Glideb8

I'm going to be painting up some used pointer 170s. I just wanted some advice on how the heck to top coat each side without clogging up the joints. I know I've read that people use liquid frisket or rubber bands, but that joint opening is pretty small for rubber bands. Would liquid frisket really work if I just applied it to the screw eye/pin hinge in the joint? Anybody with experience clear coating some swimbaits/crankbaits with joints this close together? Thanks in advance!

bryanmc- I just mixed it for longer in the jug that it came in and it dried within a minute after heating. I may have heated a little too much because when I took it out, it was clear. Then it slowly started changing to orange.

bryanmc=- did heat it until it was clear and hot enough to be used as a dip. I tried putting one swimbait that I just coated into water and the Clearasol partially came off. I wiped that one off and then dipped it again. Frank-I thought I shook it up well and I mixed it, but I'll just try it again tonight. They're still not dry today. If I touch them, then some Clearasol comes off. I have to try and dip again tonight. I called Spike-It and Bruce told me that it should dry right away after dipping so I probably didn't do something right. I

I just tried Clearasol for the first time today on some 6" soft plastic swimbaits that I made and painted with Lureworks CoLure Coat. I was going to just leave the paint and not coat it, but since these are for saltwater, I wanted to see how they would look and how the Clearasol would go on. When the paint is dry, it basically just looks and feels like the paint that's on Hudds and obviously it wasn't smearing or coming off. I'm in NJ and The CoLure coat took a few hours if not more to dry. I only found this out because I had rubbed off paint in spots minutes after painting. I heated the Clearasol about an hour ago and dipped some swimbaits, but it didn't set within 5-10 minutes. The temp outside right now is 58. I basically just held each one until the Clearasol stopped dripping and then I laid them down on their backs since those back's edges are a little higher than the flatter part of the back due to plastic being sucked down(which I don't mind if I'm using a Beast hook). Anybody have experience dipping with this stuff? I searched and I saw a few replies that just said it takes forever if it's cold. Thanks

Just to clarify, it kind of wobbles around and feels really soft, but it's not like it'll fall apart like holding a large chunk of Jell-O.

I've poured with MF Saltwater without adding hardener and I was surprised at how soft it was. It's like Jell-O unless you keep reheating it, then it gets harder.

Man...I was up too late looking at the silc pic yesterday. It's pigment, but smooth on sells this as well: https://www.smooth-on.com/products/psycho-paint/ I was looking at the psycho paint last, so that's what I was thinking of.

Thanks for the info. I didn't want to use a silicone mold even though I have one of those large buckets of the stuff. I didn't want take the chance for it to be fused together even though I know not all silicones stick to eachother. So, I had another question if you don't mind. I'm obviously going to paint the baits with smooth on silc pig. Do I need to coat the bait after its painted with a layer of melted silicone? I know guys do that with plastic baits that are airbrushed, so I just wanted to ask. Thanks!

I bought some Ecoflex to mess around with and possibly make some soft swimbaits. I tried looking, but couldn't find anything. What's the best material to use for making a mold for silicone baits? Thanks in advance.

I know people that don't sell fishing stuff on Amazon, but they take a huge cut. Not worth selling there.

I still have a ton of those baits laying around in my surf fishing box...lol. I remember when those things came out, people were using them like crazy in so cal.

I've been using BSI 30 minute for everything. It levels out great and I get a really smooth finish. I recently bought some BSI Finish Cure(20 min) last Wednesday just to try it out and I don't like it nearly as much. It's much thinner than the 30 minute and way easier to apply. I'm getting a lot of dripping and very uneven results. I had to do a lot of sanding for my 1st and 2nd coats. I'm using a turner, but my baits are all 6 inches plus, not small crankbaits. I also use a respirator while applying the epoxy or sanding it while having an exhaust fan running in my garage even if the garage door is open.

Thanks for the replies. I'm usually using BSI 20 min, but I wanted to try something else out for a more efficient/faster workflow. Especially since I moved to the east coast(NJ), the humidity/winter plays a big part in applying and curing epoxy since I can only do that in my garage.

Ok, good to know. I want to see how the thin and thick hard work. Have you tried Alumi-uv at all? I was going to buy some, but I haven't seen too many people talk about it on here.

Hi there, I was hoping that some of the guys that use Solarz can chime in. Which kinds do you all use? I spoke to Gary and he suggested that I buy the thin hard or thick hard depending on that kinds of lures that I was making. I saw a few posts from a year or so ago(Mark maybe?) saying that they used the dual cure polyester resin. I bought a few of the 5 gram tubes to try out. Any comments would be appreciated!

Yeah, that thing was making me really mad when I kept trying different ballast positions for weeks and nothing was working. lol

Man, I was so tired that I didn;t even notice that I didn't think about that...lol Good catch

Thanks for the replies, so much help and knowledge-it's amazing! I tried a few things and something funny happened that was totally unintended. I had yet to mold and pour the plastic tails that I wanted on the glide. As soon as I did that, it glided so much better and almost consistent left to right now. I'm still going to try to fix the problem without the tail, but I guess it was some sort of stabilization problem. Again, I don't really know. I was wondering about something and symmetry. I was thinking that if I really wanted perfect symmetry since I'm making a resin bait-Why can't I: 1-Carve one half from wood, do a 1 piece mold with the flat side on a flat surface(like pouring flat backed plastic baits) 2-When that mold of the one half is cured, pour 2 resin halves and epoxy them together and then do a 2 piece mold from that. That would be perfect symmetry if both resin pours went flawlessly. Has anybody ever tried that? I know.....a lot of work, but if I truly wanted perfect symmetry, that's one way. Thanks again for the help!

gliders, thanks! I made another blank Sunday night. This one had 10% microballoons and I'm not sure that I like it having 10%. Obviously it's going to be way more buoyant than the other 2 that I've made and I've had to add much more weight(about an ounce and a half of lead) to get it to sink very slowly or suspend. It's a big bait and about 3/4" thick at its thickest point. My trip is coming up too quickly, so I'll have to put the 2 piece on hold for now. I made a 1 piece and it glides nice. Just need to paint it up and test it out on my trip! This one is going to be close to 7oz after I add the split rings and hooks. Using owner hyperwires #7 or #8(haven't decided yet) and owner ST 66 trebles.

Cool

Thanks for the replies and info! I watched that Roman Made video when it first came out and countless times since..haha I finally got more time to refine it today although it's still raining. I cut/sanded the back section to come to a point and I also cut a V into the first section so that the back section can almost tuck in. I also shortened the screw eye distance just to see what it would do and how it would effect the action. I think one of the problems was that my front line tie was a hair off and at an angle, going to the bait's right side(the way it kept turning), so it was running sort of like a crankbait that had the line tie turned one way. I know this because when I was messing with the line tie, I had adjusted it and it kept swimming to its left instead of right. I actually searched the forum the first time that I had this problem and saw Mark reply to somebody several years ago about making sure both sides fall at the same rate and they both do. I was testing it today with a split ring. I kept the ballasts in the same exact place as when it was 1 piece because it was gliding and swimming so well. I thought it would be able to translate over to a 2 piece, but definitely wrong there. I want to get this thing done ASAP because I'm going on a trip and might be able to get into some striper and bluefish, so I might do a version that's one piece. I'm going to have to fill up the holes that I drilled and try to reposition the ballasts. AZ, yesterday before I made all of the changes today, it was only listing to its right. I was testing with 1/4 turns and it would go right, start to go left for like 1/2 a second, then come back right. A constant retrieve was perfectly fine and swam nice, but it's not like it had a wide glide to it. It swam more like a multi piece swimbait. After fixing the front line tie problem, it started doing this weird, inconsistent glide when I was messing with the weighting. It might glide to the left, glide right, then glide right again before going left. I'm going to cast another blank, recut the joint and all of that and add more microbubbles and see if this version that i have now is too dense or if it's something else. In the current blank I'm testing, I have 5% microbubbles. I don't want to mess up and make resin paste because I've done that once. Mixed too much resin A and microbubbles together and it pasted up real fast when it was around 80 degrees outside. I tried the SST screw eye to screw eye, but I couldn't get the open eyes to snap into the closed ones...lol. I was only able to get the top or the bottom, not both and there was plenty of space to do so. Thanks for the wisdom and I'm sure I'll have more questions!

No snap at all on this new one. I tried the old glide with and without, but it kept doing the same thing. Few pics below. The rear sections swings back and forth with no resistance. There's just some temp wire in there now, but as I said above-on a constant retrieve, it swims nice. I just need it to be able to glide. I was thinking about completely rounding out the back section where the cut was, but it's not hitting the front section, so I just left it for the time being.