carolinamike

Yes most baits made from pop molds have a flat side, although there's several people that have had success making a two-piece pop mold. Most people that want a completely round bait use injectable aluminum molds. The pop molds are usually not injected, they're used for open pours just like the silicone molds that Lurecraft sells. Hollow chambers can be made by using a piece of copper wire. You can pour the bait around the wire, leaving one end of the wire sticking out of the top of the mold. When the bait sets up, slide the wire out. This will give you a hollow chamber.

Pop molds are easy and fun to make, it takes a little bit of practice but once you get it down you can make a mold with almost any bait. Years ago I even used pop molds in production work and my favorite crawfish bait is still made from a pop mold and plus its still the most economical way to get a custom mold. One of the main things is to seal it good, alot of people use glue and water but I prefer a high quality acrylic floor wax. But whether you use pop, silicone, or aluminium molds, once you catch a fish on your own bait you will "plastic head" so welcome to TU and your new addiction and if you are married go ahead and buy something nice and expensive for your wife now to make up for the money you are fixing to spend. Glad to have you aboard!

Why the ban ?

Lureworks 2125 clear red is non bleed

U.S. patent No. 6,237,275 B1 Date of patent May 29,2001

There are a few big companies that are manufactorers but they mainly manufactor and retail there own product. These type of companies want to buy the product straight out in manufactoring, Mann's is one company that operates this way. There is a major manufactorer of soft plastics that manufactors for other companies and also has a retail company, they would also want to purchase the baits straight out. Look at it from a manufactorer's point of view, like my self, I would pay 3%, do all the testing, all the marketing, and basically taking the chance of whether or not the bait would sell. Thats the reason most baits that are purchased are done so after they have been out on the market, the original owner of the patent took the chances. I've worked with several patented baits and I always have to sign non-disclosure forms and other things to safe gaurd the baits and some have sold well and some haven't. There is a company that I do work for right now that has a patented bait and it is actually for sale, and this gentleman went through the trouble of getting the patent, having a production mold made, and didn't take in account how much time and effort it would take to market the product. RFP, that company is located in your state.

Guys one thing everyone needs to keep in mind, there's no such thing as a US patent in China, as far as the Chinese are concerned. It's all about money to those folks. When a product is being made that far away, you have no idea who they're marketing your product to. They don't just produce for the US. Remember in the fishing industry, they pretty much go by the golden rule: the one with the gold rules.

Many others besides you have learned this lesson, there are no secrets in china, as soon as you submit your design they start marketing it to bigger names with more money. I know a gentleman that was actually having a product produced in china and all of the sudden he was told that they could no longer produce the bait, a few months later one of the big companies came out with the exact same bait, I mean it was exactly the same bait and guess what it said on the bag, you got it, "made in china". That is the reason soft plastics are slowly coming back to the U.S., there is no honesty and you get poor quality and its almost impossible to send them back, when it comes to soft plastics there is something to be said for made in America.

George, its ok if you disagree with me but i'm not sure exactly what you are disagreeing with. Whether it be for a hobbiest or someone selling the product off of the molds, illegal is illegal. And also when you sell a person 40 molds I think its pretty easy to figure that its more than a hobby, and like Garthsnooks said, they're continuing to advertise the mold for sale, and from reading their forum they have openly addmited that they dont know whether the mold is legal or not. I just dont call that being very responsible. Just as soon as Bear even thought that his mold might be in question he immediatly pulled it from his website, so as to not sell a customer a product that might be patent infringement. Why continue to sell something that you may have to at a later date tell your customers not to use it because its illegal. Since the product has been questioned, they should stop selling the mold until they get their facts straight and as much that has been posted on all the forums everyone should know that this mold may not be legal. The odds are a hobbiest probably won't get caught but the fact of the matter is illegal is illegal, until proven otherwise in this case.

Sorry Frank, I'm speaking strictly from an operator's point of view. You are correct if you're saying that the upright machines are easier to make laminates than a pie mold machine. But some folks have no trouble at all, and then others just can't do it. I guess what I should have said is for someone that knows what they're doing there's not that much in the difference in the difficulties. But when it comes to laminates, by far the most difficult to do is the cross over laminates, where the bait actually laminates at the nose of each individual cavity. My wife is an ace at this type.

Ipt, we're really not that big, we are the biggest in the Carolinas. There are some companies that have between 15 and 30 machines. We can produce 30 to 40 thousand pieces a day. Molds vary in weight from about 45 to 150 pounds. We are strictlly a family affair, My wife and I and my oldest Son operate the equipment and my 12 year will pick baits off the runners. But I started out like everybody else on here, pop molds, hot plates, lee pots, and microwave. Did you click on the photos? There is a couple of shop pictures that arn't shown when you first open my businesses facebook page, thanks for looking at it.

Here's the difference in pie molds and a production mold. A single pie mold is not really considered a production mold nowadays. There's not a whole lot of companies still using pie molds. When you've been doing this as long as I have, you can tell a whole lot about the production process by just looking at a bait, especially when they're still attached to the runners. Like I said above, you can see my machines on our Facebook page. www.facebook.com/carolinabaits The large mold is set up for two colors (body one color, tail different color) something you can't do with a pie mold.

Their production rate per minute tells me what machines they are using, like you i've been told that they use pie mold machines and the numbers of bait they produce per minute is the cycle time of one machine. Pie molds are round and Zorn may have made some for them but thats not who is currently producing their molds. Pie mold machines have good and bad points, baits made with imbeded hooks, extra large heavy salt, and things like swimbaits that are made with the large piece of hologram in the middle are almost all usually made with pie mold machines. One thing about a pie mold machine is you can remove the mold quickly and install a mold quickly. If you are doing a bait, such as a pre rigged swimbait, then you can be sitting one mold up while the other is shooting, pie molds are about half the cost of a big mold with half the production rate. Those are standard sized runners (runners are usually 3/8 or 3/16) if you want to see my machines you can go to our new facebook page which is listed under carolina baits, click on some of the catagories and you can see the difference in the length of the runner from my baits and the length of the runner of the other bait, that was another thing that told me what type of machines they were using. As far as waste goes we have the same amount. Frank, there is no difference between the difficulties of lamination, its all a matter of time, temperature, and pressure. It may be a little faster to dial in a pie mold machine but once you get either machine adjusted laminates go well. Its something to watch 90 worms laminate at the same time.

I always heard that they use the small machines and their baits per minute confirms that, now understand a little more why they came after me. My rate of production per machine is double their's, I can do 88 per minute with a 5 inch finess worm and 70 worms per minute with a 7 inch. Also the type of machines they use and the way the molds are placed on the machines is what enables them to pump that big table salt. cbj11lbs, thanks for posting that.

Spike-it is lureworks one in the same.

Since the question was about a patent infringment is it not the responsibility of a moldmaker to have general knowledge, just like the hunting? Is a patent # on a package and listed on a website not a reasonable way to know that you are infringing? I did not say that you were suggesting for someone to violate the patent. But you were suggesting that by not knowing that the product is patented, that no legal action could be taken, which is a false statement. As far as how much Zoom made me pay, all of my legal fees and remember I had no knowledge of this and I also had no way of knowing whether or not the information Zoom gave me was correct. You're basically trying to argue with me but what you're really trying to say is what the patent attorney told me is wrong. Contact any federal law enforcement agency and run your theory by them and you will be told whether you know the law or not, if you break it, you can be prosecuted. It's very simple, if you infringe on a patent, you're breaking the law. How is that not simple? And again, pertaining to federal patent laws, and after I have talked to a patent attorney, who explained to me in a situation such as the question that was asked in the beginning, that ignorance of a patent law is no excuse. I was referring to no other law but patent laws. The knee jerk comments were made when someone just decides to argue for the sake of arguing, who says they are not a lawyer, and to always contact a lawyer, and then the person that did contact a lawyer posts what they were told by the lawyer, and then you tell them that the information I received does not pertain to the subject. Go back and quote where I was talking about anything other than patent infringment, besides the examples that I gave, when you alone decided that my comment pertained to every law in existence, which it did not. My comment pertained to the question that was asked at the beginning of this thread. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't spend my time just looking for an argument. I try to be responsible enough to shoot people the facts to keep someone from winding up in the situation that I found myself in. After all, I was as innocent as the guy that was thinking about purchasing the mold. I tried to help someone to avoid a costly situation that I found myself in. In what way did you help answer the gentleman's question, or did you just spend your time scrutinizing my comments? After all, I am the one that paid the patent attorneys for the information.

Sun Fish, maybe you could post a picture of the bait. It would help us all in evaluating what your problem is. Usually small parts of the bait dont dent, dents usually occur at the thickest part of the baits due to plastic shrinkage. Frank could very well be right, but without actually seeing the bait and a close up of the problem we are all just kind of guessing.

How does a county ordinance about sandals and flip flops pertain to federal patent laws? Just because a law is not enforced does not make it legal. Breaking the law is breaking the law. Contact your local magistrate and ask them if you don't know about a law are you still breaking the law or not. Ignorance of the law is no excuse has as much to do with the law today as in times past. Go to a state that you have no idea of what their hunting seasons are and start hunting. If it's not hunting season, whether you know it or not you will still be arrested for poaching. Also the same way with fishing laws. And even nowadays people commonly receive citations and are prosecuted for these exact things. What about the person who is innocently sitting in a car and their friend goes in and robs a store and they have no knowledge of what the friend is doing, they still get jail time. Take me for example, do you think I would have spent $12,000 on molds if I had any idea I was infringing on a patent? But yet I am guilty of patent infringment and cannot produce product off of my molds. I had no knowledge of this, but I'm still guilty and it's still my responsibility to have found out whether or not I was infringing. Therefore, I'm still bound by the law to abide by the cease and desist or risk further legal action. And I had no knowledge whatsoever of the law. These are just examples. Again, if it's against the law, it's against the law. And to advise anyone otherwise, is very irresponsible. I am saying these things because I did contact an attorney. A couple of them as a matter of fact. And letters were even sent back and forth from each attorney. And if it would have went to court, I would have had to have paid money for all the times that I did not know I was breaking the law. This is what the patent attorney explained to me. Bottom line is, if the mold is illegal then the product from the mold is illegal. I was also assured of this by the patent attorney. And yes I did ask the question, "even though I didn't know it?" and his answer was to me, "it doesn't matter, infringment is infringment." I myself would never suggest to anyone, oh you can do it until you get caught. They can't do anything to you. This is just irresponsible and not very good advice. I personally don't want to see anyone get in trouble or take a chance of getting in trouble. And if I hadn't talked to an attorney and I wasn't sure of these facts, then by all means I would not post it and then say check with an attorney.

Also hold pressure on the mold for 30 seconds or so before removing the injector. This will help prevent denting, and by the way, welcome to TU.

Try your plastic being a little hotter than what you're shooting now, and inject it slower. This gives the plastic time to push out any air instead of wrapping around it and trapping it. Also be sure to top off your mold.

If you ask any law enforcement officer or court official they will tell you real quick ignorance of the law is no excuse, but think about it for a minute, its a very popular bait and none of the other major mold makers have the mold, that there is enough for a red flag. I agree with you that the consumer is kind of innocent on this thing, but not knowing that its illegal cannot stop you from being prosecuted. I know this because my wife is deputy clerk of courts at our local court house. It boils down to an irresponsible mold maker not caring about his customers as much as he does his money, some of these guys need to do there homework before they put a copy for sale.

ipt, the mold itself that the mold company is selling is illegal. So making a bait off of it would also be illegal. The Sweet Beaver name is copyrighted and the bait itself is patented. And Andre protects it very well. And he also monitors TU. So most likely, Linmarfishing is going to receive a phone call or letter. He's already went after Strike King for patent infringement and he also forced Del-Mar and Lurecraft to stop selling the Sweet Beaver molds. So if the mold is illegal why wouldn't baits off of the mold be illegal? It doesn't matter who makes the mold. DaBehr, if you will look at the bottom right hand corner of Reaction's website, you will see the patent number for the Sweet Beaver. Guys I really don't understand why someone doing hand pours would want to do an exact copy of a bait. Seems like to me, one of the whole reasons for doing hand pours is coming up with unique and personal designs. But everyone needs to keep in mind that a lot of these big companies monitor TU. Not only do they check for patent infringements and copyright violations, but they also search for new design ideas. So be careful what you post.

I too have been having these problems, I'm having to double click on the back button. The server too busy message I havent gotten in the past 2 days but its been extremley slow and a couple of my posts that I typed just disappeared after hitting the post button, this happened after about two minutes of waiting. I know Jerry has been having a lot of trouble with bots, spiders, and scrapers, maybe all of these problems are related I'm sure he'll update us as soon as he gets the problems figured out. I'm just trying to be patient but I agree with everyone that it is an aggravation.