Buzzbait Help

[Outlaw4]

Recently purchased a Do It keel buzzbait mold. Having a few issues, and wondering if others have seen or have solutions for?

1. Difficult to keep the hook in line with the keel direction before pouring. Hook does not stay tight enough when mold is closed.

2. Lead not bonding to the hook and form allowing the hook to wiggle

3. Been trying to use some Owner hooks, but the mold will not fill in around the hook shaft in one spot around down near the collar. Its odd as the VMC hooks dont seem to have the same issue.

4. On the ones that have turned out, in the water they tend not to run straight and pull to the left on retrieve.

I'm not disgruntled with them yet, but am getting frustrated a tad

[toadfrog]

Pure lead. Keel molds are a pain to pour period . The best thing you can do is smoke the mold . Then get you a ladle with a spout on the side (not one of those with just a lip). Pic below. Turn your mold hole position horizontal , stick the ladle spout in the hole. Turn both into vertical position in one move. For a better hook alignment and bond crimp the hook onto the wire. Place the assembly away from the collar deeper into the head. Sometimes this will require a piece of silicone tape placed where it can grip the hook when the mold is closed. This will help with alignment and keeping the assembly in position . Check the owner hook to see if the shank dia. is bigger.  If it runs to the left tweak the wire until you get what you want . Be aware some types of skirts can cause a bait to tilt one way or another . There is a method i use to adapt a bigger hook to almost any mold . But that entails a whole other discussion . There will always be a slight issue with keel molds in one form or another. What ever you do never use a Dremel on a mold. Just a personal pet peeve of mine. I hate seeing molds looking like a hatchet was used to mod. it .

[Outlaw4]

Using pure lead, Lee Production pot, i did smoke the molds and preheat them on the pot so they are too hot to touch. I read some other forum notes regarding this one being tricky to fill and I'm not having that so much as bonding to the hooks / forms.

I'll try to take some pictures of the Owner hook deal. I don't know if its due to the stainless or just something in my process.

[rfdong]

I have a few molds that I modded that have similar issues.  What I do, is heat the lead as hot as you can so it flows better.  I try to put the Lee spout as close to the pour hole as I can and angle it so the lead pours straight down into the mold.  Lastly, open the spout full so the lead flows as fast as it can.  You may over pour a few until you get your timing down but unless you’re doing large numbers doesn’t matter.  Hope that helps your problem.

[Jeff Hahn]

If the hooks are cold, the lead will harden quickly when it hits the hook.  You might allow the hooks to sit in the warm mold for a minute before pouring.  This may allow the lead to form around the hook more completely. 

As far as the hook being loose in the mold, you could take a little high temp red silicone and put a light coating where the hook lies.  This will prevent it from moving around when you close the mold.

As far as the buzz bait pulling to the left...if the bait only has one blade, the direction that the blades are bent will dictate whether the bait runs to the right or left.  A single bladed buzz bait will never run straight. 

[Outlaw4]

Ok thanks to all that have posted, and those who have posted on some of the older posts on this mold. I was able to get this working pretty well last night.

I re-smoked the molds just to make sure. Then turned the pot up from 7 to 9. I was able to be really close to 100% on the pours i tried last night. All the pours i did were with the wires & hooks i melted the bad pours off of, so not sure if that helped or not.

Could definitely see the lead temp took just a second longer to solidify in the sprue so that maybe was the deal, just not hot enough.

Another thing i did for using some custom wire bends was modify a groove into the mold where the buzz arm sits and this really helped hold the wire form in place. The Do-It forms sit in the opening so there is nothing to clamp them. Then i just trimmed the arms to whatever length i wanted them. I'll try and get a picture of it, but it take 30 sec with a file.

I'll have to try the red silicone on the hook slot, that is the only pain is keeping that straight, warranted a couple of cusses lol. I tried messing with some tape with mixed results since the mold is so warm.

[Jig Man]

A couple of things to consider, try a piece of duct tape on the hook slot to see if that will hold it in place,  ( I have to do that on some custom wire weed guards) and get you some Frankfort Arsenal Dropout spray.  It is way better and lasts longer than smoking.