atijigs

Did you have any kind of drip on the head after curing?. My first guess would be too much white. Maybe followed by too little top color. White flows pretty easily and will carry the top color with gravity upon curing. Unless glow paints you really don't need a base coat. IMO

Any baits that you want to float.

Is there a process to publish an official TU tutorial? I know we can publish tutorials but how does one achieve the next level? I have not made it up yet but I think it would save wire bait guys a lot of trouble and time. If I make it up would it be submitted somewhere for approval?

I think JB weld is supposed to be machinable. It would be very easy to just drop an insert in the mold the circumference and lenght of your new weed guard using the JB weld and not having to cut anything..

Just find an insert the size of the weed guard you desire. Place some modeling clay in the weed guard slot on both sides of the mold and place your new insert in. Close the mold. Wipe off any extra clay that comes out of the slot. You do not have to fill the whole weed guard slot just the first 4 or 5 mm nearest the head. .

I didn't see where he asked what it looked like. I think the question was which mold maker's make something similar.

I really like that cable. I am going to order some. I think there is some potential there. Good call.

Great looking bait. If it rolls a smaller willow leaf will still give off the vibration and flash. Very nice!!

Those should be very easy to make. Google haywire twist and you should come up with some ideas. There are tools to do the twisting but with that light of wire a washer with a slot cut out should work fine. You will be left with a loop on one end and the double wire twist to the length you want. There are two features of the haywire knot. The first part is when you rotate both wires at the same time. The second is when you rotate the one wire around the other. Each will work for you purpose. I hope this helps.

I would prefer 1 six cavity over 2 three cavity. It takes the same the same to shoot but de-molding is quicker.

A 3 inch swim bait won't be a problem. It does depend on the ounces your injector holds. You can calculate the ounces of plastic needed by filling the mold with rice. Dump it into your pyrex measuring cup and you have a pretty good estimate of volume needed. One tip would be to place 1/2 in of rice in the pyrex before you start because you can not extract the last 1/4 inch of plastic from the cup with an injector. It is better to have too much vs. not enough.

Be sure to have all the essentials on hand. When you pour into the ingot mold that too will become extremely hot. You need a place to dump your ingot out too. You need a container for your dross or sludge you skim off the top. Flux stir, flux again. Give yourself plenty of room. You also need a way to dump your ingot mold. I use a vice grips. I prefer the cast iron ingot molds. Be prepared and there is nothing to it. I agree with pipe and wheel weights start from cold. Each time.

I think by using inserts 4 colors could be done with one blending block for the laminate and the inserts for the other 2 colors. Please excuse the poor quality of this bait. It is an injection laminate with a core shot. It was my first try after reading this post. With multiple molds and extra inserts to allow cooling I believe the 300 could be consistently made. I am now working on some new inserts to follow up on this. TU.bmp TU.bmp TU.bmp

I use pure lead a lot. What I do is clean it and pour it into ingots. By cleaning it I heat it to a molten state flux it with paraffin wax several times. The oxidation will be fluxed out of the alloy. The lead will become shiny. The ingots are poured to be use at a later date. By the time the lead will be poured it will have been cleaned and fluxed and fluxed in the pouring pot. They come out with a shiny finish. It will take quite a while before they will oxidize again. I did notice when I first started I would have some blue pink to my ingots if I only melted and fluxed it once. I never ended up with a discolored casting so I am stumped as to what you are experiencing.

If you have a lot of salt exposed dip just the tip back in the plastic. It will seal it.

You have yourself some pure lead. When you cast they will be shiny for a while and then oxidize. The purple -blue color is oxidation. If you want to keep your jig heads shiny you can clear coat them. Otherwise they they will take on the dull color of split shot after a while. As long as you paint them within a couple of weeks you will be ok. When you remelt those ingots to cast them the oxidation gunk will float to the top. Your casting will be clean.

The do-it Ultra Minnow mold could easily be altered to make a fish shaped trolling sinker. The largest size is 4 oz. You can also alter available sinkers or just paint them to make them more fish like.

I think I got the message in the right place now. Sorry.

pm sent

Do you have a pic of the color you are trying to achieve ?

The lead is the problem. Your pot will function much better also with clean lead.

There is a good chance that the lead is not hot enough. Try pouring again without hooks. Keep doing it until the lead not only fills the head but goes out the hook slot as well. At this point you should be ready to start with the hooks. One other note- clean lead is a must for pouring any mold. I recently purchase a lee pot very cheep from a guy that was frustrated with pouring. The pot had lead in it. I fired it up and found his frustration was from trying to pour dirty lead. It took about 20 minutes of fluxing to get the lead clean enough to work. I got more dross out of his 2 lbs of lead than I will from mine pouring many hundreds of jigs. So pre clean the lead before heating it.

I agree. Check the temp of your oven. If you are in a pinch you could wrap the hooks in tinfoil to try to to keep them a little cooler. Just a thought. I haven't tried it.

The paint does stick to them if cured in. As Cadman said the ease of removal is the key. I keep mine very short which also makes powder painting very easy. Really no different than a regular jig. I have not had a problem with the paint chipping. It maybe because of the short length. I will usually get paint tags when I pull them out. The longer nylon may keep the lead around the hole cooler causing the chips. One note here is when you are pouring with a short pin as the mold gets hot and you are using the pin as a blocker-(non weedless), you may need a dot of clay to keep the short pin from moving. The easiest fix is too use a longer pin.

I use D2t for the weedguards. I order the nylon from Mcmasters. (?). It comes in 4 ft. lengths. I cut it with a small bolt cutter. You can reuse them too. They can also be used to block the weedguard hole if you are not going to make a weedless jig.