Tiderunner

Man, this thread was all over the place! The baits I make are for use by me, my son, and what I share with friends. If I want them as perfect as possible as I can make them, I will do so. As far as spending the money on a vacuum chamber, that really is my own business. I also have a bunch of Amazon gift cards I can use. So cost is not an issue. The two positive takeaways from this thread are, get the 5 gallon chamber, as I use only 2 cup pyrex and for laminates I'll need to heat two at a time. And I go through about a gallon of MF soft sinking plastisol a month. But it seems I always run low or run out when I need the stuff. So I'm thinking about getting a 5 gallon. Seems to me I'd get 5 gallons for the price of three, or somewhere around there. 5 gallons would last me a year. Although I'll probably stick with MF, I may try a gallon of Calhoun's. I know I'll never use Dead On again. But I will try some of their other products I also make a lot of floating worms like the old Berkley ones that are no longer made. I can try Bait Plastics or Calhouns for those. Or maybe use those two for saltwater. Their gonna get shredded anyway so cheaper is better. My final question to you guys that use the 5 gal MF? How do you stir it? How do you install that faucet?

Received my mold the other day, and finally had a chance to shoot it this AM with some leftover pastic that I reheated. Fantastic shooting! Getting ready to order another.Lead time is about 4 weeks so the timing is perfect. I've been wanting a core shot stick bait mold for a long time now. Guess which one I'll order? If you thought core shot stick bait you were right.

MF Soft Sinking. $68.75 Dead On Plastix. $38.99 Nearly double

I have tried other plastics. Dead On, Bait plastics ( not too bad ) and may try Calhouns next. Heard a lot of good things about it. But out of all the ones I've tried MF is still the best. At roughly 2x the price. I've seen a lot of Vacuum Chambers on Amazon for around $150 or so, all with good reviews. I figure with the amount of baits I make per month, maybe around 200 baits or so for myself, my son, and friends, that should be more than enough to spend.

Placed my first order with Angling AI just after Thanksgiving. As of yet I haven't heard a thing from them. To those here who have ordered from them, how long is their lead times? I figured I'd ask y'all before I start making phone calls and bugging them. Also I know they probably get busy for the holidays.

Thanks for those measurements. I was going to go with a 3gallon but I do make a lot of laminates. From what I've seen on pricing, $500 won't be needed. But I'm glad that it's fine by you so now I won't need to ask your permission. My idea for a vacuum chamber begin when I used Dead On Plastic for the first time. I've had seltzer with less bubbles. I am back to using MF plastisol, and happy with the results. I figure if I could make my baits mint, then I'll be even happier. Been making baits and lures for nearly 40 years, and I'm a perfectionist. So? I didn't mean to offend anyone by wanting to make mint bubble free baits. That's just how I do things. My money , my choice. And if it doesn't work the way I expected it to, my loss. Exactly. Pride in workmanship.

I've decided to go ahead and buy a vacuum chamber. My question is, how big? I'm a small hobbyist, maybe using one cup at a time, two if I am making a laminate. I see all different sizes and to me each one looks the same. I don't need to degas a large amount. so I'm just looking for one thatwill do the job, and not break the bank. Under $100 or very close to that number would sure be great.

I haven't had much luck with the fine glitter. ( .08 ), Ive tried all the suggestions you've made on other projects. I especially like the Rustoleum. I use that one smaller jigs and baits because its easy to find. I like the idea of the Solarez. I use the thick hard for tying bucktails. But the idea of the clear thin sounds interesting. When I expose the resin to the light it smokes. I wonder if that could damage the glitter? I bet using the clear resin with the sparkle gold glitter would make an awesome bait! Thanks Mark for helping me spend more money! Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'm getting a list of winter projects going and the diamond jigs are high on the list. Followed by tin neko mushroom weights for the non toxic lakes I fish.

Not really asking for help, just suggestions. Been doing this bait making thing a long time. 30+ years. Soft baits, hard baits, wood baits, lead, tin and so on. Just looking to see how others do it, as some of the methods I've tried have given me less than spectacular results with glitter coating. The two things that have gone wrong for me have been once going over silver paint with a clear, the silver becomes dull. And using different glitters it seems the solvents in some of the clear coats have melted the poly glitter. As far as asking for help or suggestions in the forum, if everybody did their own thing, the forum wouldn't exist.

I use a lot of big diamond jigs for saltwater stripers and bluefish. I also lose a lot of them. Been looking into either getting a diamond jog mold, or buying raw lead jigs. But have no way of chrome plating them. I have used some that were coated in glittler. I've tried that using a clearcoat spray paint, with less than desirable results. And silver powder paints didn't work too well either. I was wondering if coating the jig with epoxy then covering it with glitter, then another coat of epoxy would work Would the epoxy melt the glitter? Another option would be to use vinyl paint, but I think that would melt the glitter. Foils and epoxy maybe? Ideas? Suggestion? I just priced a Viking jig and it was $22.00, Can't keep sacrificing those to the toothy critters, and wrecks.

Yes it is, and very effective, and also getting hard to find. I'm trying to make 7" ribbon tail worms, and have come close. And I've been making Senko types in the close color with guys constantly asking me for more as it seems they're highly successful on smallmouth bass. Thanks guys. So I have the baby bass, but now need root beer, light pumpkin and Carolina pumpkin. And the light root beer. Of course the only colors I don't have! And of course they have to be from different suppliers. Oh well this addiction keeps off the street and out of trouble

One of the color I had a lot of success with through the years has been Berkley camo. I have come close to matching the color. Close but no cigar. Tried the recipe book posted here. But it comes out looking more like terracotta clay. Does anyone have a recipe for camo they can share? I've made some sort of brown with adding green hi lite powder. And it's sort of close. But I end up using more glitter to bring out the color instead of colorings. This is one of the two color that has me baffled. The other is Yamo 197. Again close but no cigar.

Try Lureworks. Looks a little like scuppernong, or natural with a tiny bit of orange. On their website suppernong looks brownish, but I use very little to produce a light orange color that i use to make perch colored baits.

I have so many mold makers bookmarked I keep forgetting who makes what. I do have Bait Junkys and I'll go back and check. I use the large grubs for saltwater. Great for stripers, and blues, although the damn blues are great at chopping your baits in half.

I had my own redneck method for core shot baits. I ordered some 1/16"and 1/8" stainless rod from a company close by me. Cut to length to fit in my mold, Lubed those rod with WD-40, and shot away. Seemed like the 1/16 was too small and the 1/8" was too big. Out of a four cavity mold, maybe two would shoot correctly. Made some cool looking baits, but was too much work for so little return. One bait color I make I cal perch. Its an orange and green laminate. similar to Yamo perch. I used a transparent light orange outer color, with a green core.Oddly when using the greens, which were either dark watermelon, or baby bass colorings, the greens wouldn't show through the orange even though the orange was transparent. Best most vivid core colors were the purples, and the black. But again, a lot of plastic gets wasted if only 50% of the baits come out. But the ones that came out...Man! did they look awesome. So ya see, even here in New England we have rednecks!

I'm the same. Many colors, types of baits. Bit in my 50 plus years of fishing I find I fish a variety of waters, fresh and salt. Unless you and I are fishing the same waters, my needs are for different colors for the different baits. I use glow colors for stripers at night. Clear stickbaits with bright glitter for my gin clear lakes. When I go out fishing, I go loaded for bear. I have no idea why the fish want a specific item on any given day. I'm on the east coast. Water levels are extremely high here. so I fish another different condition. If every day were the same, if every lake were the same, I wouldn't need a full tackle bag. Also I do like to experiment. So why not make all different stuff. For me, that's therapy to keep me sane in between fishing outings, and during the cold winters. And who knows? Every once in a while one of my oddball creations might actually catch fish! That's part of the fun of making your own baits. Example, one Memorial Day I tied a bunch of bucktails using red white and blue deer hair, poured some red white and blue trailers and passed them out to friends, And they caught smallies on them. They thought it was funny as hell. I make many laminates, and they all catch fish. I make stickbaits, grubs, craws, wacky worms, and the list goes on. I pour tin baits, lead baits. Tie bucktails, and share everything with fishing buddies. So these are the reasons I make so many different things. The main reason I do is because I enjoy it, not because the fish want only certain things. Now getting back to the core shot baits. I just like the way they look. It's the cool factor. Will they catch more fish? There's only one way to find out. Do I need core shot baits? Doubt it. I mean really, a bunch of night crawlers and some hooks would do the job better than any of my baits. But making these baits gives me something to do. I enjoy it, and come on, when you make a new bait, and it catches fish, tell me it doesn't give that bait and fish and little more of the fun factor. I fish a different body of water every weekend, each requiring a different technique. So I'll continue to experiment, and have fun matching my baits to the conditions. After my coreshot mold, my next toy will be a dual injector.

Good idea! I have enough catalogs with color photos of their stuff. I’ll check them out

I guess I should have made myself more clear. That’s my bad. I’ve seen the Kalins grubs and they work. Years back that was the only brand I used for smallmouth. But what I was actually looking for was a mold maker that has a mold that can make a grub thick enough to put on a big 7/0 hook.

Who makes s 6inch single tail grub that is thick enough to stand up to a large 7/0 siwash or O Shaugnessy hook? This will be for saltwater applications. If need be I could also use an 8 inch grub and just trim it to size. Length can always be adjusted. It's the thickness that's important.

And who among us has not bought a new lure because it was all fancy, cool, shiny, etc? Isn't that part of what fishing is? Acquiring more stuff? I'm sure we all have a collection of stuff we bought and threw into the bottomless pit of fishing lures that didn't work, but man did they look awesome! Part of the reason we pour our own baits is the fun factor. And why not experiment? Make something new and "eye catching"? There are tons of lures out there that do a better job of catching fishermen instead of fish. We all have 'em. I just want to make my own. And who knews, in the process I might actually make something that works. Oh yeah I already boxes and boxes of those. So back to the original question. What color combos would you make?

I've been wanting a core shot stickbait mold for sometime now, I'm finally ready to pull the trigger but don't know what I's actually make with it. Color Combo wise that is. If you already make core shot baits, what color combos do you make? Or suggest? C'mon guys, I need your help to justify the investment. I really like the way core shot baits look. But do they work any better. I need a better reason than being able to make cool looking senkos!

Was expecting a little more flash than regular or hologram glitter. Maybe a little more flash or iridescence? I tried some clear, nice results but I don't make any clear baits. I did try an opaque stick bait. That was for an order I had. Regular glitter was heads and tails above the shine of the sparkle. Scratching my head over that one. Tonight a tried a white pearl smoke with the .035 violet. Not bad, but I can see where the .015 would certainly be a better choice. Interestingly, using MF crayfish color with the .035 violet the baits took on a violet color. Before you say I overheated it, upon further review, the baits were the right color, brownish sort of, but there was enough glimmer in the violet to give the baits a purple cast. Came out a pretty cool looking color. I also find that thinner baits seem to show the sparkle effect better. Of course, that I'm sure would depend on what I'm pouring. I do have some smoke regrinds I can reheat, so now I'm looking forward to trying that using the gold in some, and the violet in some. Will be mostly bigger 5" grubs.

I'm glad it wasn't just me. Not thrilled with the product at all. I honestly feel as though regular violet or hologram gold, would work just as well in my applications.

So I had to go ahead and watch a YT video with someone using the Lureworks sparkle glitter. Look pretty cool, so of course I had to order some. I ordered the Violet, Gold and Green sparkle flake .040 for each. Fast delivery so went right to work. I used a crayfish color with the violet. And a brown almost Berkley Camo for the gold, the green was out of stock. These are the colors I use the most. I gotta say, I was underwhelmed. The violet in the crayfish came out pretty good. But nothing spectacular. The brown with gold was no big deal at all. I think my hologram gold was better. One thing I didn't like about the glitter was you need to use a lot! In the grand scheme of things , a lot being double what you would normally use, and then some. But you won't use a jar in a couple days. Using a lot though means coarse baits. And the cooler temps ( approx. 290* ) needed to keep from damaging the glitter makes it difficult to inject baits. Wish there was a sparkle blue as I do make a lot of black w/ blue glitter baits. So I'm not sold on these glitters. They're double the price of regular. Not sure they're worth it. Two 2oz. jars with shipping and tax came to $30. Maybe there's a learning curve, so I will keep working with these until I find a combo that moves me. BTW. I did follow the YT guy's instructions to the letter.