Hand Crafted Angling Posted August 28, 2023 Report Share Posted August 28, 2023 I went way down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to make super stretchy and durable soft plastics and I've hit a wall. I figured id post what I have found here. All of these baits are made out of a thermoplastic elastomer. (TPE) This comes in the form of a plastic pellet that is melted down and injection molded. I've seen some different theories on here before that they are either two part plastic or made of some kind of thermoset rubber but this is not correct. I don't have any specific formulation but the plastic pellets are a mixture of some kind of oil a heat stabilizer and sebs plastic (Styrene-Ethylene-Butylene-Styrene) There are commercially available pellets with the correct hardness and elasticity but they are all made for traditional injection molding. They only need to be stable under heat for seconds rather than hours and they are injected under an order of magnitude more pressure than we use. I have tried testing some of these commercially available pellets and they do not react to heat well. Within 10 minuets the plastic turned yellow and my shop was filled with smoke. The only commercially available forum of this that I can find is Bait Plastics flex x 200. This is the same concept as the commercially available pellets it just has enough heat stabilizer to survive being melted for long durations and have a low enough viscosity to be hand injected. I wonder if large companies like zman use traditional injection molding or they have a formula similar to flex x 200 that would work in something like a Zorn injection machine. It is beyond me how you would get laminates as well as suspended flake through normal injection molding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveMc1 Posted September 4, 2023 Report Share Posted September 4, 2023 (edited) ZMan does use a vertical injection machine like Zorn's, except they use a proprietary delivery method to push the material through the heat exchangers and into the molds. In these machines the plastic (or TPE in this case) is only hot for a few minutes before it is in the mold. Their molds are just standard production molds for Zorn style machines. I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago myself, SEBS is just one of 3 styrenic elastomers in ZMan's formula. I do not know much about Flex-X 200, I would imagine it is just another TPE/TPR but I could be wrong. Edited September 4, 2023 by DaveMc1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekLifeLureCo Posted October 15, 2023 Report Share Posted October 15, 2023 (edited) We invested a lot into the Flex X 200 hoping to use it as our primary plastic only to be disappointed. It is like ZMAN but it is still a plastisol and can be reheated. You have to use a presto pot or shooting star to heat it though and not a microwave. The cure time is longer and you have to roll them in salt or oil before you hand them or they will stick together while hanging "I'm talking about legs or other thin appendages that might be on your baits" the baits also seem to droop while curing and will stick to the core shot. They also become very oily after curing. It will stretch extremely far but will break eventually and it gets less durable with each full stretch. My end opinion is that the stuff is okay for personal use but not if you plan on selling. The heat tolerance is about half of what ZMan is and that is BAD. Also like with ZMan and Nikko you can not mix them with other baits. If they are not sitting perfectly in the package they will deform, even after curing properly. We let our test baits cure for 48hrs, packaged them, placed them in bubble mailers, and placed them in our mailbox for about 2hrs. Just in that short time they were already sticking together and they had flat spots starting from being in the packaging. Keep in mind this was with quite a bit of oil and salt like Bait Plastics recommended us do. So there is no way they would survive delivery across country and sitting in somebodies mailbox all day. After we tested though baits we took a lot at our core shots and scraps that we had laying in a tray. The scraps had all stuck together sitting on the tray, they had been there for about 24hrs at room temp which is 70 degrees. We really wanted to like this stuff and were extremely disappointed that it didn't work out. The only way we can think that might remotely even get close to helping these baits survive delivery truck heat and sitting in a mailbox is if you have custom made vacuum formed trays with single cavities for each bait to sit in. Edited October 15, 2023 by CreekLifeLureCo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KickerWormz Posted October 15, 2023 Report Share Posted October 15, 2023 On 9/4/2023 at 6:53 AM, DaveMc1 said: ZMan does use a vertical injection machine like Zorn's, except they use a proprietary delivery method to push the material through the heat exchangers and into the molds. In these machines the plastic (or TPE in this case) is only hot for a few minutes before it is in the mold. Their molds are just standard production molds for Zorn style machines. I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago myself, SEBS is just one of 3 styrenic elastomers in ZMan's formula. I do not know much about Flex-X 200, I would imagine it is just another TPE/TPR but I could be wrong. Dave, You don't use that stuff in your fancy machines do you? I have a feeling you don't Darren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hand Crafted Angling Posted October 16, 2023 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2023 On 10/14/2023 at 10:18 PM, CreekLifeLureCo said: We invested a lot into the Flex X 200 hoping to use it as our primary plastic only to be disappointed. It is like ZMAN but it is still a plastisol and can be reheated. You have to use a presto pot or shooting star to heat it though and not a microwave. The cure time is longer and you have to roll them in salt or oil before you hand them or they will stick together while hanging "I'm talking about legs or other thin appendages that might be on your baits" the baits also seem to droop while curing and will stick to the core shot. They also become very oily after curing. It will stretch extremely far but will break eventually and it gets less durable with each full stretch. My end opinion is that the stuff is okay for personal use but not if you plan on selling. The heat tolerance is about half of what ZMan is and that is BAD. Also like with ZMan and Nikko you can not mix them with other baits. If they are not sitting perfectly in the package they will deform, even after curing properly. We let our test baits cure for 48hrs, packaged them, placed them in bubble mailers, and placed them in our mailbox for about 2hrs. Just in that short time they were already sticking together and they had flat spots starting from being in the packaging. Keep in mind this was with quite a bit of oil and salt like Bait Plastics recommended us do. So there is no way they would survive delivery across country and sitting in somebodies mailbox all day. After we tested though baits we took a lot at our core shots and scraps that we had laying in a tray. The scraps had all stuck together sitting on the tray, they had been there for about 24hrs at room temp which is 70 degrees. We really wanted to like this stuff and were extremely disappointed that it didn't work out. The only way we can think that might remotely even get close to helping these baits survive delivery truck heat and sitting in a mailbox is if you have custom made vacuum formed trays with single cavities for each bait to sit in. I picked some up for personal use. Is the heat a problem for storage in a tackle bag? I wanted to make some large internally weighted swim baits and some saltwater stuff with it but if it melts that easy it might be a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveMc1 Posted October 18, 2023 Report Share Posted October 18, 2023 On 10/15/2023 at 3:03 AM, KickerWormz said: Dave, You don't use that stuff in your fancy machines do you? I have a feeling you don't Darren No, but if I invested in the "pump" end of the machines I could use it for sure, If I could buy the raw materials and mix it here LOL. I do believe all the other TPE/TPR baits being sold in North America other than ZMan are produced in China or Japan (I haven't seen any that are made in the USA other than ZMan). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekLifeLureCo Posted October 24, 2023 Report Share Posted October 24, 2023 (edited) On 10/16/2023 at 3:46 PM, Hand Crafted Angling said: I picked some up for personal use. Is the heat a problem for storage in a tackle bag? I wanted to make some large internally weighted swim baits and some saltwater stuff with it but if it melts that easy it might be a problem. If you do not keep them perfectly straight and out of the sun or a compartment that gets overly hot they will deform and develop flat spots on whatever part the bag is touching. Like I mentioned earlier even my scraps and core shots fused together slightly and deformed very badly is a controlled 70-75 degree room. IMO the only way I can see these staying usable is either storing them in a cooler or having individual vacuum formed pocket trays shaped like the bait to keep them in your bags. Edited October 24, 2023 by CreekLifeLureCo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
