Making large swim baits

[Hand Crafted Angling]

I want to make a large internally weighted swim bait mold. I’m looking for some pointers on how to make sure it comes out nice. My main concern is avoiding denting. Me resin printed 14 inch sand eel mold has some denting issues. I’d like to avoid any issues with this one. As far as I understand it the best way to avoid denting is to make the gate as wide as possible and to have a large sprew. I’m going for somthing around 7” so it’s gonna have to be a single cavity mold. I guess the best way to do this is to put a large resivoir in front of the gate. I also plan on making a 3d printed air chamber in the bait. I think this would help in a few ways. It would give the body more rigidity. Help put the center of gravity lower. I plan on using this to hold egg sinkers for the weight of the lure. I think this would help quite a bit with the denting though. Much less hot plastic in the middle. Is there anything else in the design I can do to limit denting. Also where should I put the gate? On large painted paddle tails I don’t really see any artifacts of a mold gate. Plus for a large bait it’s gonna have to be big. Can I fill it through the tail?

[rcbv]

I've seen gate artifacts on big baits under the mouth, on the belly and at the tail.

The reservoir will help, so will holding injection pressure but unless the mold is metal the bait is going to take a while to cool.

If you can, try partially filling the mold and waiting a bit for the plastic to cool and shrink then finish filling it.

It just needs to cool enough to form a thick enough skin to remove from the mold without tearing. Then drop it into a bucket of water for it to cool uniformly and not dent.