Painter1

Great advice and very well put.

I have bought from Bubba, but since he has no pictures it is easy to order colors that are not quite what you are expecting. I will stick to fishingskirts.com in future.

I bought a meat grinder from Harbor Freight and boxes of sprues from folks on this site. Some of those sprues contain salt. They grind melt and pour just fine.

Cami, thank you for sharing those tips. What size Mylar pipe do you use?

Anyone have a recipe for Tilapia? Hoping to make some in swimbaits and some in creature baits. Thanks you.

Thank you. I hope to try my hand at painting this winter.

Thanks, gentlemen. I have put the Do-it weighted hook mold on my Christmas list.

We fish it on a stand-up jig, dragging and hopping it. God knows how many packs of Yamamoto and Chompers Hula Grubs my buddy and I have bought and used in the Spring on Ozark streams and reservoirs. Smallies and Spots would just pound it. I guess it got too popular because they stopped eating it a couple years ago. I'm sure it will come back around though.

Congrats on following through with your idea. I could see that working well pitched around docks where I fish, (Table Rock) and also for schooling fish like Spots and Whites.

I have several 3.5 inch to 6.5 inch paddle tail swim bait molds and I want to spend some time fishing them. The baits have a slit belly, like a fluke does so the question is - is it best to work them on a weighted hook or with a weedless snootie jig? As always, your thoughts are most welcome.

So who are some good quality suppliers of blanks?

http://www.basstackle.com/product_p/530-1-6.htm

Picture shows body but not the claws?

What a great point I also struggle with the site. Your request for feedback hits the nail on the head. How else are you going to know? I will visit the site again and PM you my thoughts as the user/buyer

Regardless of what they call it, It is good lead and needs very little fluxing.

Thank you for the help. I don't mind tearing them up so long as they get bit.

Does using Soft or Super Soft kill the action?

I plan to make some 3.25" , 4" & 6" paddle tail Swimbaits to use mostly with weighted hooks. They will have a vertical slit/cavity, very similar to a fluke. The plan is to retrieve them at a slow to moderate speed. What hardness of plastic do you recommend?

Anyone ever use these baits? http://puddlejumperlures.com

Canadian Blue. Lure craft has it

I make baits, as I can, for charity fund raising. Word of mouth among a group of tournament guys has slowly but steadily increased demand. I started with the Twinjector and even though (due to a lot of help from you guys) I got pretty adept, but it was too time consuming. Then I bought a Shooting Star system. It worked well but required too much material volume for colors I didn't need a lot of. I got the Jacobs (used) and it is the "Goldilocks" machine. I can put a small amount in or fill both sides and keep refilling. The molds usually need to cool after shooting a full batch using both sides. Due to the pneumatic pressurization, The best part is ease of switching colors. I just blow out the existing material and dump in the new color. Obviously, going from dark to white requires more of a flush, but not a lot more. When I'm done for the day, there is no real clean-up. Just turn up the air pressure and blow it out. Height adjustment is not good, as it depends on thumb screw to anchor. The screw is hot and is overmatched for the weight it has to anchor. I have also had to add a shield between me and the injector nozzle as it can squirt hot plastic if the mold isn't mated well to the nozzle when I pull the lever. Learned the hard way. Perhaps the ideal system for you would be a pressurized shooting star with smaller reservoir.

I have a Jacobs and it works great for 2 colors. I don't use it much because I can make many hundreds of baits in an afternoon.

Found it. http://www.basstackle.com/product_p/530-1-6.htm Thanks, Frank

Anything you can do that helps retain heat vs reheat helps. I heat my aluminum injector tubes in my toaster oven. Just the tube. I also heat the plastic in short runs of the microwave. I get it close , then heat 5 or 10 seconds at a time.

We have trouble finding the Zoom TINY Brush Hog, which can be a hot bait in the Spring. anyone know of a mold similar to that?