How To Repaint Jigheads?

[Bois d'Arc]

Thought I'd better ask some folks who have been working with jigs for a while before I mess something up.   I recently came into possession of about 1000 rattleback jigheads.  They're all new but the paint on them leaves a little to be desired.  Most of them are painted black, brown, some really weird greenish color or white.  There are fiber weed guards attached to most of them....a few have wire guards. None of them have skirts.   I'm wondering if the heads can be redone with some other colors and how it would be done.  I've seen powder coat and airbrush mentioned as a way to paint jigheads but I have no idea how to get a good hard paint job on a jig head or what needs to be done to prep an already painted jighead for a new colorcoat.  This is my first rodeo at making jigs so hopefully I'm making sense and somebody will give me a few pointers on the art of jig making.

[cadman]

The question you have to ask yourself is how much time do you want to spend doing 1000 jigs. To me the cost of time is not worth repainting especially since they were already painted once. But time may not be relative for you. If I had to do this the correct way, this is the way I would do it. This is based on the fact that all the heads are lead and no plastic rattles or anything else is on it.

 

#1 Pull out all the weedguards cleanly out of every jig. Then throw these out.

#2 Take the whole lot of jigs and put them in a big bowl and fill with paint stripper. This is a messy process and time consuming.

#3 Wait about 2-3 hours to see if the stripper removed the paint from the jig. If not leave in longer. If still not clean, spill out old paint stripper and add new all over again.

#4 Once paint is off the jigs, you will have to wash off each jig, and brush every jig, to get excess remover off and make sure you get the remover out of the weedguard hole.

#5 Once the jigs are clean to your liking, let thoroughly dry for a week.

#6 Once your jigs are dry, I would now start powder painting them to the colors you want, and then bake them all.

#7 Once baked, I would glue in or epoxy in the weedguard.

#8 Wait to dry several days and skirt your jigs.

 

Now just from a normal time perspective, to do this correctly I would estimate about 40 hours of labor, just a rough guess. The biggest key here is in the prep work. If you don't clean the jigs properly and you don't get the remover off, you will have a crappy paint job and will have to redo them.

 

This is just the way I would do this project. However I wouldn't strip and repaint 1000 jigs, as it is not cost effective to do this. It would be faster to have new ones poured, and then just paint clean jigs from scratch. Just my opinion.

 

Finally I would not air brush jigs as you would have to clear coat the paint to keep it from washing off unless you use lacquer paint, and even with lacquer paint you will still have to make sure the jigs are clean.

Edited February 24, 2015 by cadman

[Painter1]

Maybe cut off the weed-guards and soak a couple jigs in MEK to see if it will lift the paint and soften the weedguard portion that remains in the hole.  You wont have to worry about stripper residue and the jigs will be clean.  Obviously, not all paints will be effected by MEK, though.  

 

I recommend good ventilation and fire safety when working with MEK.

[Jeff Hahn]

Since you have Rattleback jigs,they likely have plastic rattles molded into the head.  You don't want to use chemicals to strip the paint that might melt the plastic rattles.  Similarly, you can't head the head hot enough to use powder paint, let alone bake it on, without melting the plastic rattles.  If I were you, I would go to Walmart and buy some cheap fingernail polish and paint the heads with that.  It may chip off, but at least the rattles on thejigheads will be intact.  If you want to spend a little more, buy the Sally hanse Tough as Nails fingernail polish.  It's will chip far less than other rands.

[BLT]

I also vote for just painting over them if they have the rattles on them.  Now THAT being said, I would just go out and fish with them as is, or trade some with a friend for some jigs he may have in colors you like. A lot of the fish I catch are on jigs that are not even painted with swimbaits on them.

[Yo Al]

I would try vinyl jig paint directly over the original paint. Clean the heads with rubbing alcohol before repainting them. The best method uses a white base then color then clear. No way to tell if it will react with the old paint without trying it though. It's a good durable finish and can be dipped or brushed. It requires good ventilation. Just another option.

[Jaw]

If the paint that is on the jigs is in good shape then just cover the weed gaurd with heat shrink or some kind of masking airbrush the colors you want then clear with epoxy rotate until epoxy is set start with a base coat of white painted over the existing color, time consuming but doable

[Bois d'Arc]

If the paint that is on the jigs is in good shape then just cover the weed gaurd with heat shrink or some kind of masking airbrush the colors you want then clear with epoxy rotate until epoxy is set start with a base coat of white painted over the existing color, time consuming but doable

Just so happens I have a little time....gonna try this and see how it works. 

[Jaw]

I've done it a few times but never 1000

[Bois d'Arc]

I don't plan on doing 1000 jigs at one sitting.  I'm just looking to do a few at a time.  As I said before I'm new to making jigs so my first goal is to use what I have and learn the basics.  I In this case painting the heads is my best option (IMO).  I have enough skirting material to make over a thousand jigs so finding some decent head/skirt color combinations should be interesting.  Since most of  the jigheads I have to work with also have rattles attached to them I'm thinking I'll have to hand tie the skirts.  One guy suggested using wire?  Not sure how that works.  I've tied some feathered trebles and have the tools and materials for that so I'm thinking that's my best option....but open to sugestions.  As for molds and pouring....My father cast his own bullets and reloaded ammunition so I have a good handle on pouring metal. There's a tackle shop nearby that sells molds, jig hooks. etc, and I have the tools to melt and pour metal so its mostly the experience that I'm missing.  Hence, this post asking TU folks for input.  TU is a great place to get information from experienced tackle builders.  Thanks for all the suggestions

Edited March 10, 2015 by boisarc

[Jaw]

As far as the wire for tying I just use it on silicone/rubber skirts with a collar once I put my skirt on my jigs I take wire (I use 26 gauge I believe) and make one or two wraps around my skirt material and twist it tight then slide my collar over it. Some guys remove the collar after they wrap with wire but I just like to cover it up so thats the way I do it. I have never used wire on skirts I've tied with thread because the thread cement seems good enough for me.