Tiderunner

This is the most awesome colored craw I have ever seen. I doubt you could get any more realistic if you were using live crawfish! I cannot make out what colorants you used. Any chance you'd care to share the recipe?

Welcome aboard new guy! After years of using laminate plates, I bought a dual injector as a Christmas gift to myself. My advice. Go with the best you can afford. Make sure your injectors have locking nozzles. I have the dual from Fat Guys Fishing. It takes a lot of pressure to inject my molds. If they weren't locking, I'm sure they'd shoot right off making a dangerous mess.

I'm wondering if there were a way we could have a network to help our international members get the supplies they need at a lower cost by having us order for them, and then mailing it to the members? It might help them save some money. Small orders wouldn't weigh too much, so shipping shouldn't be that bad, Nor would customs fees. Remember..This is just a thought.

yup, that would certainly work. The only advantage the the Plum dye and a drop of black would have over the Black Plum would be that you could control the amount of darkening made by black. The Black Plum advantage is it removes the guesswork.

I'm a little late to the dance here, but I not only remember these floating plastics I still have a couple of packs. There was a time when Power Worms came in a true floating variety. We used these to throw over lily pads and floating weed beds. Dang things were deadly in the summer. Then Berkley changed these to a suspending worm, even though they were still called floating. No bueno. The sunk in the weeds and with every cast you'd bring in about a half acre of salad back with you. Next up, Bass Pro had some sort of floating worms and lizards. Only around for a little bit. So what to do. Keep searching. We ended up buying these Air Worms The looked as though they were the spawn of Leggos. French Fry was my preferred. After a few casts, they would start to sink. Reel "em in and squeeze the water out and then good as new. Eventually the lack of finding floating anything is what led me to start pouring my own. Bought a couple of silicone molds from Barlows. Some floating plastics, some bubbles, and chartreuse coloring. And we were back in business. It has to be over 30 years since I used those Air Worms. Nowadays I still make my own floating worms and lizards. Although a much better quality. Only colors made were white. pink, and chartreuse. Weird but each color worked only on specific bodies of water. Learned by trial and error. This year I plan to add black to my selection with maybe some glow parts for night fishing Getting back to French Fry. I'd imagine they can be duplicated very easily. Just takes imagination. I like the bead chain idea. On the floating worms I made, I wanted one with a cupped head to act like a popper. Only had to put a backwards bullet sinker. Imagination.

The plum dye is close. But it might need a tiny bit of black. Like a pin head drop. The emerald green flake is spot on. If you want a bit more flash try a sparkle green flake along with the emerald green. Note that plum dye will will bleed into other colors as will most colorants with the word dye in the name.

The bass pro was Don Iovino.

Yup I have a pack on hand. 7" Power Worms. The worms I have seem to be a single color, Yet depending on what angle or lighting you see them in it may have a red highlight, then a green. While the bait remains clear with red and green flake. Not sure how old the oxblood pigment I have is. It's at least 6 years old. Definitely not 20. I bought it specifically to duplicate the camo color from the recipe page. And to make some oxblood colored worms from an old style worm that was pretty awesome at catching fish. The oxblood was perfect for that. Definitely not the Camo color I'm trying to make. That pic is a laminate. Maybe Berkley changed their recipe? Got the baits in hand. Just can't seem to get it to where I want. It's like 2 different highlight colors in one bait. I may try to take a photo of the actual bait but I doubt a photo will show the proper coloring.

Nope. Clear with small red and medium black. Somewhat cloudy probably from salt. When wet it takes on a pink cast. When it first came out we called it shrimp. Camo is definitely not a laminate at least in power worms. It is almost a transparent root beer? With green highlight? It changes color depending on how you look at it. The saltwater big stuff is definitely a laminate. Who knows maybe Berkeley changed the recipe and it’s now a laminate? The problem with the o blood is it’s not transparent at all so lightening it won’t help. It will just look like lighter mud. Man!I wish I could remember what bass pro made the lures I used made in o blood.

It does, but I'm only mixing at most two cups of plastic, maybe four if I'm making laminates. I'm also using a lot of salt and glass beads. The stickbaits are nice and soft and wiggly and cast a mile. I make mine at around 12grams I fish a lot of deep water.

I don't think it's a laminate. I think my problem is the oxblood colorant. The one I am using is an old Lurecraft colorant. It's more of a muddy color. I used this to make what was once called fat boys, though I can't remember the bass pros name attached to it. Heavy with salt, and deadly. I've still been researching and I see Lureworks has a translucent oxblood. That may be the difference. This damn camo color is one of the only two to ever beat me. The other is Yamamoto 197. A clear with medium black, and small red flake. With just a slight cloudiness to it. Most likely from salt. I can come almost close, but I'm trying to prefect it as that is one of my favorites. Also I had Yamamoto perch down, and they go and change it! Still the original catches fish. Until I can perfect 197, and camo I'll just buy a few packs every season.

Lure Parts Online is showing MF Supersoft. and Sinking Soft on their site. Their price is a bit more expensive than buying direct from MF.

That’s approximately 21oz per gal. Which seems like an awful lot. Keep in mind that’s is what I use for heavily salted plastic

I doubt if this will help as I’m a small potatoes bait maker . But when I’m making baits that I want super so Senkos in particular, I use 1oz softener to approximately 6 oz of salted plastic. This makes the baits super floppy and super soft. And I preftmy stickbaits and wacky worms super soft. Again not much help, but maybe with a whole lot of math it’s a starting point.

This. ^. I've been suing the same two pairs of sprue cutters from barlows not only for lead, but for my tin bismuth as well. I'm probably going on 20 years. Everything from 1/8oz up to 20oz. Although at times the bending back and forth with a pliers works pretty well too. When trimming lead with the Barlows cutters, the sprues just fall. When cutting tin, those suckers go flying! Usually one or two quick passes with a file, or a high grit sand paper should do the job. I pass the head over the sandpaper, or just pass an aggressive file over the jig or weight or whatever. One or two passes should not create dust. I think if you go nuts sanding and filing , then, yeah. You'll create dust.

I made two different colors. One was blue craw with Pumpkin Brown added, and blue and a tiny bit of green highlight, with the bottom color a burnt orange. The second one was MF Crawfish with brown pumpkin added to deepen the color, and again the burnt ornage under color. The burnt orange was made with Lurecraft orange darkened with brown pumpkin and MF brown. Both types came out kind of nondescript. Took them out of the molds, tossed them into a water bath. and when I went to take them out I could see them in the water. how the colors both seemed kind of natural. One was a deep brownish, yet seemed greenish with the blue craw. The crawfish colored one seemed to be almost a deep olive. Very natural looking. In the water both colors looked so completely different. I'm pleased with my results, but feel I could improve the colors. Maybe a drop or two of straight green? I didn't use any glitter because I wasn't sure what color to use. Maybe brown? Copper? Orange? Maybe I'll do a motor oil craw, and add sparkle blue flake? I got time to play around. Yet. It's not like I've never had experiments fail before. I'd take photos but doubt if they'd come out showing what I can see, especially in the water.

The top photo looks as though some kind of highlight was added.

I may use blue craw with blue highlight for the top. And Lurecraft crawfish for the bottom. If that doesn’t work,then dark pumpkin with blue highlight. And the burnt orange underneath. RootBeer. One of the most popular colors and I don’t have that one. Never did yet I don’t know why.

That probably means they’re not busy. I had long lead times from Angling AI. Bass Tackle. And others. You could order a Do It Essential Series molds d still wait 10days. My first order from FGF I was on the phone over an hour with them . Discussing the application of the bait I was making. The best plastic I should use with that mold. Etc etc. Waited about 2 weeks for my order. I recently ordered a FGF dual injector. Less than a week for delivery. Some companies are now charging a “convenience charge”. Convenient for them I guess. I’d rather pay the extra few dollars and order quality. Quality is always worth waiting for. That’s why I still order MF Plastisol. But… seems this thread has gone wayyyy off topic

This applies to their molds because they make them on an as ordered basis. The name may seem funny but from videos I’ve seen of their operation I’m led to believe the name refers to the owners physical stature. Man I hated to be the one to say that. While I can’t speak to their plastic their molds and accessories are top notch. Don’t let the name fool you.

We think alike, These are some of the colors I was thinking of using. I never thought of the DOP Grit for the underneath, but that's pretty much the color I was thinking. I just got a big order from DOP, now I'll have to send a new one. I was wondering how I could use the MF Motor Oil in. I have a good amount of the "old" color. Has just enoug sheen to maybe be used on the top part. I also have MF Crawfish. Which really is pretty much the same as Caramel. I do understand the regional differences, even the differences in species here in New England alone. I'm just trying to make maybe what you could call an "average" color, if one exists. My molds duplicate the Yamamoto Baby Psycho Daddy. And a question. Where do I find brown highlight?

Had someone ask me to make them some crayfish baits. I'm at a loss as to what colors to use in a laminated bait to make as natural looking bait as possible. Looking for suggestions for colors, glitter etc. I can make the usual stuff the big makers sell, but I'm trying to make "au naturel". I'm thinking natural craw on the top, and some lighter brown under? Dark green pumpkin up top. orange brownish under? These will be used in northern New England rivers. If not natural, what colors would you make your crayfish baits? Or if not a laminate, what single color? I have Blue Craw colorant, but I've never seen a blue crayfish.

Kind of like a fruit roll up! If I do go with some sort of grinder that roll would feed nicely into it.

Never had this issue. I have gone down as low as 320 grit. But it takes a lot more glass to achieve the desired results. As far as the medium, I've only used virgin glass beads. Some baits I've used half salt and half glass. Those were mostly senkos. Now I hardly use anything. I like being able to see the glitter in the baits. And colors are better too. I only weigh some senkos, and a wacky worm bait. I typically fish my wacky worm weightless, unless the water is over10'. Then I'll use a weighted wacky hook. My 5" wacky worms weigh almost as much as my weighted senkos. I've even been toying with the idea of using tungsten powder.