Kasilofchrisn

If you primarily use a ladle and pot such as I do on my larger saltwater jigs I highly recommend a thermometer in your pot, I built a bracket for mine to hold it on the side of my 50# pot. My burner is 30,000 BTU's and I know it can quickly overheat my lead to unsafe levels. With the thermometer I can quickly make adjustments to regulate my heat better. I highly recommend the Drop Out.I have never smoked a mold but do use the drop out on all my molds. It works great and I have never had it cause any flash even on my CNC molds and certainly not on my Do-It molds even when it gets on the flats of a mold. All I do is mask off any wording in the molds and spray them. I used to tape off all but the mold cavities then spray them. I have since found it doesn't make a difference for me so I don't bother. It can easily be cleaned up with a rag and mineral spirits if you are worried about it.

While the CNC mold option is a bit spendy it does ensure a working mold. No trial and error or modifying required and you have all the sizes you need and they all work and work well. You could also contact a local machine shop to modify a mold for you. I have had machinist friends at work mod old molds for me. What would have been time consuming for me was quite easy for them on the milling machine.

Have you tried preheating or warming the hooks. Cold hooks can certainly be a problem. Sometimes all I need to do with a very hot mold is to leave the hooks in the mold a few seconds longer before pouring to preheat them. But often times I warm them in a small cast iron pot I heat with my propane burns o matic torch. I heat them and then do several pours then I reheat them. The pot seems to hold the heat fairly well. I sometimes use a camp stove set as low as possible with the pot on it as well. But they do get too hot sometimes and I have to let them cool so I can pick them up.

The one I am using is the Whisper 30-60 I bought from wally world (walmart). I am running two cups with it each one being 2" in diameter and 12" tall for some larger saltwater slab jigs. Plenty of air for what I need. Been using it for a couple of years without a hiccup and it runs fairly quiet. I just bought another one so I can run more cups at one time.

Check out Shawn Collins molds. He has the exact mold you are looking for on EBAY. A little Spendy at $130 but his molds are all first class and you will not be disappointed. He goes by CNCworks on EBAY. Look up "freshwater Tube rattler jig mold". I tried to cut and paste a link but it didn't work.

I live in Alaska and they don't sell Do-It molds here at all other than the snag hook molds at sportsmans. I agree with cadman watch EBAY and/or craigslist etc. I have bought a few molds on EBAY and if your careful who you buy from check their EBAY rating and only buy from those rated 99.5% and above. I buy all my molds online. If You are desperateyou could have a mold CNC machined for you. It's spendy but you end up with a great mold not available elsewhere.

Other than having an expensive CNC mold made there are only 2 other us sandcast mold makers I am aware of. Hilts molds and little mac molds. I assume you are aware that there are many vendors who sell Do-It molds other than Do-It and they are all cheaper than Do-It for the same molds. Is it it price or are there other reasons why you do not want a Do-It mold?

While I haven't used mine a ton I sure haven't had the issue you are having with it. I probably have made 100 or so with it, What kind of wattage soldering iron are you using. Mine is just a cheapo but works good and no mold damage. Also are you using rosin core solder? That is what is recommended and not the acid core. Other than occasionally having to clean a bit of rosin off of mine I haven't had any problems and it does work good to hold the parts and leave my hands free for the soldering.

Thanks Kelly. I certainly don't want to go cheap on people. Full retail pricing and buying them in packs of 8 wasn't going to work though and I certainly didn't want any customers to loose the fish of a lifetime especially my charter boat customers clients. Even though the assist rigs are really easy to make most people prefer them to come fully rigged instead of doing it themselves. I can certainly live with 38 cents especially since that includes shipping.

To order call Do-It customer service at 319-984-6055.

These rings are not a wire product but a solid steel ring. Made as one piece. Wire products are easy to source. Solid rings are easy to find just not in bulk quantities and with bulk pricing. I have enough for now and will keep looking for a good source of what I need.

I bought some last night on EBAY. cost me ~$0.38 each. Not a real bad price I guess. These are a #7 solid ring rated at 700# and I bought 120 of them to try out. If they work out and I need more I believe I can order more from the same vendor. Some of the jigs these go on I sell for $15-$18 each as they are from some custom CNC molds and are very large at 20oz,24oz and 25oz. So hopefully they are decent quality wise. I wish there was an American made product available in bulk but these all seem to come from Asia. At least I found enough to get me by for now. Thanks for the help guys.

I am not really certain I want to start soldering butt rings. Sure it might work but could be time consuming and it may just be easier to buy them at retail prices and charge for them accordingly. I haven't pried brazing rod and flux lately but I am guessing it isn't dirt cheap. I certainly wouldn't trust that lead dip method. Not when my customers have a good chance at a 100# fish and some have even had 300+# fish on their boats. These things need to be fairly stout. I guess I'll keep looking for now.

Neither Rosco or Sampo even list a solid ring in their product line. Anybody else have a good source for bulk quantities of Solid rings? I have plenty of split rings but lack the SOLID ones.

Thanks I will try contacting them. I already have plenty of Kevlar assist line from Western filament. 200# & 300#. That was easy to find. The solid rings are not so easy to find in bulk.

So I would like to purchase a few hundred very large solid rings to make some assist hook rigs for some of my saltwater jigs. Anybody have a source that sells solid rings in bulk? These are going on some 16,20,and 24oz jigs. I have plenty of smaller rings but need some very large ones. Google searches haven't really produced a source. I can find them in packs of 8 for ~$1 or more each but would really like to buy a few hundred at bulk prices. .

Musky Glenn I have an ice auger you can borrow. If only it wasn't such a long drive to get it to you.

Barlow's has always been good to me. They will also ship me stuff like paints that nobody else will ship to AK. It takes longer as it can't ship via air but they always get it to me. I like their shipping prices too. Trust me when you live in Alaska you will ALWAYS get screwed on shipping. Barlows has always had reasonable shipping to AK for me. That and they always seem to have everything I need which is a rarity. I like LPO as well but as you said thy don't always have everything I need.

Yes the Membrane is what allows the air through but not the powder. If you look at a coffee filter towards a light you will see it is very uneven in thickness hence it is often doubled up or tripled up to form a thicker membrane. What I would try is getting a bunch of different membranes and having them handy. Try them out until you find one you like. Some suggestions for membranes are: Tyvek either housewrap or the free envelopes from the post office. Just be sure to have the label side up. Brown paper lunch bags, Different weights of printer paper,The outer bag material from vacuum cleaner bags, Macdonald's bags,etc. What I learned to do from a forum member is to buy some knock out test caps from the hardware store. Put one in a piece of PVC then punch out the center. Throw the center away. Remove the remaining outer ring. Place your membrane over your PVC cup and replace the ring. You now have a nice tight membrane that is easily replaced.

I would first try a different filter membrane. Unless you have some really large cups you should be fine power wise. I have a dual output from wally world and run 2-12" tall cups for long saltwater slab jigs with it without issues. Each powder is different and some of them like a different membrane or more or less airflow.

Good idea Toadfrog. I may just have to use that one sometime.

Have you considered a hootchie skirt? Just cut the tip off and slip it on. We have a local tackle company who makes a lot of inline spinners. What he does is to use the brass bodies that accommodate skirts and uses a rubber skirtband to hold on some regular skirt material. For some reason I cant seem to cut and paste the link to a hootchie skirt but you could just google it.

I wonder if you contacted the seller if they could send you a video of this thing in operation? I suppose though since I have no real interest in buying this thing they might feel I was wasting their time. In reality it just peaked my curiosity as I have never seen anything like it before.

Hmmm..... I sure was hoping somebody would know how this machine worked. There must be a way to inject the soft plastisol into it oneway or another? Anyway it is a cool machine even if it does cost $10,000.

So I am not a soft plastics guy. But I was searching on EBAY for something else and this popped up in my search. I have a pretty good idea how soft plastic works and have seen a lot of the gear you fellows use. I was just curious if anyone else has seen a manufacturing machine like this one? That and how does this thing work? As I understand it most large plastic manufacturers use multicavity injection machines but this one uses molds on a rolling wheel type setup. Just thought I would share and maybe learn something about how this machine works. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Assorted-Equipment-Used-to-Produce-Johnson-Beetle-Spins-and-Laker-Critter-Spins-/111095735843?pt=BI_Heavy_Equipment_Parts&hash=item19ddd26623