Hand Crafted Angling

Sure thing! I use lechee I don’t really think that’s your issue though. I print it with on side directly on the build plate. I usually try and keep the sprew pointed straight up but I have gotten away with it facing others directions before. Siriatech has all there settings for a bunch of machines on there website. You can download it and upload it directly into whatever slicer you use. Those are the settings I have it set up with.

Yeah I’m trying to work on a second part. Unfortunately I moved in the middle of the series and I still have to reset my resin printer.

I’m looking for an alternative for heating plastic other than a microwave. I looked into the presto pot but it seems like you need to be mixing up a gallon at a time to make it worth while. The main reason I wanted to make the switch is I want to try bait plastics flex x200 but it can’t be heated in a microwave. I was looking to do a small cheap setup for it.

Yeah I’ve never made any jig molds before only soft plastic so the cheap prototype would be the best option for me.I’ll look into the putty. The final version would be the silicon as it’s for personal use and machining is very expensive.

I was wondering what everyone uses for making there jig molds. I had a couple tog jig ideas and some fluke bucktail ideas I wanted to make. I've got a 3d printer so i was gonna print a master and cast the silicon onto of it but there's a ton of different options. I've seen a few guys using mold max 60 but its a bit pricey. Lets resin makes mold making silicon that is much cheaper. I was wondering if anyone has gotten away with using cheaper silicon for the molds.

I want to make a large internally weighted swim bait mold. I’m looking for some pointers on how to make sure it comes out nice. My main concern is avoiding denting. Me resin printed 14 inch sand eel mold has some denting issues. I’d like to avoid any issues with this one. As far as I understand it the best way to avoid denting is to make the gate as wide as possible and to have a large sprew. I’m going for somthing around 7” so it’s gonna have to be a single cavity mold. I guess the best way to do this is to put a large resivoir in front of the gate. I also plan on making a 3d printed air chamber in the bait. I think this would help in a few ways. It would give the body more rigidity. Help put the center of gravity lower. I plan on using this to hold egg sinkers for the weight of the lure. I think this would help quite a bit with the denting though. Much less hot plastic in the middle. Is there anything else in the design I can do to limit denting. Also where should I put the gate? On large painted paddle tails I don’t really see any artifacts of a mold gate. Plus for a large bait it’s gonna have to be big. Can I fill it through the tail?

Thank you for all the input! Part 1 is out now if anyone is interested.

Thanks you too!

The air pocket in the top is to keep the lure in the water vertically instead of floating on its side. The hooks may lower the center of mass enough to get it to sit right. So would making holes in the bottom for weights. You could also print it in two halves and get the air chamber that way.

I tried wood board it didn’t work maybe aluminum would work. I wonder how thick it would need to be to make sure the mood gets clamped down evenly.

I tried something similar to this although not affixed to the actual mold. In my experience it does save some time putting all the bolts together. It would save even more time if it was attached perminitly like you mentioned but I was too cheap to buy bolts for every mold. I don’t think it’s going to help with the rigidity of the mold because fdm prints flex too much. In my experience I don’t really think it’s needed. To be fair I put a ton of bolt holes in my molds. When I put enough in I get zero flashing whatsoever. I think the best thing to figure out would be a way to use a vise and some clamps. I haven’t figured out a way to do that yet every time I get a bunch of flashing but it would save a ton of time

My temp tower came out good on that if I remember correctly I print hotter for the better layer adhesion. I don’t think that matter much for the molds though.

Good write up. I never tried pla but I used petg and abs before. In my experience petg deforms on larger molds and the abs molds get cracks in then over time. The abs still works but it makes surface defects in the lures. I found this new plastic that’s a blend of polycarbonate and petg. I’ve never had any issues with the mold deforming or warping since I started using it. It’s also much stronger so I use it for all of my hardbaits as well. It needs an enclosure but prints at abs temps. https://a.co/d/iQQQXW7

So I run a YouTube channel where I make baits on my 3d printer. I have all the files for each lure I make available for free. I keep getting people asking me how to actually 3d print them. I think most of the people who watch my videos don’t know how to use one. I want to do a tutorial video on how to print molds for someone who has no knowledge on the subject. I was going to focus it on resin printers as they can produce the same quality as a cnc aluminum mold for a fraction of the price. They are also relatively stupid proof and require little setup and technical know how. I want to make sure I cover most of the questions people will have and I figured this would be a great place. I was going to go over how a resin printer works, what printer to get, how to set one up, what you can make on it, and the cost vs a cnc aluminum mold. I was also going to show off the process from a file to a physical mold. Could you guys let me know what else I should cover in the tutorial for someone who doesn’t have any knowledge on the subject, I would greatly appreciate it. Here’s the link to all of the files in case one of are interested https://www.thingiverse.com/hand_crafted_angling/designs Thank you!

I don’t think that’s ever been attempted. I have heard of people mixing in glass fibers and dyes into the resin for strength and color. I think the biggest issue would be making sure that it doesn’t just all sink to the bottom because the metal powder would be much denser than the resin. But if you can get it to suspend for the duration of the print it should help some. I know the bolts that I use to clamp my molds together absorb quite a lot of heat.

Thank you!

Made a little 3 inch squid bait on my printer. Think it came out pretty good. If you guys want to check it out more info and the download can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5584534

I have mine in a enclosure. Just a crealety branded grow tent. I threw a mini space heater in there hooked up to a thermostat outlet I had left over from my fishtank days. Works great just don't leave a setup like this with no one home lol.

I used to do it the way you are on my fdm. Best way is 2female haves and I’m using 1/4” bolts to hold it together.

I think you would solve most of your warping issues with this method too the supports can cause layer shifts

I print it vertically directly on the build plate

Poor choice of words... I meant the amount of resin used. A lot of my molds were using more than 3/4 a bottle of resin making it much more expensive then fdm.

Did you make sure to sand down the elephants foot on the side of the mold that sits on the print bed?

Paint sticks fine while painting. I'm using a water base acrylic so no matter what you painted it on it would need a clearcoat. I've been using a uv resin clearcoat that's been working out well.

I’ve printed many soft plastics molds out of fdm. Although I’ve never tried it I see no reason why it wouldn’t work for a hard bait. Just out of curiosity why not print the lure directly on the printer?