etex

[johnnytheboy]

Hi There,

Not another etex question!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been using etex now for sometime and having no probs with it on my sinking gliders, however i made a floating lure the other day that should have bulged under the surface, it was weighted exactly as i wanted it, then i etexed it and it seemed to be more bouyant than it had been before, anyone else seen this before??

Cheers John

[RiverMan]

I have heard others say this too altho I generally don't see it with my topwater baits. We have discussed it here before and it all boils down to "Archimedes"....the dude that discovered why ships float. Something floats when its weight is less than the weight of the water it displaces. So if the bait floats and then you increase its overall size (with paint and clear coat) with something that has a density lighter than an equal volume of water....it will float higher than it did before. I hope that made some sense to you because it made no sense to me whatsoever.

Bottom line: Generally the bait will float relatively close to where it was before clearcoating...from my limited experience. Make sure that you use a wood sealer and have all the hook hangers and hooks in place on the bait before testing it for buoyancy.

Jed V.

[Tom S]

John, I have seen that before. My guess is that etex adds more volume than weight. I think it may depend on how well you "de-gass" the e-tex while it is curing also.Now that I use a butane torch to de- gass it gets a lot more air bubbles out before curing. Those tiny bubbles can make a difference in buoyancy. It seems that the longer you wait to brush on the e-tex the harder it is to get the air bubbles out,and it looks a little cloudy.Just my observations.

Tom

[LaPala]

I'm not sure if u sealed ur lure properly b4 doing the water test. But if it's not and the lure blank got wet then the moisture that gets absorbed into the wood does makes a difference. Even when it seems dry on the outside, it's still damp inside.

Here's soemthing about epoxies... they are not 100% waterproof. While ur blank sits after putting on the epoxy, the drying of the wood continues, humidity inside the wood has a way of finding their way out still until it's in equilibrium with ambient humidity. This could cause the extra bouyancy u observed too.

[johnnytheboy]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for this, I'm pretty sure the the lure was sealed ok and in the main most of the bubbles were out of the etex, the lure all though topwater only was meant to have about 5mm (1/4") of its bum sticking out the water so as to be worked slowly just under the surface, i had all the hooks and the traces i would be using etc on the lure when i weighted it as it seemed to have to be weighted very critically to get it right, once it was etexed though it sat a lot higher in the water than it did and worked differently from what i planned.

I'm sure Jed your right it must be more volume for a disproportionate amount of weight.

That's A little annoying lol, i guess the way past this is to try to over compensate weight.

Tightlines John