Paint question for a newbie lure maker

[Matt Thayer - RI]

Hi everyone. I have a question about spray painting lures I turn on my lathe. I have just started getting into turning wooden topwater lures, and just got into some swimbaits. Im no rookie when it comes to turning, so I can turn pretty much any round shaped lure  but I am a rookie when it comes to painting my stuff. I dont have the time, money, or space for an airbrush or quite frankly the talent to airbrush, so I was hoing I could get some insight on spray painting the lures I make. Is there a certain kind of paint that works better? Better nozzels? Stencils? All the videos I see are just airbrusing videos, and I just cannot get into that. Thanks! 

 

Matt

[BobP]

Yes you can use aerosol paint and paint stencils.  A few guys prefer just painting with brushes and turn out nice looking work too.  You should undercoat or prime the raw wood and then color basecoat with a solid color, usually white, before applying paint.  To preserve the paint you need to topcoat it with a durable waterproof product.  Many of us use epoxy for that but some use urethane in multiple coats.  So there are a multitude of solutions.  It just depends on what you can afford, what equipment you have on hand, personal tastes, and how durable you want the lure to be.

[Anglinarcher]

http://www.lurebuilding.nl/indexeng.html

The above site is a European site, translated into English, that I think may give some help.

Rattle can paint jobs are pretty common in some parts of the world.

[Chuck Young]

Keep your eyes on craigslist, sometimes you can get a kit with an airbrush and compressor for cheap. The quality and variety of spray bombs is very limited. Transparent, pearls & iridescent colors are not available in a can.  Drying times are long. The delivery system stinks. The ones with a fan shaped pattern do a slightly better job. Look at the nozzle - it has a groove in it. You need to vent laquer fumes. 

For silver and gold, I have found Rustoleum 2x coverage to be best.  Pick up some meshy fabric at the sewing store to make scales. A toothbrush can be used to spatter black paint to the back of a lure for a surprisingly effective and simple paint job (research spatterback).

[mark poulson]

I began painting my big one piece topwater Lunker Punker type lures with rattle cans, and they held up just fine.

I used a penetrating wood sealer to seal and stabilize the wood, letting them soak under a weight to insure good penetration, and then sanded it smooth.  Next was a coat of rattle can primer to give me a smooth surface to paint over. 

Once the primer had dried,  I did my rattle can paint jobs, starting with a lighter belly, and working my way up the sides to a darker top.

I let each coat dry for the minimum drying time, and actually found that I could get better blending that way.

The successive coats kind of melted into each other, and, when I was done, and had let the lures cure for a couple of days, the paint jobs were totally waterproof and held up really well.

When I began making and painting jointed swimbaits, I found that I couldn't get them sealed well enough to prevent water penetration, and that's when I switched to Azek PVC (thank you John Hopkins).

My wood lathe tools disappeared when I moved north, so I can't say if PVC turns well, but I'd sure try it if I were making spook-type turned lures.

[Matt Thayer - RI]

When I was in construction a few years back, I so much azek it wasnt even funny. I threw away alot of azek as well! If I would have known its a good lure making material I would have been stock piling it. Thank you guys for the tips. I love the idea of the toothbrush. I saw on youtube a guy using a sponge as well. I think the azek will turn okay as long as you do a scraping cut, not riding the bevel and making a peeling cut, I think there would be too much friction and would actually melt the piece. Thank you guys again for all the tips.