Stick'em

Sounds like it cooked too long.

Is anybody using a coarse salt? That is next on my list. I don't know if the pickling salt is available without ording it. I'm probably going to try the sea salt in a coarse grade.

If I were a five pound smallmouth and that craw hopped by my lips, there's no question I'd eat it. The color is spot on.

Sea salt is another option. I'm using pickling salt and sea salt. Which is best is a toss up right now. The sea salt seemed to 'powder' better when I ground it up.

Try to keep the plastic just under the top of the cavity. This won't happen all the time, but you"ll get better and better.

Your right, it does have flare to the tails. I'm still not seeing a heavy green pumpkin anywhere though, more of mix of a brownie color and GP, with tiny fleck.

I had almost posted to this last night, but I'm still yet a learning rookie. I agree, nothing in nature is exactly correct all the time. I mean when you catch a load of bass, all probably have something distinguishable about them. It could be a miniscule difference like a worn fin. Or one five pounder shaped like a football, another five long and slender. I like suttle differences. A craw with a built in(on) 'fightin' claw. Nothing wrong here. Pour it.

So true, SHK. Tough to really get it narrowed down from a computer pic.

To me this color looks to have a cinnamon hue to it. I don't think it's a true green pumpkin. Maybe it has heavy small bronze flake changing the look of the green pumpkin to a "dirty" or brownish color. I would try a little green pumpkin and cinnamon with a bronze or copper fleck.

While were on the subject of dyes and pigments, I have a question about orange and chartreuse. I'm not getting a strong enough color out of them. They were regular colors and mixed pretty good. Is there a trick to adding yellow (for example), to the chartreuse? Or does it just take super amounts of these colorants to make a solid looking color?

Yea, Rowingadubay, ruining a perfectly good mold didn't sit well with me at all. I finally found a good use for the foam side of brushes.

I'm going to stick to using the real deal colorant for now. I just got a batch from Bear's. You have to stir it well to mix up the pigment that settles along the bottom. There was a big difference in each bottle after I carefully made sure all pigment was mixed well. It settles kinda quick, so if you go a few day to a week or more, without using said color, just shaking it probably isn't going to be enough. This may be a reason why the color is not holding true for some. I don't know about the oil base paint colorant from paint stores. I think the colorant used here is interchangeable with coloring latex or oil. Also it's probably not made to be heated/cooked.

Ah ha! The brushes for flux sound like a good maneuver, Eric001. The body ridges on my molds are just taking too much of the epoxy with a "hair" brush. I was having too much build around those ridges, forcing me to keep pulling/raking epoxy from the cavity. For me the foam brush soaks up most of that excess while leaving an even coat.

Well, as most of you know, I'm still in "rookie" status with my new hobby. I came across the issue of coating my molds w/epoxy. Made the mistake of buying a cheap pack of brushes from one of those dollar stores. Went to coating w/un-thinned 5 min. epoxy. Yea, disaster struck quickly... The brush started shedding bristles at an alarming rate , causing me to pick them out of the super-quick setting epoxy and waste valuble time. I don't know why, but I quickly crammed the brush in for another dip of epoxy (thinking I had time for one more mold) and promptley ruined the mold's ridges with a couple ultra-thick swipes of the curing glob. Thanks to help from this site I found some 30 min. epoxy and thinned it ever so slightly with 91% rubbing alchohol (thanks, guys). I stayed away from the brush though, and went with a 1 inch foam brush. I used more of a "dabbing" instead of "brushing". What the foam does is soak up some of the epoxy while laying it on, resulting in an evener coat of epoxy with no chance of those nasty runaway brush bristles.

You might try a powder color such as black lumina. It gives a sheen to the baits.Lurecraft has the lumina effect powder.

Can't really comment on pricing as I haven't purchased any as of yet, but I did get two samples recently and started pouring and dipping some soon to be Bass buster material. Lurecraft 60/40 blend(pint) and MF regular(pint) showed up quickly as expected. Thank god Jeff at MF sent small samples of violet pearl brilliant and white pearl powder coloring along with black, silver and hologram silver sample flakes. I didn't even think about, nor mention, sample coloring when I called them. Thanks again Jeff! The texture and action of the MF suites my needs very well for pouring my designs. The smell is different than the Lurecraft, yes, but I can live with it for now because I'm not pouring that many as of yet. The MF seemed to pour thicker than the LC, but this could be some form of opperator error or garage temperature on my end. After testing the MF, I heated some LC, after stirring up the settling and shaking the hell out of the pint. I think it got a little thinner than the MF so it poured a little easier. I let the molds sit for awhile then pulled the baits out. I knew immediatley the action on the LC plastic was way to "loose" for my taste. I even gave them 24 hours to "harden" some. Nope, no change. It also didn't seem to take the imprint (grooves, etc.) quite as good as MF. The texture was too soft for me. I'm using the LC for dipping learning. I like the plastic for making a tube, but I want the texture harder I think. I'm kinda waiting for a final judgement because my tailsplitter isn't operational yet. Haven't tried dipping with the MF yet, so no opinions there.

Well, I guess the culprit just has no sense of customer service or backbone to either get your order to you (which should include a free mold for waiting sooo long) or refund your money with an appology. Somebody PM me so I'll know not to do business with them in the future, unless they seriously change their way of doing business.

Nice set ups, FuzzyGrub. Nice tubes too! I had seen the pics a couple days ago when I did a search. Thanks for taking the time to send them my way. Alot of my worries have evaporated from the help received. I can't thank you guys enough! Now I need to get to dippin' some tubes when the plastic arrives.

Yes, Squigster. The info you provided has helped clear up alot of confusion about the process. I now am almost positive the mystery tubes in question were dipped. There were a couple of them with fatter heads where the plastic built up just a little too much. Getting the plastic close to mimic what the original tube clones are is also a priority for me. It has a tough shell that holds the hook point even after several fish. It doesn't tear bad at all. If there's just a sliver of plastic left after several hooksets the hook point will still bite and stay. I'm seeing that it looks like there's salt in the mix also. Does this toughen the skin of the tube?

So when you vertical dip you have to kinda twirl the rod to manipulate the plastic to thicken the body. Should I build the head thickness by letting the tube stay vertical for a portion of time during a couple of dips. I'm assuming the plastic will run to the end and build it up. It sounds like I will be dipping the tube at least three times. Will the plastic adhere good to itself? Should I dip as soon as the plastic sets up from the previous dip? Or should I do several rods with initial dip, then go back and second dip? I know these questions are rookie-like to some of you experienced pros, but hey, if I don't ask I could end up wasting plastic and time.

Thanks, Sqiugster. I had thought of the possibility the mysterious tubes may have been poured/injected first, then dipped (no seam lines because of two part mold). It's just one color though, so I'm doubting they were injected first. I cut one down to the solid head and found a very small hole or prick in the center of the head inside the tube. Whether this was because of the shape of the dip tube or rod for the mold I can't make out.

I found some 4 1/4" flipping tubes a year ago on clearence at a local bait and tackle shop. I bought the last few bags they had in a junebug pattern and a dark smoke red/black fleck color. Yes, the colors are killer, but the characteristics of the tubes sold me also. Nice thick solid head. Body tapered to thinnish tail splits. No longer availability killed my attempt at getting more The tubes look like their dipped because they have no seam lines about them, so I've chosen to dip them. I've got a two rod dipping jig set up to start off. There's three of the jigs, so six rods total. After heated, colored and flaked the plastic will go into a cylinder glass big enough for two rods spaced approx. one inch apart and holding a little under one cup plastic. From reading through several posts, I see I may need to dip the tubes horizontely also. I see a harder plastisol is recommended. I understand this will be a trial and error thing initially also, but I do have a question or two about the process. Does the head thickness build through several dips or is it dropped in during creation? Any pointers that may ease my worries would help. ~Stick'em