Tman69671 Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 I have just been filling my ballast weight holes with epoxy what do you use? Also what do you seal your baits with and what order do you do it? I have noticed most baits with a thick super high gloss finish how do I get this result? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobP Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 You can use most anything to seal ballast holes. If you glue the ballast in first, any kind of wood filler will work, even the light duty interior wood filler that basically looks and acts like spackling compound. You're going to coat the bait with a durable topcoat, so what goes in the hole to fill it isn't critical. In hardwood, I drill a slightly oversize ballast hole, fill it with quick cure epoxy putty log from the home improvement store and push in the ballast weight, smoothing the epoxy that squeezes out of the hole to finish the job. The thicker topcoats you see are often slow cure epoxies like Devcon Two Ton, which require a turning wheel to rotate the lures while the epoxy cures for several hours. An alternative is Solarez UV cured polyester resin, though it doesn't level out or have quite the gloss of epoxy. I'll leave you to the search function on this page to explore those options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassguy Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 I epoxy the ballast in first and use the epoxy putty as well to fill the top. I use a small tool to partially smooth it out, once it starts to cure, you can't do much with it. Once it's cured, I just sand flush to the bait. Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tman69671 Posted February 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 Is your top coat quite thick? Dipped? And would it seal any water based paints or any thing else I might venture on to use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 (edited) The quickest topcoat is Solarez UV cured resin. 3 minutes in direct sun or a UV nail light box and it's ready to fish. You should dip it if possible. It goes over water based paints that are well dried just fine. If you use solvent based sharpies for details, you need to seal that with a water based clear coat, like Createx Gloss, before you dip in the Solarez. It adds more weight to a lure than a urethane or lacquer top coat, but it's the same weight+- as epoxy. Edited February 20, 2014 by mark poulson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aydensdad82 Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 For my lures I use a 5 minute Loctite epoxy for my ballast hole. This is just a basic epoxy I found at Home Depot. The entire body then gets dipped in propionate 5-8 times which seals everything and gives me a nice surface to paint. After painting I finish with a top coat of Bob Smith 30 miin epoxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
