jeff@mf

Not a good idea with any brand! Even burned popcorn is not good inside the house. Find a shed or garage please to help with any problems; dogs, children, wife, yourself not to mention painted walls and ceilings, plants you get the point. Every brand has PVC in it and if you burn it that’s not good, I don't care if its green plastisol it will not be so green if you over cook it over even correctly it will put off unneeded fumes. jeff@mf

Heck pay for shipping I will give you a pint for free, can't beat that. 817-281-9488. it comes in a bottle not a bag though if that's your deciding point. I personally don't like my wine or plastic in a bag. All plastic will settle giving the length of time and I'm sure at one point that valve will clog. just my 2 cents. Jeff@mf, I'm having a pretty good Monday I might pay for shipping too!

Attached are 3 types of colorants I'm going to take a picture of, #1 one is $100.00 per lb. and is transparent chartreuse. #2 one is at least 25 years old and not sure of a price currently but I have a life time supply and it's a blue bleeder that is at least 25 times stronger than the 2x version. Third one is about $8.00 lb green pumpkin from P&D colorant, a supplier of several major manufactures and color suppliers. You can easily see why some colors have to be broken down to a usable product and others just repackaged as is and price and strength is a major factor. #1 transparent chartreuse is a powder and liquid has to be added to make a liquid color. #2 blue bleeder would be impossible to sell as is (see the spoon attached?), so it's a 3 shake break down process (one sob of a color) or could be ran through a mill. #3 green pumpkin can be sold as is because it is what I was told at 5% pigment load already. Maybe this will shine a little light on color strengths. There would be pages of material on this topic to compare to but this might help to a few here.

Maybe pouring your plastic cooler than 350/335 will help keep the glitter suspended a bit more for you? Or keep your molds cooler to set up quicker, just a thought. Jeff@mf

Sorry forgot I do not speak Thia, so we are on even ground here. jeff@mf

This topic will be pretty much closed lipped meaning you will probably not have many responses with how soft plastic is made, very trade secrete. But when you find out you, expect to spend lots of money on raw material more than you can store in your garage...Good Luck! jeff@mf

Did you find a nice blue or green?

I haven't seen anyone post that you can use eye make-up from your wife's purse, but that would work great for you. Just add small amounts to your plastic before you heat it. It's not the cheapest colorant out there but for sure will make some great colors. Might upset the wife a bit? So have a good tarp on your boat to sleep in. jeff@mf

Here are some more prices from 1978 then again the price increase in 1993-1994, might of been as early as 1991. You can also see the first crystal clear plastic was introduced with the super soft plastic. Not many changes but the price in these small catalogs. jeff@mf

Phthalate free does not make it bio-degradable if that helps you guys? The bio-degradable plastic available to us that is used is junk, but I’m sure within 10 years or so there will be reasonable products on the market. Right now only a few of our colors contain Phthalates, not all.

Internet! that's the number 1 big change.

Totally agree and its coming in the near future I’m sure, no offense taken.

Robert Maserang and Norman Fitzgerald, the M & F of M-F Manufacturing should get allot of credit for making and pouring your own baits. Quitting their official job in 69/70, they started out of Norman’s garage as I understand. They spilled a 55 gallon drum down the street, the old lady complained, yadayadayada, and that’s when it was time to move into a bigger place just like many of hand pourers/injectors still do today, out of their garage. I thought about it and was going to disagree about not too many changes to date, but the commitment then is probably equal to what I put into my job every day. Both of them quit their jobs and started M-F, (kinda the same way I quit my electrical job working on water treatment plants). I got tired of driving hours in traffic and they probably got tired of something else. So, then again they use to have 20-25 sales reps in the field and I have hard work in front of me just no leg work outside our 7000 square ‘ building, I’m sure there’s a saying for that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it or ???? We still rely on the pour your own worm’s logo brand @ M-F. I have more old decals, pictures, samples and old leg work folders than I can read in 6 months. Pretty cool stuff and lots of memories for Robert. jeff@mf

These are promos from M-F few years after they started out, I was only 5 years old calling (M-F) where my mom worked that my brother was picking on me and now I've worked here over 15 years. Thought I would share this with you guys, see if you can see the prices back then: 1974 jeff@mf

You can get real close with black and brown, but it may vary on who's brown you have. I think all black will be the same but browns are different.

FYI, I have contacted this company few days ago and a man named Bill Patrick? I think is his last name is over this fishing/worm bag part of his business. He is sending me samples to make sure it works with MF/all plastic products and will be sending them customers, and contact info will be on our web-site. If all goes well we might carry a few of his products but I told him he's already been advertised on TU for his business. He is willing to make stock bags for a peculiar size if needed with no up-charges if he thinks it will sale. Super nice guy and looks like super products and they also do the logos. pretty good topic!

Hey Mike I guess you can tell I’m bored. I’ve actually got an infection in my surgery area and still not up to par. The only reason I keep saying moisture as this is the only way I have seen any brand plastic do this is to have moisture in it, pretty strange. Bass 4.. OK, so it’s not moisture why not try another way of heating your current plastic, like a pan and stove top. This would help explain to me more about this product. I thought I have tried every brand of plastic, except CC but I haven’t seen so much foam before other than one customer kept his 55 gallon drum out in the elements and by water sprinkler and we stress to everyone not to get any moisture in any plastics, colors ect…… At this point I would call the person you bought it from, that would be your best bet. Jeff@MF

Let it set overnight without shaking or stirring, if the plastic weighs more than water the water will be at the top assuming water is the issue and vice versa if it’s a floating plastic. It looks like the perfect storm for it being water(mostiure) to me, or it is contaminated with another chemical by accident. Or it could be one of those freak things going on with the microwave, I have seen them go crazy and heat at extreme high heat more than once.

Number one on the list it looks like moisture or water to me hope it is not from my supplier me. There are many ways to introduce moisture into your plastics. I guess first is your microwave and measuring cup clean? Jeff@MF

One more though sorry bud. I have customers that complain all the time that they want to catch more than a few fish from each bait, if you can supply me baits that catches fish for a lifetime I can at least sell you a hand full, say 10-15. Not much profit that I can see but I don’t make baits for a living I supply the plastic and colorants. Jeff Smith About 2X from what I understand is not a bad idea. Quote from CC” “For best results heat your plastic and colorant together. If you are making a new color recipe and need to add drops to hot plastic dilute them slightly with fresh plastic, softener or worm oil prior to adding to your recipe to get a true color.” So basically another good selling point, selling straight pigment from his engineers and selling you softener to dilute, sounds like the customer doing the work for the mixing process. Not a bad idea as this mixing or diluting may have helped with my hernia. I also noticed the larger cap, that’s so the pigment can be scraped or squeezed like the action of honey into a slight larger opening, another good idea by CC. This is a great idea for larger pre-colored plastics such as gallons or larger but for smaller guys it just wouldn’t work to good for beginners without a little more unneeded work. Shoot I better get to work soon, wasting all my ideas on a soft plastic forum.

Mike, on the glitter issue you will find that you personally won’t run into curling, bleeding or melting as most of us will/can because I assume you inject all your plastics? You are not keeping your plastic heated as long as most pourers/injectors do. Purple most of the time has issues from bleeding to changing from purple to a lighter tint throughout the years. We do not make our glitter and not sure if any plastic suppliers do, color tech I was told do but I wouldn’t think so. Another hearsay, I may be in the wrong on this. Again I am only human with 15+ years’ experience in this business thought I could pass some time without making enemies. I started electrical work out of high school and still love working with electricity, not in computers so a head up I may misspell a few words, my daughter can do circles around me. One good point for everyone is to not take everything in typing as it can be misleading as where talking on a phone or person to person not so much. One can take text another direction as otherwise meant. Mike, I got your IM and will call you ASAP when I get back to work, I think I get my staples out today.

One more thing I missed, did you read the few reviews on his colors? Well they were M-F’s No pissy contest with me I will loose. I am way to busy as this is my full time job @ M-F Manufacturing

Guess you missed this “ As far as 2x strength goes it is a selling point and I have a few colors you could call 12x” I’M not going to interfere with your who’s right who’s wrong it was to clear up one subject. You will find it may not be as user friendly as a cut down version with some coloring processes. Although it may be a stronger colorant you may find yourself going through more wasted plastic trying to correct your color formulation. This is also a great selling point for plastic. And for the other point we sell to smaller hobbyist customers that do not need colorant to be so strong to color 1-55 gallon drum with 1-2 ounces of color. To each their own as there are plenty of people in this world for all of use to have a piece of the action and better enjoy it while it last. There are lots of ups and downs in fishing industry. Luckily M-F and LC have lasted the test of time or forums like this one may not exist. I can already tell why I don’t have time for more surgeries. Good luck with all new process you guys can through out there.

No apologize needed>>As far as I am concerned we will no longer be doing business with him for reasons not needed to be explained on TU or for anywhere other than a phone call directly to me at work, 817-281-9488. We are now carrying a few of David’s molds and may not set well with his competition. Only a few since we send several customers to David and one BT. I will say one idea I had for all of us suppliers, as CC was the only one that did not want to participate with me and did not want any part of plastisol testation. I guess I’ll go rest for next week glad it took a navel hernia operation to chime in. Jeff Smith, M-F Manufacturing Co. PS, I can say David is one of the nicest and easiest guys to work with I have ran across in quite some time in this type “3366 cutthroat trout M-F Color” business.

My only point was that we didn’t stop selling any one, now that’s just not smart business. He says he has chemist and engineer’s working on his plastics and colors, it was just a clarification on 1 single point about M-F Manufacturing. Have a good day and enjoy all the info on your forum, just some of it’s not 100% correct. Jeff Smith, M-F manufacturing Co.