Inrll

I used a triple coat of Solarez. I'm happy with how well its held up vs. factory paint/topcoat. I have a couple Lucky Craft and Rapalas that have shown pretty bad hook rash from one 8 hr day on the water. Not to mention eyes falling off and one Lucky Craft pointer I have that started taking on water after 2 hrs of use.

Hmm let me try that second pic again

I've been testing out one of my 1.5 KO's for about 2 months now and have really put it through a lot. I've fished a couple tournaments and gone on at least 7-8 creek fishing trips with this thing. It runs about 4-5' deep and I have purposely thrown it exclusively on my creek trips in water as shallow as a foot and usually less than 3'. All total I would guess I have about 50-55 hours on this lure with about 40 of those hours in a creek where it was banged into rocks every cast for the entire retrieve. I say all this because after having put the lure through so much there is one small area of cracking in the topcoat on the belly area but otherwise all the damage is to the bill and nose. I'm curious about the cracks on the bill. Would you say this is normal after such abuse? Here's a before and after.

I've been able to get a fairly good chrome look by rubbing foil with anything smooth and hard (back of a spoon, x-acto handle) after its applied.

I've only Solarezed plastic KO's so far.

Same for me. I usually double or triple dip and let the final coat sit outside for a whole afternoon. I need at least a double dip anyway to get my eyes the way I want them.

I've done 1 bone color lure and it was all createx. I didn't have any discolorations with it.

Those are pretty cool. My take-away from this though is that I notice how they show the color difference where the abdominal organs are and the rest of the body. Its something I've noticed on small fish but never thought about translating to lure. The wheels are turning now...

Nice! I didn't know about this stuff. I'll have to stop by HD and pick some up.

Wow, what timing. I was just going to post about this. I picked up an oooooold two wheel grinder with a cloth buffing wheel on one side and a block of white polishing compound at a flea market yesterday. Got it all for $20 thinking I might try and polish up my solarezed lures. I got it home, plugged it in, put on some compound and sure enough it shined them right up! I would say they are at about 90% full gloss if that makes sense. If I had the know-how and maybe another wheel I'm sure I could bring them to a mirror shine but as they are now they are pretty darn near it. It took about a minute per lure after I got the hang of it.