Kasilofchrisn

I really like my Shawn Collins molds as well. They pour great and I can make stuff the average guy doesn't because of his custom designs. I think I own 6 or 8 of them and I have 3 more on order right now. I haven't had any issues with communication he answers my emails within 3 days and my molds usually ship within 3-4 weeks. Ships in a USPS flat rate for actual cost no hidden fees. Which is great because living in Alaska we always seem to take it in the shorts on shipping and "Handling" charges. All in all he has been a pleasure to deal with from my end of things.

On my small jigs I use forceps to hold the hook by the eye and dip in the fluid bed. On my bigger stuff say 4oz-25oz I dip then clean the eyes out then cure. Small stuff heats over the heat gun and big stuff heats in the toaster oven first.

At 11 cents a tab for the high quality factory died tabs I couldn't see myself trying to make them either. But I could see some satisfaction if I could fish a jig I made 100% myself Including the hook and skirt. Most likely it would be just so I could say I had done it one time. Wish my saltwater double skirts were that cheap!

I don't use the same type skirt you bass fishermen do. But is it really worth it? Whats the average cost of your skirts? Looking at LPO it is like $.25-$.30 a tab. Unless you find some dirt cheap silicone, glitter, and dye I just don't see it being worthwile. Other than the joy of catching fish on something you made yourself of course.

My lead gets fluxed and cleaned before I would ever consider pouring inside. There isn't much for impurities left after proper fluxing and skimming. I would also still have ventilation inside via a fan and open window. I do not wear a respirator when casting though. I think that's what many guys are getting at here. Keep the temp below 900* and you shouldn't need a respirator but would still need some ventilation via fan/open window or equivalent. There is no excuse for poor lead handling practices. There is also no reason to go overboard with respirators and full on HVAC systems for guys pouring 200 jigs a year in their garage.

I was only at the mine for a year and a half or so before taking a transfer to another job with higher pay and less responsibility. As far as I know there was only one person I heard about removed from the mill(where the lead is processed and the highest risk was). He had previously worked at other mines not requiring a respirator and came to this mine with somewhat elevated lead levels to begin with. They have very strict policies at the mine regarding washing and keeping lead out of camp and other areas it doesn't belong. As far as other metals go only a handful of people were tested regularly for cadmium and other toxic metals depending on the risk levels associated with their job. for the rest of us lead shows up easiest and is a good indicator so if your lead levels climb to the watch level then you got tested for other stuff. I agree with you though that lead fumes are not as big a hazard as many would have you believe. They informed us at the mine the average Americans blood lead levels were ~17mg/dl when leaded gas was in use versus 3 or 4mg/dl (I believe) today. mg/dl= micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. I use a thermometer in my pot and use natural ventilation (pouring outside)as well as a fan when needed. I use proper hygiene practices and wear FRC(fire resistant Nomex coveralls) while working with lead among other safety practices.

I worked in the processing plant of a large zinc and lead mine. we wore 1/2 mask respirators and had our blood drawn and checked every 3 months. The dust was the biggest problem there. Of course they only did 800 tons of lead concentrate a day and 2,200 tons of zinc concentrate. As for the original question I ingotize scrap outside but usually pour in my garage with the large roll up door open. Is it possible to rent some shop or garage space somewhere? I know some areas do have such things as rental garage spaces. That or make some fishing friends with someone who has a garage and might be willing to let you work there occasionally for a few free jigs.

I sent Shawn an Email the other day regarding some molds we had been discussing previously. Got a response within 3 days. Has he contacted you yet? I don't know why other people have so much trouble with contacting him as I have never had any issues with it. And I live in Alaska so I couldn't get much further away from him and still live in the US.

Have you contacted Shawn Collins? I haven't had him make a custom mold for me but he has made several of his stock molds for me and they are first class. His reputation has been dubious in the past but lately he has made some molds for me in a quick manner and I was very happy with his customer service and the time it took to get the molds to me.

Maybe if you let us in on your idea we could let you know if we think it would work with the dross we have. The reality is most of our dross is pretty crappy stuff and it is hard for most of us to envision any logical use for it. A little insight into your idea might help us understand where you are coming from.

I wonder the same thing. My dross doesn't have much lead or anything worth trying to save in it. I do realize he also said zinc and possibly crappy lead and/or bad pours too. My bad pours get melted back into the pot and my crappy lead gets cleaned up fluxed and made useable. I avoid purchasing the crappiest lead my local scrap yard has as they do let me pick through it. My dross certainly isn't worth the cost of shipping I know that.

I don't make soft plastics but mainly focus on jigs and sinkers. I never intended to sell what I make I really just enjoy making jigs and all that goes with it. I made the mistake(?) of posting pics on a outdoors forum for my home state. While I did have plans to give a few away I certainly couldn't give away a ton of stuff. I did give a few away at first to some diehard saltwater jiggers. I had so many requests for my stuff I did sell a small amount of jigs to some guys over there. Now I have guys asking me all the time to buy what I make. I keep telling them I need to become legal first. If not for a summer filled with family health issues I would already have it done. I just don't feel comfortable skirting the law and the IRS is one agency that I dont want to pizzz off, One very promising source of jig sales for me is a coworker and friend who runs a successfull charter business. We both work in a remote camp and work two weeks on and two weeks off. This gives him time to charter and he has a co-captain for when he is at work. This schedule also gives me plenty of time to make jigs yet a steady dependable income from my regular job that allows me to pay all my bills and living expenses. Anyway my charter buddy recently had his jig maker retire. He can go through $100 a day in the summer season in lost tackle fishing the saltwater rockpiles where the big fish are. Especially with a boat load of inexperienced clients on board. He wants to order jigs 100 at a time. Considering these are larger and more expensive jigs(4oz is a small one and 20+oz is common). I got him hooked giving him free samples. Rather than sell retail I plan to sell them myself. It doesn't take many full time charter guys buying my stuff to make it worthwhile. A great source of advertising for me was the free giveaways. Once those guys posted up some reports on how much success they had using my stuff the requests for stuff started rolling in.Especially when those guys outfished other brands of jigs caught 2 fish on 1 (double hooked)jig more than once etc. One guy even made a really cool video naming me in the credits. So keep it reasonable but handing out free samples can really pay off.I always ask the guys who get free stuff to post a report somewhere of how they work good or bad as a condition of their recieving the free stuff. That is great free advertising especially when your stuff works great and the fish really like it. Also look for those people in your area who run charters or otherwise use/loose a lot of tackle. But like others have said keep it legal and pay your taxes. I have seen people who thought they could skirt the IRS in other businesses and it wasn't pretty. I can't wait to set up myself legally in the next month or so as I have a waiting list of clients that I turned away who will buy a bunch of stuff this winter I am sure. Especially since I make and sell a lot of stuff not available in stores made from CNC custom or semi-custom molds.

I currently have a coffee can full of dross. I fully intend to toss it away at the local dump in the next week or so. I bought a metal bucket to fill up next time. I intend to spray it with drop out so I can reuse the bucket when it starts to get full. The zinc wheel weights I plan to save and make a few zinc ingots incase I someday find a use for them or decide to try making a few jigs from them. I highly doubt you would have much use for my dross. It is from a pot that has been fluxed really well and is really just a pile of crap in a coffee can. It would cost me $12 to ship it to you and for that I just cant see it being beneficial.

I currently have 2 small jig racks. Mine have small chain on them for my bigger jigs and it keeps them seperated well. I saw on another forum a guy made his using bead chain to keep the jigs seperated. I plan to do that on my next one. It sure kept the jigs well organized and spaced perfectly to maximize the amount of jigs he could hang at one time.

Yes he does and he has them listed on EBAY right now. If you are looking for a mold like this or any of his other molds listed his EBAY sales have been nothing but good for me.

The way I see it a brand new Do-It mold is a brand new Do-It mold. If the price is cheaper,Shipping included,and the service is decent then you have a win win situation. It really is an apples to apples comparison and price and service are the only real comparisons as the molds are exactly the same. If only they had all the other components we need at similiar prices it would be the icing on the cake. I didn't think to check for other stuff as all I needed was these two molds at this time and they don't need inserts of any kind. I hope this might save other members a couple of bucks on mold purchases as it did for me.

A friend asked mne to make him a 10# glow in the dark downrigger weight from a mold I have. The paint is CSI Super Glow White vinyl from Barlows.The topcoat is D2T epoxy. Seems to be really bright and last a long time when properly charged. It is a bit spendy at $22.95 for a 4oz jar. I used a led flashlight to charge this. i am sure with the right charger on a smaller lure sized object it would be a more unioform glow.

Well I found a cheaper source of molds than even Bottom Dwellers. Shark river mail order. I needed a couple of egg sinker molds for Texas rigging some Duck decoys. Zeiners price =$31.81 each Bottom Dweller price=$29.50 each Shark River=$27.99 Shipping was also reasonable especially considering I live in Alaska. $12.99 for 2 molds or $.99 over the cost of a USPS medium flat rate box. These guys seem to carry a lot of Do-It molds including Jig molds. I'll post up if I have any problems and how fast they shipped them etc.

I think most of us just dip them in the lead pot with pliers to remove the lead. I could potentially see issues if you were to use say a propane torch to melt the lead off as that could get it too hot. So be carewful if you decide to use other heat sources to melt the lead off. Even my bigger 20+oz stuff melts fairly fast in the pot.

Yup I do it all the time. You shouldn't have any issues remelting the lead and reusing the hook.

What are the goals of this project? Are you thinking this would lead to more complete pours in molds that do not like to fill out completly? Maybe a time saver via faster pours? Possibly this could be used to fill larger molds say ~3oz and above that would normally not allow use of a bottom pour pot? This would neccessitate a large resevoir as big jigs use a lot of lead. I make really big stuff so I know this well. Would Jamming the spout into the gate be enough to stop lead from spewing out around the mold and possibly burning onesself? I am not sure most of us have need for such a system but you never know. Price might also be an issue. Especially when you are potentialy talking some machinist work to the cylinder and bore.

Pewter is mostly tin. Could a person not find some scrap pewter trinkets at a garage sale or something and melt it for its tin?

I tried the blaster spray from Home Depot and I am much happier using drop out. The Home Depot stuff worked but drop out goes on much better. The blaster spray comes out of the can too fast for me.

Just got an Email price quote from Shawn on the new molds I wanted. 3 days to answer an Email seems reasonable to me. Maybe he has turned over a new leaf in life. Whatever the case he sure has treated me well.

I always seem to have the best luck when I pour one cavity at a time. Especially with multi size cavity molds. It really isn't that much slower pouring one cavity until you have enough then switching cavities. It gives me complete pours in that one cavity every time so in the end without remelting the incomplete pours it isn't that much more timewise. This has worked well for me on my Shawn Collins fish jig mold in the 10,12,16oz mold. I use a 50# lead pot and a Rowell bottom pour ladle from Rotometals. I have one that holds 1.5# and for my bigger stuff one that holds 4#. I highly recommend the Rowell ladles they work well for me. Some molds just seem to be finicky like that though. My Do-It flutter jig mold in 7oz and 9oz needs to be tilted to work right. The hardest one for me to pour has been the Hilts 10# fish shaped downrigger mold. I have to tilt it a lot and do it all in one pour from the pot. Even with two guy ladleing as fast as we could go it wouldn't turn out. Using an old lined leather glove as a hot pad and pouring from the pot we made a few that turned out good.