Good Fishing

Welcome aboard. You'll find an incredible group of fishing and lure building enthusiasts here. What they create often borders on art, and the knowledge you'll gain will definitely help you build better lures and catch more fish.

Make sure you're holding pressure on the injector for a bit when the mold is full, and be sure you're leaving plenty of hot plastic in the sprue. Molds for big baits like beavers and senkos tend to dimple if you don't do this. I also like to use a larger (6 oz) injector on these to ensure my plastic stays hot.

MF makes a non-bleed fluorescent pink you could try. I haven't used it enough to state that it categorically won't bleed, but you may have better luck with it.

I do the same thing. I regularly hand pour one side of my injection molds before closing it up and injecting the other side. For some laminates, I prefer this to the dual injector b/c it gives me a cleaner break between colors. I know some forum members have had issues with delamination when they do this, but it's never been an issue for me.

We usually steer people to either cncmolds.com or pouritmold.com. Both have consistently delivered for our customers. Thanks, and good fishing! Matt

The 10# pot is far more popular with our customers. Unless you're pouring lots of lead, the 20# pot is generally overkill.

Createx offers Quicksilver Chrome and Quicksilver Gold airbrush paints that produce the closest we've seen to metallic finishes in an airbrush paint.

Happy to help. You guys keep us in business, and we're grateful for that. Thanks, and good fishing! Matt Barlow

Pouritmold.com is also another good option.

Bill, PM me your info (email and/or order number) and we'll get you taken care of. Our drop shot swivels are sourced from Do-it, so you shouldn't be seeing a failure rate that high. Matt Barlow

Out of curiosity, why are you wanting to blacken them? Why use these over painted blades?

DDL, How long did you allow the Autoborne sealer to cure? Autoborne sealer works best when heat cured. Barring that, it requires a minimum of 48 curing time. I can't speak to how it performs over powder paint, but our customers have had success applying it over a number of other finishes. You can partially cure it with a heat gun between coats -- this will reduce your wait time between coats, but I've found it's not a substitute for time/baking. Hope that helps. Good Fishing

We're expecting to have the 3.5" and 5" back in stock later this week.

We also carry the Do-It Essentials plastisol. - Matt Barlow/Barlow's

Painter1, For the stand to work properly, you need to insert the flashabou so it cascades (for lack of a better word) over the edge of the stand. For flashabou, that means inserting the wired end into the hole on the stand. For flashabou accent you should insert the zip tie around the center. Here are a few pics that hopefully explain what I mean: Hope this helps. If you're still unhappy with the stand you can PM me and we'll arrange a return. Good fishing! -Matt Barlow

Hawg Hooker, PM me your contact info and we'll figure out what you've got and how to make it right. Excluding Hildebrandt, we don't carry any willow blades that run $66/50 count. -Matt Barlow

Wapsi or Hareline, if you're looking to buy wholesale quantities.Those are the two main manufacturers we buy from. Hareline has the best quality at the moment.

I could have phrased my question better. This was the kind of guidance I was looking for. Basically, I'm wondering if most of you apply a base coat with your airbrush or with some other means (rattle can, for example). Is there some benefit to applying base coat with an airbrush? I'm currently painting old Rat-L-Traps. They're cheap and a good practice lure, since I'm only starting to learn how to airbrush. I've been hand-sanding the original surface prior to applying a base coat of Createx Autoborne Sealer, but I was wondering if a base coat of rattle can primer would work just as well.

What do you guys use for a basecoat prior to airbrushing? I'm just getting started and applying a basecoat via airbrush seems inefficient.

I painted both sides. Here's a pic of the painted mold: A brush would probably work, though I'd worry about the paint going on too thick. I compared the finished worms from my test with a micrometer and found a negligible difference in diameters b/w the unpainted and painted molds.

Hey gang, There was a post earlier this year that referenced using high-temp engine paint on Do-It Essentials molds to smooth out the finish on injected baits. I'd been wanting to try it for a while and finally got around to it last week. There's a great video about this on YouTube by That Guy Skimpy that I used as a starting point. A few notes on my technique: WARNING: DOING THIS WILL MOST LIKELY VOID ANY WARRANTIES ON YOUR MOLDS I used painters tape to mask off the hinge, pour spouts, and vents on the mold. Unlike That Guy Skimpy, I did not mask off the cavities and trim them out with an Exacto. My blade skills are lacking and I was using a Finesse Crawler mold which has lots of small curve and corners, so I wanted to try a different approach. I sprayed the exposed surfaces with approximately 10 VERY LIGHT coats of high temp paint (in Ford BLUE, baby!) over a period of about three days. I tested the mold after two coats but I wasn't happy with the results, so I retaped the mold and sprayed another seven or so extremely light coats until the surfaces were extremely smooth. Once the mold was dry, I used a razor scraper to remove the paint from the mold surface (leaving paint in just the cavities). The mold won't close properly if you don't do this. I followed this with a light sanding using a sanding sponge to remove any remaining paint. Following this I made sure the vents were clear of debris, then I wiped the mold clean with a damp towel to remove any remaining dirt/dust. My results are below. The bottom worm on each color is from an original, unpainted mold. The top worm is of the same color in a painted mold. The results are much more noticeable in person, but you can see the difference pretty well here. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the modified mold results. I'm curious how well the paint will hold up to multiple pours. I plan on shooting a number of rounds in the coming days to see if the paint peels or flakes. I'll post again with my results.

Caught quite a few big pike on 9" sluggos and similar big jerk baits. Haven't had much luck with any other soft baits (unless you count when they steal grubs meant for smallmouth).

We just noticed this change, too. As far as we know, Owner hasn't released anything about an official product change, so it could just be a normal variation, or they may have changed how they're treating the hooks. We typically see this kind of color variation with other manufacturers, but less so with Owner.