FLYguy

First off let me apologize for missing the context of the clamshell template for a painting template. I honestly was looking for plastic shrinkage advice and threw the painting question is as side bar, and yes whhhizzzzzz........ is an accurate analogy. I tried to be polite when I responded and hope I didnt come off as disrespectfull the artists who inhabit this board. I personally take mild issue to such things so again, my appologies. Thanks carolinamike for you insight, I will try a straight saltwater formula and see if it holds action when it swims. Much obliged

I think your last post was off subject and someone is probably looking for some of your quit wise advise on another post. I would appreciate any insight you may have to my issues with my soft plastic swimbait mold though.

Long time getting back to this I know. Bob I am having the moldmaker scan it with laser technology. I was using another source for my scans previously and the formatting of the cad system was cumbersome to the machining folks and they said they would rather do it their self rather than convert the files to something they could use. There are a lot of programs out there so I am having all of my files saved in PARASOLID which is a nuetral file and freindly to most CNC machining folks. I am having it machined belly down so I can laminate it. My previous foray with the mold was with the swimbait laying on its side and kept getting shrinkage dimples in the same spot on all of the baits. I added several vents, tried harder plastic, narrowed the sprue, changed the sprue entry to the cavity, played with mold temperature on preheat, different plastic temerature thinking cooler might be better, shot with topping the sprue off, shot with holding the pressure on for as much as one minute, and finally gave up on it. It would only shoot a good bait on one side about every fourth time. The first mold had the sprue feeding the cavities to two sides. My new one will feed the cavities all off of the same side of the sprue which I think should make a difference. Its a 5.5 inch bait with hook slot and slit belly and the body at the thickest part from back to belly is 24mm, thickness side to side at the thickest part is 22mm. This is about all I can think of as far as information goes. Any suggestions on the amount of venting I would need? Are there any suggestions on the Rheology side of the equation that could make the flow break up and shoot better?This is a lmited deal so I am using a hand injector. Also could use some tips on painting one if you have any, its pretty tedious and I would like to shorten the time with some templates or something so I could spray instead of putting dots on it to make a trout pattern in several colors

I have a prototype swimbait that I am having scanned and an injection mold made for it. Two cavity and two piece mold. Any tips or suggestions on how much and where it needs to be vented?

Is there a test to detect if there is salt in a soft plastic bait?