biggamefish Posted May 23, 2013 Report Share Posted May 23, 2013 hey guys, ive been making the tails of my jointed hard swimbaits out of plastic lexan, its been working pretty good, but there has been one occasion that i accidentally casted my bait and landed on some rocks and it did snap a portion of the tail off, now im looking to make the tail out of some medium/hard clear/yellowish flexible rubber that i can make a mold and pour, can anyone point me to find the correct materials? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wchilton Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 (edited) You'll probably want to try a pourable urethane. That's going to be a lot tougher than heat/pour vinyl plastic material used for soft plastics. I found some on eBay that seems to meet all your criteria and is sold in a small enough size to try out. Just go to ebay and search for "RTV Urethane Molding Rubber Kit, 16 oz, 60 Hardness" Note: his "regular set" cures clear, "fast set" cures opaque. There are other pourable urethanes available from "smooth-on.com" and "makelure.com" but they don't look to be transparent in the harder durometers like the stuff on ebay. 60A hardness is about like a shoe sole, if you want a little bit harder material you could go with 80A. If you want to add more color I'd go with a powdered colorant or something specifically used for urethanes. You're going to need to make a silicone mold. There's a tutorial/post on this site about making a silicone mold using 100% silicone caulk with a few drops of water as catalyst. I haven't used pourable urethanes myself, but have worked with solid urethane (80A and harder) and shaping it on a lathe to make parts (non fishing). Edited May 24, 2013 by wchilton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
