomodate this. These molds are a whole lot different from the hand pour type molds. The one I'm playing with right now weighs about 122 pounds. As you can guess, these are large pieces of equipment. As for the longevity of the product, you will not find a better investment. Zorn's number is 205-681-1466. Ask to speak with Ray and tell him Mike and Angie Greene referred you. If there is any other way I can be of assistance, just let me know. You can email me through my website and I can give you my personal email address and phone #.

Josh, what you are talking about is exactly the business that me and my wife are starting up. At this time, we have the latest and the best pneumatic plastic injection machine available in the US. You can have a mold made to fit our machine at Zorn Molds in Trafford, AL. You need to speak with Ray and just mention Mike from Carolina Baits. Our machine is a two color injection machine so if you have your mold made to do so we can shoot two colors, meaning the head one color and the tail another color or a two color laminate, one color on top of another color. If this works out, you would actually be our first customer with the new equipment. We have making plastic baits for about 8 years now. We will be glad to help you in any way we can or anyone else out there who would like their baits mass produced. We'll be glad to do the plastic hard or soft in whatever colors you need to meet your specifications. Thank you, Mike Carolina Baits

Hey guys, I know for sure that one way they sell the baits so cheap when doing injections they're probably shooting 80-100 worms every 1&1/2 minutes. That's about our turn around time with our injection machine. It's really according to size of the bait, which determines the number of cavities in the mold. We hope that our production is different from other companies as we try to use a top quality plastic to meet the customers specifications, and we are very capable of pumping heavy salt. Another thing to remember is the big boys probably only have between 20 and 40 bucks in 5 gallons of colored plastic, which as you know will make a lot of baits. As for us, we are trying to stay away from the cheaper plastics but if the customer wants it cheap and doesn't mind the difference then we will use whatever plastic they prefer. After over 7 years of hand pouring, this is a whole new experience.

We are about 1 hr west of Charlotte. The Chinese place beside the BBQ stand is pretty good too.

We'd be glad for you to stop by and visit. I used to work for a school in Shelby, NC. The principal at the school now lives in Youngsville. That's the town where he's from. So I don't think you're too far from us. Drop by and we'll compare western NC BBQ to eastern NC BBQ.