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Does anyone know what temperature Frank maintains that griddle at, or is that his secret? I am trying to acheive what his griddle is doing but i must be operating at a lower temperature hence the cooling.

Thanks Jeff

Thanks SHK

Hey guys, please check the pic i've uploaded in my gallery and give me your opinions. Am i getting close here with this whole thing? Its early days and only my 2nd attempt, but so far i'm very happy with the result. The bigger beaker made all the difference. Thanks for the help! http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/gallery/image/10532-hollow-body-swimbait/

Frank's video is what got me started on this whole thing. Trouble is, he makes it look so easy and there is a lot of trial and error to go through before one is producing baits like Frank's. I will get a bigger vessel and post a success story soon.

SHK- point taken, keep it simple. I always need to be reminded of this. I need to get a bigger vessel, stop being a cheap skate and use more plastic. It will take longer to cool and allow me to make a heap of baits. Thanks guys

Hi Jeff Thanks for the advice. That is a good plan. What made my issue worse was that the pyrex cup i had was too small and the warm coloumn in the middle was not big enough. Considering that the blade has to go in at an angle to get good coverage on the tail, then the nose touches the side. A bigger cup will allow me to "stay away" from the cooler clumps on the side a lot easier and for longer than the one i was using allowed. If my new plan works, it will hopefully allow me to use a smaller cup and save on plastisol, as i am not producing on a large scale, yet... Typically, how many can you dip before you have to reheat? Do you stir the cooled plastic in and then microwave it all again, or allow it to reheat on the hot plate or whatever you keep it warm on?

Hi Guys I know this topic has been dealt with to death and I have read and re read every post on here to educate myself. The information shared on here makes the learning curve so much shorter. Thank you. I received my batch of locally produced plastisol and i had mixed results. I am hoping you can give me your opinions to some of the issues i had and let me know what you think of my potential solution. I used the standard pyrex cup, microwave heating method and got my plastisol to nice consistency and then placed the pyrex beaker on a heated magnetic stirrer to maintain working temperature. The magnetic "bean" spins and helped to stir the plastic and the first dip i made was my best. The issue i had was the outer edges of the pyrex beaker there was a layer of cooled plastic and when this is stirred in it make "globs" which i am sure all of you seasoned dippers know make your baits look terrible. Obviously the surrounding air is cooling the outer edges of the cup and because the plastic doesn't transfer heat as evenly as water, my efforts to stir it are working but only for a small coloumn of plastic in the middle. My plan to rectify this is as follows: Please feel free to shoot holes in it if you think its wrong. I am going to get an aluminuim pot that i will drill and place a stiff wire ring holder at the top of it. This will be to suspend the pyrex beaker in. I will then use an oil that has a smoking point higher than the temp used to maintain the plastisol in a workign state so as to not burn the oil. The oil will be heated to the correct temp and the plastisol will then obviously be surrounded with oil at the same temp. This will insulate the pyrex beaker and in theory stop the outer edges from cooling. Because the pyrex beaker will be close to the bottom of the aluminuim pot the magnetic stirrer will still be able to spin the "bean" in the plastisol and stir the plastisol to keep it consistent. Do you think this can work? What temp is optimum for maintaining the plastisol to dip. I know that the temp controls the thickness etc. What have you guys found to be a good working temp? Thanks in advance for any criticism.

Yes, i did find some good colours in the "war chest". Was looking for a pearl white colour and found that. It has done the job well. I also came right with a local supplier that sent me liters of plastic colouring for free as a sample. He has been a godsend.

That's a brilliant idea, risky, but i like it! I got the email notification of this post early thanks to our time delay and have already mounted a pre dawn clandestine mission into said purse and found some nice colours for making pearl white baits. Thanks guys. All things going well we may pull it off without being caught!

What is the main ingredient in these colourants? I suppose what makes them special is the fact that they maintain transparency when diluted into the plastisol.

Thanks Mark I will do some homework and see what i can find.

Thanks guys, 10mins and already i have some good ideas to try. Thank you!

Thanks, yes after re reading my post, and being not much of an art expert, i thought acrylic paint was an oil based paint. My mistake, definitely not going to add anything waterbased to melting plastic. Theoretically could an oil based scent also be added to mask the oil paint "smell"?

Hi everyone I am writing all the way from South Africa. First of all, thank you all for all the info you share here on this site, i have learnt so much just from searching through all the forums. I have been making dental plaster moulds and pouring my own worms for a few years now and due to the extreme lack of any lure making supplies in South Africa, i just melt and remelt old worms to make new ones. I have recently started to expand my skill set and have began trying out the whole Swimbait Blade Dipping technique which has been thouroghly discussed here, again thanks for all the info. What i was hoping to get some help with was colourant for Plastisol. I have managed to get some plastisol here in SA and the snag i have is the colouring or lack thereof. There are no local suppliers and to do orders to the United States works out very expensive for us because of exchange rate and shipping costs. Is there something i can use that will suffice for now untill i can put an order through. Will acrylic paint from an art shop work or is there something else i can use. I am not trying to go too fancy and for now all i am after is a white coloured swimbait. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any advice you guys might have. Rowan