Chuck Young

G finish with nail art powder? I have been continuing to experiment, this time foiling with nail art film. I made some notes about these experiments on the comments

Yeah, you definitely want to get as much paint out of the brush as you can before you use that stuff.

I could send you a picture of a broken 18lb test super-braid. That is all that was left after a LMB hit my mini mouse.

Death by airbrush! News at 11 My teeny compressor doesn't have enough power.

If you use your finger to cover the end, be careful not to bend the needle tip. The cap that comes with the brush is useful in this regard. It creates an airtight seal, forcing everything backwards through your brush and out through the cup or bottom feed. If some pearl or clumpy paint gets stuck, this is one way to force it out of the critical areas. Usually I crank up the pressure, and work the needle to get rid of clogs. Touching a bottle of water (for bottom feed brushes) repeatedly to the brush does a great job of clearing the brush of paint.

In addition, when the paint starts coming out funny, you can empty the brush, remove the head (or totally retract the needle), put a drop or two on the outside and brush it with a tooth brush. That removes the dried paint that can clog the brush at lower pressures. For sort term storage, I spray a drop or two through a thoroughly rinsed brush and snap the cap on while it is still coming out. Then I put my water bottle on the bottom feed. Before the next session, just spray the water. It can also be used on the exterior of your brush to remove dried on paint. This makes your brush look sharp.

I look forward to hearing more from you. I only have a couple of years of experience. but if there is any way I can help you, let me know .

I noticed in my experimentation that the foil coating is so thin that it is translucent. A further improvement has been made by sandwiching the lure in the first layer of foam and holding it in place as close as you can to the lure with jumbo or large paper clamps.. This helps the foil conform to the complex curves of the lure. Then add the rest of the layers of foam before placing it in the parallel clamps.

I recently discovered that alligator clips can be a little less tricky if you use some 1/8"(?) kid's craft foam (Michael's kid's section) inside the teeth. Just let the teeth of the clips bite through the foam then trim them with a razor knife. The foam keeps the lure from twisting in the hook hangers. You could always loop wires through the eyes and hold the wires with alligator clips. This method also works on multi-jointed blanks.

You can also do Brick's trick through a scale mesh.

It may be a bigger deal if you are using E-Tex for a pour on surface or for art. That is what the maker of the product designed it for. So that is what the directions are for. A thick, poured on puddle is especially where you would see bubbles. So the directions are for the prevention of bubbles. If you brush it on to fishing lures, you pop most of them anyway. If you use a round stick, you can still achieve complete mixing by doing the counter rotating thing instead of scraping. It pulls all the edge product into the middle. As for mixing it for a full two minutes - I see no problem with mixing it a little longer, it has a pretty long pot life.

Thanks, Pete. I value your opinion a lot. By way of update, I tried 3m spray adhesive as well. It grabbed the foil fine, if you got he timing right. But you can't slide the foil around, and the finish was not as smooth or shiny. Any residue that got on the "chrome" was easily contaminated. Superglue also proved useless, contaminating the chrome. I didn't wait for the epoxy to get tacky. It went into the clamp right away. It stays there until it is cured. I tried waiting for the epoxy to tack up before applying foil, but the results were unsatisfactory. Any epoxy that gets on the chrome does not ruin it. In fact most excess gets removed with the plastic film. Atmospheric pressure or vacuum pressure was not enough to compress the thin epoxy. The pressure from that particular foam with the parallel clamp is perfect for conforming to the details of the lure. The thin epoxy and relief cuts allow the excess to escape. It was surprising that virtually no weight was gained with this process. The uv cure epoxies might not fully cure once under the reflective chrome, unless they are a dual cure formula. But tackiness is not as big a problem as some make it out to be. Paint sticks to it, so does the top layer of epoxies. Those laminating fiberglass use a special epoxy that remains tacky, so it will bond properly.

If you coated it that way, you would end up with a very thick coat - probably throwing the weight way off. I have abandoned this approach in favor of heat transfer foil and epoxy. Measurements before and after showed no difference in weight of a bait chromed this way. I have posted a tutorial, thread, and gallery pics. A disproportionate number of the pics show mistakes, which were part of the learning process. I made them so you won't have too. Even those with errors, they look better that a spray chromed lure would after just a few fish. The last 1/2 dozen lures done came out very well. I am now confident that most lures, if not all, can be chromed this way. The foil can be coated with e-tex, Devcon, and probably all the rest as well - with no loss of luster. I am sure many improvements can be made on this process. All I ask is that you share any improvements.