Iamscubasteve

Alright, I think my issue was a little too much heat and too much time in the bed. I ran some poison tails and some ultra minnows basically doing exactly what you said, playing with the time in the heat. I also think I may have had my oven temp too high as well. Even though I knew better, I never put a thermometer in it and figured the oven thermostat would be close enough. I believe it may have made an already heavy paint job run even harder causing it to settle in the eye sockets. The results are much better! I tried doing some 2 color heads using the paint brush technique for the 2nd color. I dipped them in pearl white and then added sapphire blue on the top side using the brush. Yea, I'm going to need a lot of practice with those!

Poison Tail, Ultra Minnow and Walleye Jig. All Do-It Mold products. It could be to much time in the bed, but it seems like I literally dip in the bed and pull right out. I do not let it sit in the bed. I will sacrifice a few jigs and try to do it even quicker and see what happens. I may turn the air up a little as well and see if I can thin the bed even more. Thank you for the welcome. I became a member last year when I went from just pouring round jig heads for simple crappie/walleye fishing to more detailed jigs. You helped me with a couple questions last year. The Frankfurt release and devcon recommendations were spot on. : )

What do you all do to keep the indents on jigs with eyes from collecting paint and causing 3d eyes to not lay correctly? Is this purely a too much paint issue and do I need to learn my powder painting technique better? Last year I didn't even try to glue any eyes on since I knew from looking at them they would look like dog poo. I just finished pouring a bunch of new jigs and before I paint this time I figured I would ask what some of you all do to help prevent this, or if it is purely a skill learned in laying paint. I paint with a heat gun, fluid bed and cure with a small toaster oven. They seem to be better before curing and then after curing they are a worse. And thanks to smalljaws youtube videos I now have a fly tying vice, an arsenal of tools and materials just waiting to be used on some jigs! His videos are awesome!

I've been doing a little research on the epoxies. White is one of my favorite colors to use for crappie jigs, which wouldn't most likely have any eyes on them, but also walleye jigs, which would. Yellowing is a little bit of a concern. I suppose I will just have to try it out and see what the results are, but in your experience is the yellowing a problem?

Sealing them makes sense. I will get some devcon 2 coming. Do you seal the whole jig head or just around the eyes? Edit: i read smalljaws post again closer and answered my question. Thank you all for the help.

My large order from Barlows showed up today . In that order I now have a few molds with recessed locations for eyes and of course a bunch of different eyes among several other things. What do all of you use for adhesive for eyes? I am not making jigs for profit, just for me and a couple of friends, so keeping costs down is not required, but the highest quality is preferred. For bow hunting I fletch my own arrows. I have tried all of the best fletching adhesives, but found a line of adhesive from the Loctite company that is outstanding. I'm not sure with it being in water if it is good for this application though.

Thank for the replies. I didn't really care for all the soot on my fingers when putting the hooks in so I will certainly look into the drop out spray.

This is my first post here after reading for awhile. I started pouring my own jigs last year and thanks to the knowledge of the posters on this site things are going much better than when I started. My question is this. Does the candle residue from smoking impact the quality of powder paint applied? When I first started pouring my jigs I did not smoke my molds first and now I am. Before smoking my molds I would have several bad jigs in a setting, today was my first run smoking my mold and out of 300 jigs only 1 was a bad pour, needless to say I was stoked. However, The jigs I poured with out smoking were shinny as a mirror and the ones I did today seem more dull. I have a fluid bed and those non smoked jigs took the paint very well, I can hold them with pliers and smack them on the garage floor and the lead will flatten, but the paint will not chip off. I haven't painted the ones I did today yet, but I am worried that the paint is not going to stick as well on these. Do any of you, that smoke your molds, need to prep your jig heads be fore powder painting?