Silo1688

for my trick worms i've been working on, I had some luck when I place a large diameter roofing nail in the tail before I make my mold from DWP. I place the worm on top the the semi-cured DWP, slightly pushing in the worm ~1/2 way. Than allow the bottom part to dry. Once dry I'll coat the bottom with vasiline and pour the top part half the mold. Once that is dry, carefully separte and take the worm out (with the nail still imbedded in the tail). I then seal the mold with wood glue water mix. Using the same nail, I place it into the mold and shoot the worm. this will cause the plastic to shoot around it causing a deliberate cavity. Separate the molds and take out the nail. Seal the end with a lighter. Now the tail floats. WahLa! This works really well this a duplicate of a 5" non-salted stick worm and trick worm (because the end is slightly larger). I hope this helps.

I've done some similar baits . Go to hobby lobby and get some hologram glitter. It has the same effect try that. Works for me.

I thought I read somewhere since its not a polyester glitter it will melt and bleed. However, hobby lobby does sell very fine polyester glitter. I have not tried it...I did not want to take that chance. Have you had any success? It would be nice to know if it does work bc it's so easy to get.

Ben, Off the top of your head... do you know if one can buy <1000 of any item from the Worth Company? I only going to need 20 or so to start. --George

You guys are amazing! Thanks so much for the help! --George

Thanks so much for the reply, however I'm looking for a smaller prop size....approx 1- 1.5 inches. Any further help? --George

I have been seaching high and low and cannot find gold prop blades, only chrome. I must be over looking somewhere. Any help? -- George.

anyone know where they can be purchased?

Here is what some research has gotten me... You can also try to make some yourself with some oven bake putty. Bake it and make a top pour mold from either POP or DWP. I had to first contact the CNC machine shop, and they pointed me to the right CAD company since they did not disign it on site. OR you can take to a CAD (computer aided disign) shop and they can "remake" it it in a digital format. At this point you can also add or subract different features you can place on it. Then you need to take that CAD copy and bring it to a CNC machine shop where they can carve it out of aluminum, make sure they can use that type of CAD copy. hope this helps.

I'm assuming you know how many drops per fluid oz of plastic. If you do not, I suggest going back to basics, mixing and pouring a few test baits and recording those numbers down. Here is the conversion math: A basic rounded drop is said to exactly 0.05 mL (that is, 20 drops per milliliter)...I use metric b/c it's so much easier to measure with. 128 fl oz in 1 fluid gal. So if you use 5 drops of green pumpkin/fluid oz of plastic.....take 5 x 128 = 640 total drops per gallon. .... this is where things get a little sketchy.... so now you take the total of number of drops 640 x 0.05 (thats the liquid volume of each rounded drop) = 32mL of green pumpkin. I hope this helps! Take care and happy pouring! ---- George.

in order to "heat" up my finished molds I will melt scrap plastic and pour it all over the mold. then heat your "pouring plastic". When it is done, just peel the scrap plastic off. I always spray my molds with PAM prior to pouring. Good luck!

Has anyone tried using that Plasti-Dip for a RTV substitute? It seems to have good heat resistance, no mixing and relatively short set time. Its pretty cheap too. At HD it was ~$7.00 for a good size can. It tried to search my question first, everything I found was folks using it for hollow-body frog making. Pretty cool read, but not what I was looking for. Thanks everyone! -G.

I have been using Durhams for some time now. Much easier to use than POP, sets quicker ~12-15min, with a total cure time ~24hrs. I lay my bait for replication on top of the setting Durham putty. Test the setting viscosity by lightly touching your finger to the surface. I should feel like setting Jello. It is easy to make 2 part molds of you use a very thin layer of vasiline 'painted' on the mold so it will not stick to itself. I then place the mold in the oven set on "warm" for a 5-6 hours to bake out the residual moisture and to increase the hardness.

OK, attempt number TWO... as before the mold box works really good! I tried to use the hot glue gun, but that got too messy, dried too quickly and overall a pain in the rear end. SO, I took that advice in another post and used black silicone gasket seal (~$5 buck at ACE). Now I can make as big or as small of a mold that I want. I sealed the edges with quick dry culking (~$4.00 at ACE) and waited ~1 hour to place the bait. ACC starts to really set in ~50-60 min dependin on the surrounding ambient temperature. I have three expariments going. First. I used the silicone gasket seal to "pin" the soft bait down (this works great for stick or pain ol' worms). The other two are for what I call appendage baits (lizards, grubs, creature). The second other I'm going to pour a bottom layer of ACC and wait until the ACC is firm enough for the bait to float. The problem with this is that you have to be perfect in your timing, otherwise the bait appendages will submerge themselves or the ACC will be too firm, thus not allowing the appendages to be pressed in half way. The third, I'm using a thick Water Putty mixture to 'foat a appendage bait (in this expariment, a lizard) and let that harden. Then I'm going pour the first ACC layer over then and finish it up by flipping it over to pour the second half. This third experiment seems like the most work, however so far it floats the bait very easily. I know molds are really easy to buy, but I'm a scientist at heart and this is totally fun to do. I really want to create a mold that is hard as a rock, clear, will not stain and once perfected, I can make multi-bait injection mold for the a fraction the cost of the aluminum mold. Any tips (especially alternative epoxy/ACC release agents) are greatly appreciated! I promise to keep adding posts as I go. Take care all. Thanks again for reading! --George.

Ok so the first mold literally stuck together and i had to crack it open. I even liberally used the release spray the the manufacturer recommended (stupid $10 release spray....that's going back). But here is the good news. I also used vasiline and rubbed it on the sides of the mold box and it released perfectly. So I'm going to retry today and I'll see how it goes. I originally tried a creature bait. But this time I'm going to replicate a stick bait to keep it basic. Wish me luck.

Hey there everyone, Has anyone used ACC as a mold? I'm think I'm going to try. I figure... 1) it does not shrink like fiberglass resin 2) pours like RTV, but does not stain, 3) easy to get a hold of (@ Hobby Lobby esp on sale!), will not crack if you drop it. Downside... it is kinda expensive. I'm going to use the mold-box and modeling clay approach like in the smooth-on videos. I did a practice pour in a small tupperware with flexable sides. I used the release agent spray prior to pouring and took about 3 days for fully cure. Looks really shinny too. I'll let you all know how it works out.

Hey everyone, ACC is awesome. I painted this over all my my expensive topwater lures so the paint job remain looking good. I also added colored and hologram glitter to the ACC prior to painting it on. I did not have any problems with painting it on. Will take about 24-26 hours to fully cure. --George.

what about extra-sticky hair spray? just a thought...... hmmmm

that bait looks sick!. I'm going to try to pour a green pumpkin bait, blue hi-lite, bit of large black flake and a tiny bit of medium orange or rust flake. We'll soon see.

Ummm....Bill, you gave me the link to a golf couse... hehehe.

Hey everyone I was loading different video on water putty molds and this person was using women's eye shadow and mica powder! I never though of this. I looked on amazon and the eye shadow seems pretty dang cheap (not the powder micca...that's expensive) compared to what is offered at the DIY bait sites. Has anyone has every tried this?

looks great. good job!

Has anyone came across anyone selling resin molds? I made a few hand pour molds and it was super easy. Sanding it down is time consuming, but overall easy.

here another product from smooth-on. http://www.smooth-on.com/Platinum-Cure-Sili/c1115_1130/index.html

smooth-on has some plastic material that seems very similar to elaztec. here is the website... http://www.smooth-on.com/Silicone-Rubber-an/c2_1115_1129/index.html enjoy. I have not tried it but it looks pretty cool!