2marshall8

Thanks for this. Were they responsive to you? this is strange. so either they ignore my e-mails or aren't getting them.

I see this was in late June which is promising, but I've tried to reach them via e-mail around 5 separate times and never get a response. Does anyone know if they have closed up shop due to the war? thanks

yah, I see the "stir mix alot" system offered as well, do you have these auto stirrers w/o the lids? I've debated getting these but my issues are the following: 1. If I have prior plastic I"m throwing in to reheat which is solid how well do the mixers stir this plastic with liquid plastisol together? 2. can you regulate the speed of the stirrer? when I'm going into draw up the plastic will the blades clank and hit the injectors, or do I have to shut the stirrers off each time? 3. Do you own the closed lid "stir mix alot" system? my concern with those is how do they shoot laminates? seems like the bass tackle injectors wouldn't reach to grab plastic out of each pot when they are next to each other based on where the holes are located. I still stir by hand before each shoot

I looked at your machine, very similar. my biggest question with these is, is there a faster method to transition to another color than, turning off hte machine, allowing the plastisol to cool, cleaning it all out, poring in your next batch of plastisol/heating mixing dye/glitter, etc.. and shooting? right now I have multiple presto pots where I will have 4-5 diff colors heating and I just move between each of them and shoot those colors into the molds they goto. So is can I purchase or do you have a separate method to purchase the plastisol containers and get those pre-heating with other colors while I'm shooting a color in the machine?

what about this sucker from jacobs baits, anyone use this? https://stores.jacobsbaits.com/injection-press-pro-series-1/

Anyone know how to make the appendages in baits opaque or less translucent when held up to light ? Is it just using more dye ? I usually use about 40 drops per cup. Or is there some other additive I can put in the plastic to achieve this ?

yep, yep, great points. If I could afford clamshells I would, ha, but I also wouldn't be on here talking to yall if I was at that point :). I've got creatures, worms, swimbaits primarily and yah I'm going to be concerned about storing the swimbaits particularly, but honestly I haven't had a single complaint thus far in shipping my swimbaits in bags which will bend the tails and business is good. So people must not care as much as we think or have come to accept a level of deformation in the baits, and the bass must not Right now I just shoot, cure, and bag, so I shoot on demand which is wearing on me. Hopefully the inventory storage will work.

how did you avoid the baits bending as they sat in your inventory ?

yah I was leaning this way also, thanks. I found some sterilite white lid boxes.

I'm at a point in the business where I need to store up baits and create inventory storage in containers or some other method to get ahead on future orders, does anyone have ideas on how they store up extra baits to fill future orders? thanks

anyone know where I can get straight hologram giltter? I don't want silver hologram, just straight hologram glitter. I've checked lureworks, mf, and lurecraft and can't find this. thanks

I'm doing some experiments with morton sun salt. It's super cheap $11.49 on instacart for a 50lb bag. I powderized it and this was a no go as has been said here, so I'll see if I can make it a littler finer than it is and see if this works.

I'm still figuring out the salt situation as well. the prices for salt from the bait supply companies like mf and lureworks are way over priced. I got a 50lb bag of morton salt for $11.49 and it wasn't fine enough so I ran it through a blender which made it like a powder substance, but I'm still not convinced this was the right technique to make it smaller and I think powderizing the salt is thinning it out too much, since it started to clump on me. I'm going to try and use a different blender and blend it less to see if I can make the salt crystals smaller but not powder. as for color, making black/blue definately was not as black as compared to other vendors baits when I compared them side by side, and this was after salt was added. before the salt they were just as black as any other bait makers, so the salt is definitely changing the color.

So where did this post end as to what we should all do? Is it just use this stuff at yur own risk? I use deadon plastix and if I heat to over 350 consistently I get more fumes but even where I shoot around 310-320 I still can smell it if I don't wear a respirator. So if I do this for the next 30 years will I get major cancer and die from the hobby? whats the final answer?

Where do you guys get your padded envelopes from? I'm looking to put in a large bulk order for 5000 plus just can't find a supplier. thanks

I got into soft plastics about 3 months ago and never realized how much this stuff sells. I've got a day job that pays well but it sucks. I'm trying to get some advice from others who found a way to do this for a living and what their thoughts are on the other side. Pros/Cons, lessons learned of running a small bait business thanks

Please tell, Frank.

There are definitely some different styles here with regards to presto pots and if you should auto stir or not. Frank here as you can see just stirs occasionally, no auto stirrer, where as others construct these fancy auto stirrers. Why go through all the work on an auto stirrer if it's not needed is my question. thanks

I'm curious with all of these answers were the baits stored in plastic bags putting pressure on the tail rudder in an awkward way and still didn't separate? I have to use oil in many of my molds to keep the baits shiny, when I remove them I cure em for a day and put them in plastics bags and have had custom complaints of tails separating. I'm wondering if perhaps the oil and the cure time being only 1 day may be a factor.

ha. real men where pink lol

awesome. I just got one on amazon. thats exactly what I needed. length is good at 12.5" and the end is perfect for the injector. perfecto

On this note, what brush do you guys use to clean out your injector?

wow yah, so that was what I was thinking. love it, love it, love it. thanks guys. good ideas.

great advice everyone. I definitely think more molds would provide the largest speed up in production from what Travis said. If I had 2 of the same mold I could shoot both at the same time, doubling my speed, the one concern for me here is when shooting single cavity molds with dual injection, I find by the time I get to the last mold the plastic has cooled to the point where if I had to shoot another 5 the plastic wouldn't be hot any longer. I usually shoot dual injector at around 299. so you actually leave the injector in the hot plastic between shoots so the plastic all around it and inside the injector stays hot? am I understanding this correctly?

I'm trying to increase my efficiency/time in production across all my molds and I know buying higher cavity molds is one way, but what are your other ways to increase efficiency? my biggest time suckers are cleaning the injector between shoots, waiting for plastics to cool before I can pull them from the mold, and re-heating plastic. thanks