Downriver Tackle

The two solvents, EEP and IBIB, are solvents. There's no solids to them. 100% volitile. And there's no CAP in the CPES. It's an EPOXY. Many things are esters, from oils to solvents, to solid materials. The only relation is that they're the product of similar reactions and by no way are the end products necessarily similar at all. In almost 20 years of formulating coatings, I have only come across a few things that require a license to purchase and can guarantee you that you can purchase either CAB or CAP powder without a license of any kind or prohibited by federal regulation. A supplier may tell you that if they sniff out that someone is messing with it in their garage. The only issues are usually that it is only available in 50# bag minimum from suppliers, and shipping to a residential address.

BTW, the butyrate people refer to is called Cellulose Acetate Butryate, also know as CAB. It's a relatively harmless powder you just dissolve in solvent, so you might be able to find it for sale somewhere on the net.

I see where you're getting that from the MSDS, but you're mistaken. The proprionate and butyrate you see are solvents, not resin solids. Ethyl 3-ethoxy proprionate is a solvent also know as EEP solvent. And Isobutyl Isobutyrate is also a solvent, known as IBIB solvent. They don't even list the resin on the MSDS, just solvents possible in either part A or B. CPES is just a hard epoxy thinned out with lots of solvents and probably a few additives to help it penetrate the wood. You could probably make your own version with D2T thinned out with urethane grade laquer thinner.

What has everyone found to be the drawbacks with using a urethane as a sealer? It's the most widely used coating for exterior wood applications. Just wondering what the issues with baits are? I don't carve, just paint, but it has my paint formulating gears going again. I have something in mind, but it's a urethane.

I'd bet that if you misted some mold release or silicone on it first, you'd eliminate the sticking.

I'm pretty sure the Envirotex would still need to be turned, or you'll end up with a huge drip because of it's really long cure time. I've always dipped in clear vinyl with great results. If you're looking for something harder and no fuss for personal quantities, the D2T may be the best for you.

Createx and Auto Air are self-crosslinking paints. Essentially, the catalyst is in there already, and doesn't react until it hits a certain temp. Then it's solvent and water resistant, to an extent, depending on the paint. If you search on here, you'll find all kinds of techniques for heat-curing your baits. Most use a hair dryer. I paint 20-60 baits at a time and built a drying cabinet out of a storage bin with a hole for a hair drier to sit in the center of the lid and hang baits from wood dowels in it. Remember though that the softening point for many plastics used in lures is around 140F-ish, so be careful. I've warped a few lures and bills with a 1500W hair drier set on high.

If it was salt, oil, or plasticizers, it would be apparent on the surface of the clear first with a soft, hazzy, or chalky surface. If it's still transparent and delaminating, your problem is coming from underneath the clear. The culprit could be a number of things. Haz mentioned a very likely one. All water and/or solvents must be driven out before you clear or they will gas and build pressure under the clear until it lifts. Based on your "dry" comment, it has me looking at that, or the paint you used for color. If solvents are still coming out, the epoxy won't want to wet it out. What paints are you using? Some paints are meant as topcoats and have abrasion additives in there (silicone & wax) and epoxy doesn't like to wet those out either. Some areas may look fine, but will delaminate under adverse conditions, like heat. Last thing that comes to mind is that color paint again. If you are using a waterbased like Createx, and didn't heat-cure the paint before clearing, the paint is very susceptible to water. If you get a chip in the clear, the water will just soften the paint underneath and continue to migrate and lift the clear.

I think that skirt is actually on the lure and not the hook. I have an off brand crankbait with the skirt on the tail and the lure itself has a jig-like collar molded right into the tail of the lure. That looks like it's on a long hanger or something though. Northland Tackles on piece skirts work pretty well for skirting larger trebles easily. Tying your own with hair is pretty simple also.

I use quick change caps for my Auto Air bottles. Of course, you have to have a siphon feed airbrush to do it, but it works very well. I just pull off the one bottle, flush the gun with water from a squirt bottle I keep right there, then plug a new bottle on and away I go. At the end of a painting session, I pull the needle and cap and then flush the entire gun.

I'll also mention that one key benefit I hope to formulate into it is an anti-mar/abrasion additive that also helps with leveling like glass. Essentially, when cured, it will feel like the bait is freshly waxed. A nice wet look, and very slick on the surface as opposed to how epoxies usually are anything but slippery. One drawback may be that it may not be immediately recoatable with a second coat of clear, but it is intended to be a single coat system anyways. If you get an imperfection, it may need to be wet sanded before a second coat is applied. That's still preliminary though. I'll have to see how it recoats for myself. I still think the benefits will outweight the drawbacks, even if it needs to be wet sanded.

I'm getting there. I have all the samples of ingredients, just haven't had time to put it together. All my time is spent painting everyone else's baits, and posting here between coats. LOL Now I bought a fishing hideaway and have even less time. Target is to get it formulated completely over the winter, then beat the crap out of a few test baits when the local river thaws. Lots of rocks there! If all goes well, I'll be sampling it late spring. I've decided to go with the non-yellowing epoxy. Too much of an investment in this economy for the UV curable system.

Now you're getting it!

I'm pretty sure silicone oils and curable silicones are two totally different materials. A little stinky, but most silicones are reducible with toluene.

Someone may have found that it works in a certain brand paint, or at least they think it works, but no way is it a universal reducer that's going to work with all acrylics. There's 100's of different acrylic resins and most of them do not like alcohols. The effects aren't always initially apparent. Sometimes it sprays and dries fine, but if you checked the integrity of that film compared to one properly reduced, it's weak and chalky. Beyond the alcohols, there's Ph and stability issues to deal with also. A proper universal waterbased acrylic reducer is usually around 80:20 water:solvent, with the solvent being a glycol ether. Usually there's something in there also to keep the Ph up and possibly a specific surfactant to keep it from shocking the paint when added. Sometimes a small amount of alcohol also, because it does help with atomization in some systems, but nowhere near the amount in that recipe. Like I said though, there's 100's of different resins, so there's really no "universal" answer. Always best to use the manufacturers reducer.

Hands down, that is the sweetest custom job I've seen to date. Very nice!!

You are absolutely correct. That's easy to solve though. I offset mine by density. Just request an MSDS from the manufacturer or call them and proportion according to density listed. It will generally be something like 1.1 g/cm for the catalyst and 1.3 g/cm for the resin, depending on the brand. I dropped the two side by side in Excel, then just drug it down and it gives me proportions from 1.8 grain all the way to 180 grain mixes.

Yep. Regular Createx is their fabric and general art paint. AutoAir is the automotive grade line with higher quality binder and pigments.

I agree 3000%! You have to know your paint. I use Auto Air with a Passche VL and siphon feed qick change caps with no problems on detail or fine cuts. Remember also that different colors require different reduction and pressure. I mark bottles of certain colors with a sharpie at what pressure that color sprays best at. Also, when I get a new bottle, I'll adjust the viscosity by spraying fine lines on a blank paper until I get it dialed in. I know that if I dial in fine lines, broader work is no problem. A-#1 rule though for some fine detail................ as mentioned before..........know when to give up on freehand! I nab all the old business cards destined for the garbage at my 9-5 job every time they change logos or fire someone. Those cards and an x-acto work wonders for making detail masks. I'll cut the same detail on all 4 sides in different sizes for different baits.

How's this for losing a custom. I go to a resort evey year to fish for trophy bass and pike. I made the sweetest holographic 3oz spinner you'd ever see. Ultimate detail on that little head with scaling, gill marks, etc. Top notch polished willows, bearing swivels, the works. Very first cast after pitching 1/2-1oz'ers back home...... backlash! Got good distance on that cast. Too bad the line broke. Cheap loss, but painful. LOL

If price is not an issue, use a grain scale. I've been measuring my clear with an $80 digital grain scale I picked up at Cabelas. One of the better investments I've made. Perfect proportions every time and very little waste because you can calculate what you need for x-number of lures once you get the hang of it.

You can spray them over anything, but to get the true color shift intended, they have to go over black. Makes for a pretty dark bait though. You can get really cool effects with other dark colors. I like to spray them over dark greens, reds, and blues. The combinations are endless. Over light colors, you get more of a standard pearl effect. I've found though, that it's much cheaper to add dry pearl pigment to clear base for those effects.

The additive is a polyester resin and solvent blend. What I said before still applies. The problem is that the paint must flex as much, or more than the material it is on over all temperatures, and bumpers are nowhere near as flexible as a frog. The additive will help, but you are still limited to very thin films. As film thickness increases, flexibility and elongation decrease.

There's a couple keys to getting paint to adhere to flexible materials like that. First, it all depends on what the material is. I'm guessing not all frogs are made of the same material. Some are easier than others. As for paint type, you probably do want to go to the automotive end because of the nice package of strong solvents in there to dissolve the material and get adhesion. Vinyl paints reduced with a ketone MIGHT work. The next part is the bummer. You can probably forget putting a clearcoat on it. If there's any possibility, it would have to be very flexible, solvent based, and reduced to nothing to get the thinnest coat possible. And, the colors you apply have to be limited in film thickness. You can probably get away with markings, highlights, dots and such misted on lightly in multiple layers, but trying to paint the whole body or large areas probably won't work and the paint won't last long at all. I'm not saying any of it's impossible, but that's a tall task for any paint. One thing that might work to get a whole body color is Renew Allure.

Yep, Auto Air Hot Yellow. There's a green pearl in the clear, so it looks a little different. Dumb question #1: Because the customer wanted big giant eyes. If I pick, it's generally based on the lure body style. I usually put bigger eyes on short, fat lures. Dumb question #2: Do you mean in layers? Water over solvent, or vice-versa? If so, then yes.