joelhains

The Do-it Croaker mold is a good one.

Burnt plastic!

No. On larger baits I would want a tougher plastic. Especially since musky have teeth.

Anybody know of a company that sells musky size soft plastic molds? I'd love to be able to make my own hand poured bulldawg type lures. I know shrinkage would be a challenge with injection molds that size but an open pour mold would be great.

Thanks guys!

Just put this video together today showing how I get the "core shot" look. Technically not core shots but the effect is the same. Hopefully this is useful for somebody. Wish I had found a video like this a few years ago!

I've been messing around with baits again and am finally getting my technique dialed in. The results are turning out really well. Here are a few baits from this morning. Just wanted to add a side note: The stickbaits were made with GBM. They have a nearly identical sink rate as GY Senkos but I can't believe just how clear the plastic turned out. I'm very pleased with the result!

I was dippining the wire in hot plastic (core color) and letting it run off onto the poured half of the bait. This leaves a line of the core color. I've now substituted the piece of wire for a screwdriver which gives me better control. I might need to do a video.

I've got molds from several companies and found pretty much all of them are good. If its a machined mold you will get a nice professional looking finished product. Lot of options for plastic and some are better than others. I really like bait junkie plastic followed by mf manufacturing. For a swimbait mold check out bass tackle. I love the 2.5 inch paddletail!

I've been messing around with doing core shots today. Still need to figure out proper temps but I think I might have a technique or two that works. I tried pouring the outside color by hand into the mold then quickly shooting the core color. I think this could work okay on some molds but I couldn't fill the tails on either my fluke or paddle tail molds. What I've found to work is to hand pour in one half of the mold and dip a piece of wire into the core color and drag it on top of the half already poured. Then just build up as much of the core color as I want, close the mold and shoot the rest of the outside color. Here are my results from today. Still need to practice!

Any good YouTube videos for dipping tubes? I've tried it but I haven't been happy with my results. Of like to find a few videos to hopefully improve my process/results. Thanks!

I'd call it green!

I have the high rock molds fluke style jerkbait. Its a 10 cavity, 3 color mold. Shoots great. Really nice bait. One of my favorites.

A vertical tail angle will produce a wider tailkick in most swimbaits. And an angled tail will produce a narrower kick but a faster rate of kick. I did some testing with several styles of store bought baits and this was a general rule.

Unless I find several blanks leaking I won't bother contacting the company. The blank only cost $1.50 obviously if there are more the costs will add up. Some good things to think about in this thread though. Thanks

Near as I can tell it looks to be leaking from one of the hook hangers. I don't plan screwing around with returns. I'll just seal it up and see how it goes. Just curious if it was par for the course to have them leak before painting/sealing. Thanks

I couldn't tell you where they were made but I wouldn't be surprised if they're Chinese. Im sure the majority of them are made there.

I just got in my first order of crank blanks. I've been wanting to get into painting my own for sometime and am finally getting around to it! So today I attach a few hooks and took a few unpainted blank out to the pond to check out the actions of the different models. One of the blanks had some water inside after a dozen casts or so. Is this normal? I'm not going to mention the suppliers name but it was one that was highly recommended on this forum. The blanks have a quality "feel" to them and I imagine that after they are epoxied they will seal up and leaking won't be an issue.

Good post Ron thank you! Quality means different things to different people. Your definition and mine seem to be very similar. One thing I would add is consistency between blanks. I haven't ordered from any of these mentioned vendors yet so I have no idea what to expect from them. But having blanks that are the same model should all behave and swim the same. I would imaging a manufacturer with poor quality control would have a hard time achieving consistency.

Thanks for all the input guys! I guess i'll order a few from several suppliers and try to compare quality. Most of what's do is for personal use. I do sell a few baits to my buddies and others who know I make lures but I don't actively look for customers. I want anything that I put time into to be worth fishing. I don't want to spend a bunch of time sanding and painting a crank only to have it bust in half the first time I cast it into a tree! Or take on water or have hook hangers pull loose on a quality fish. One thing I will say about many of the websites I've looked at is they aren't very user friendly to mobile users. Maybe if I did most of my work on a desktop the site would look different and more info would show up. But I use my phone for almost everything and the websites of crankbait suppliers haven't impressed me much. Unpainted blanks are difficult to identify. You can make out the basic shape but details are hard to see. I think they should post better descriptions of what they are trying to sell. Specifically if a blank is a copy or knock off of a well know lure put something in the description that indicates so. Some do this with a few of theirs blanks. Some are easy to distinguish but many ore not. Just my .02

Yes...I read it. That thread is why I'm having second thoughts about ordering from them.

Thanks Terry. I've been reading all over trying to find quality blanks. From what I've gathered, most are manufactured China and sold by middlemen who all buy from the same limited number of manufacturers. But I'm consistently reading that the venders who are selling what look to be the same blanks for more money are better quality. Not sure how this can be the case if there such a limited number of manufactures. I'm reading a lot and getting more confused the more I read lol!

I'm looking to get into painting cranks. I have a cart loaded with Shelts but I haven't checked put yet. Before I place the order I'm curious about the quality of blanks you get from them? Are there other suppliers that are better to deal with? I'm looking to get some Vision 110 KO blanks, dt10 KO blanks and the spro little john KO blanks. Thanks

I have the same molds and have experienced the same issues. When injecting play with the speed you inject the plastic. Also, Holding pressure is the the best way to combat incomplete pours. Denting happens when your plastic is too hot. I found Baitjunkies plastic shoot the best in these particular molds. Hope this helps!