New To Pouring Hard Baits

[Ichthus]

I'm new to pouring my own hard baits with alumilite product and have a few questions for you more experienced guys out there.

1. if im working on a 2 piece bait, could i put both pieces seperated, but in one mold?

2. what's the ideal ratio for microballoons/tungsten if you want a floating, suspending, sinking, and fast sinking lure?

3. what's the easiest way to balance these baits?

4. what is better? having two seperate pieces for a two piece bait or having one and just sawing it in half later?

 

any feedback would be much appreciated.

[Matt Moreau]

1. if im working on a 2 piece bait, could i put both pieces seperated, but in one mold? YES

2. what's the ideal ratio for microballoons/tungsten if you want a floating, suspending, sinking, and fast sinking lure? Too many variable to go over here... depends on size, shape etc. I find that 1-1 ratio of MB to resin usually makes a bait float with a little ballast for orentation.

3. what's the easiest way to balance these baits? Trial and error. I get a bucket and some rubber bands...add lead till u get desired effect. If you are making the same bait take notes and dupicate.

4. what is better? having two seperate pieces for a two piece bait or having one and just sawing it in half later? I prefer 2 pieces but takes more time to mold. 1 piece you can change where u cut but hard to duplicate exactly if you find the sweet spot.

[Ichthus]

Thanks! I appreciate it!

[Coley]

I have poured many baits over the years and the learning curve was tough.I have tried everything.The best method I have come up with so far is as follows:A two piece mold is the easiest to make.You may use any type of wood for the model.Take two pieces same size including thickness. Paint one side of each piece black (not heavy). Spot glue the painted painted sides together,this will give you a good center line to carve your model from? Both halves need to be as close to the

same thickness as possible when finished.

Each outside must be sealed good to fill all

Pores in the wood or they will show up in

the mold and on your bait. Then wax both halves before you separate

them.

I use a little super glue gel to glue them together, about three places.

Separation is easy, use a very sharp, thin blade knife. Nothing is hurt

even if it tears a little wood from the inside it doesn't matter. Stay on the centerline, you will be able to seen it.

More later.

[Nathan]

Coley has truly mastered pouring baits.I've been lucky enough to see him work several times through the years...I'd listen to every word he says...Nathan

[Ichthus]

Thanks! So I can mold the two halves of the "blank" in two different halves of the same mold simultaneously?

[Travis]

I always mold one half at a time.  After the first half is molded then place the master into that half use a release agent and pour the second half.

[robalo01]

I think we are confusing  Ichthus here. He is asking...

 

When making a multi-piece bait (let's say front and back for the sake of argument), should one make a single mold and cast both forward and rear halves already linked together? or pour them in two separate molds and link them together later?

[Travis]

Oh I see, sorry.  I mold all in one piece.  As long as the harness/weight system is held in position by the mold much easier than messing with a glue up procedure.

[robalo01]

As to the question on how much microbballoons to add, you would have to look at the specific weight:volume of both the resin and the microballoons you are using. To give you an example, I source my materials locally, for what I use a 15% mix by volume makes the product neutral (without hardware and finish), I have found that about 40% for smaller cranks and a little less for larger lures works best. The more you add the higher the viscosity the resin and the more fragile the bait.

 

For a couple of lures I have to inject the resin mix with a 25CC syringe. I opened up the tip to 1/4" and the mold has lines that inject from the bottom up to release the air. Inject very slowly and you get a perfect product with very little flashing and gate to cut off.

[RAswimmers]

From my experience balancing and the ratio of microballons are closely related. I've gotten a lot of help from the TU community and Matt's 1-1 ratio is the best place to start and the overall consensus for general buoyancy. One thing I can add to this is that this ratio will almost certainly need to be modified to fit the bait you're making. I find that there is distinct actions that happens when the ration and ballast / balance is not quite right (apples to lipless baits) , the roll and a dead action retrieve. 

 

                                 Roll / wobble: if you get a roll or wobble when you retrieve the bait I've found that this can usually be fixed by making the bait more buoyant  

                                 (adding more microballons) and adding more ballast. By doing this you are applying more force in the upward and downward direction forcing the  

                                 bait vertical. In my experience this help with roll in any sink rate you want. The only downside to this is that the more balloons you add the weaker

                                 the bait gets and if changing the ratios doesn't fixe the roll problem then it's probably the shape of the bait. 

 

I've always though of it like this, a perfectly tuned wood bait has the most amazing action. Most wood used for baits is fairly light and buoyant, try to replicate wood then fine tune you ration and weight to get the exact action you want out of it. 

 

I hope this isn't too fare off topic.

Edited July 9, 2014 by RAswimmers

[Coley]

Iam sorry,I was trying to explain how to make a one piece mold. Sounds like you are trying to make a swimbait.

[mark poulson]

If I were going to make resin baits, I'd first cut some blocks of the wood whose buoyancy I wanted to match, and then make several molds the size of those blocks.  I could then add resin and microballoons until I achieved the same weight for the mixture as the original wood block weighed.

Once I had the proper ratio, by weight, for the two parts, I'd mark it on the wood block sample, so I could duplicate that buoyancy when I made a bait, no matter what it's shape or size, by simply duplicating the mixture again, by weight.

If you have several different woods you use, you can do multiple samples, so you'll know what mixture to use when you're ready to pour.

[Anglinarcher]

I offer the following web site to supplement the great advice on this thread. http://www.makelure.com/HowTos.cfm Alumilite and Larry Dahlberg did a lot of videos regarding making molds and molding, to include the subject we are talking about. Their molds are silicone, but so much of what they do is transferable to other materials as well. Take your time going through them and I believe you will get your answers pretty completely answered. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words (so how many pictures are there in a video - LOL).

 

PS, if you go to the top of that page you will see a tab for photos.  About half way down you will see a graph showing densities of several woods, foams, and the density of Alumilite White with Microballons.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Anglinarcher

[Ichthus]

Thank you very much! Your guys's expertise was much needed! I'll post some results of the finished prototypes when they're finished on the next few weeks!

[Ichthus]

Update: I made my first two baits. I went with an s-waver mold. I kept the whole entire bait in tact and made the mold. It works surprisingly well although I wish I had poured it vertically to make installing hangers easier, but I guess I'll do that later when I decide to re-do the mold. The mold works well. All I do is pull the two pieces apart after pouring, then put the joint hardware on and cut slots for the cotter pins to slip into. I ran into problems trying to pour with the joint hardware already in. As it is a one piece mold so the plastic was overlapping and screwing up the joint action and placement.

I did the joints two different ways to experiment, one with interlinked screw eyes and the other with a "pin and slot" joint. The bait with the interlinked swims well at very, very slow retrieves and when twitched it walks like a spook and still has the joint action. It is a floating model.

The "pin and slot" one swims like an s-waver except more head action but works only at slow speeds or when twitched as well. It is a suspending with weight in the head. This one doesn't have a tail. Instead, I plan I adding feathers or fur to make up the tail. Hoping it adds more action. I would add pictures to show what I mean but I'm away for a few days and forgot to take pictures before I left home.

My question is: why would it only work at slow speeds and how do I fix this?

When I retrieve fast, it straightens out and doesn't wiggle at all.