Spinnerbait Fluid Bed - 3-station Jig Bed

[gonfishn]

So, I got tired of messin with bending wires and having to make repeated passes with an air brush to put the base (white) color on my spinnerbaits prior to tricking them out with a shad shade on top or yellow chrtreuse on top, etc., so I tried dip'n in the 3" pot, didn't work.  Tried it in a 4" that I made and it just wasn't wide enough.  Checked out the comercially available one's on the web, the 12" square from CSI was just to pricey so I thought, what the heck, I'll make one.

 

I used 6" Schedule 40 plastic pipe and fittings, along with commonly available air tubing valves (plastic as the brass was too pricey).  Specifically, I bought a 6" Male threaded plug, the one with the square extension for tightening it up, I also purchased a female coupler to which I screwed the threaded plug into as tight as possible.  I took a scrap piece of 2x10 and drilled a hole to accommadate the square extention and then inserted the assembled unit into it.  I drilled three holes throught the screwed in coupler, put silicon sealant over the holes and then used three drywall screws to secure the plastic assemble to the wood base.  I then took a drill and made two holes, opposite each other, in the coupler and MOST IMPORTANTLY at an angle, you'll want to make the holes the same size as your valve inlet.  I siliconed the valves into the coupler to provide for an airtight seal.  Note, make sure they're facing the same way so as to direct the compressed air supply around the inside which provides for a more even dispersal of pressure (so you won't have a hotspot in the middle).

 

Next, I took a scrap piece of 6" Schedule 40 pipe (thank goodness I had scrap becuase its like $26 for a whole length) and cut it about 5" in length.  Since I didn't have any fluidizer plate material, I went ahead and used heavy brown shopping bag cutouts for the fluid plate.  I've used many mediums in the past and the heavy brown paper beats them all, hands down.  Anyway, I cut out the circle using the outside circumference of the pipe, making several as I wanted ot use all of the bag up.  I then took stick glue, the kind they sell at Staples etc., for paper.  I put a heavy bead around the bottom of the 6" pipe and glued the paper to the base.

 

I dumped a pound of white powder paint into the pipe, hooked up the trusty dusty Elite aquarium air pump to it, the 900 series, and only got a couple little volcanos - dang!!!!

 

Thought about it for a bit and came to the realization that with a whole pound of material, as well as the fact that the 6" diameter bed is BIG as far as fluid beds go, that maybe I outta try a compressor.

 

Hooked up my powder paint air brush compressor, adjusted the air and WALLAH got the prettiest swirling motion of liquid you've ever seen!

 

Grabbed a spinnerbait form, heated it up, dipped it with no problems or hangups and it looks great.

 

All I can say is that if you're looking to save some time and you're doing spinnerbaits or buzzbaits, you may wanna take the time to build one of these.  I've since changed out the brown paper bag fluid medium with the actual thing thanks to one of the fellas on TU.  Picked up three 8" square pieces of fluid bed plate at a decent price.  And that bring sup another thing.  If you are lucky enough to find some reasonably priced fluidizer plate and want to permanetly mount it, here's what I did.

 

I put my 6" pipe over the plate (8" square) and ran a pencil line on the INSIDE of the pipe.  I then cut on the INISDE of the pencil mark which allowed for a small space between the pipe and plate.  I set the plate down, put the pipe over it, squared it with toothpicks so it was even all the way around and secured it int hree places with hot melt glue.  Let it cool, pulled the toothpicks and then proceeded to go around the whole circumference with the hot melt glue. Let it dry and you could drop a beer on it and it won't come loose :-)

 

Anyway, here's what it looks like, I've also added my three-station jig system as I only use black, green pumpkin and brown for jigs anyway.  You'll see how I built this on any number of youtube.com videos.

 

 

 

[cadman]

Pretty cool idea. Thanks for posting the how to tutorial.

[mark poulson]

Really neat!  PVC pipe is amazing stuff, but your adaptation of it is really creative.

[Saugerman]

Gonfishn, Can you tell a big difference in the difference in the fluid bed plate from the brown paper bag, in the way it performs?

[gonfishn]

Gonfishn, Can you tell a big difference in the difference in the fluid bed plate from the brown paper bag, in the way it performs?

 

Yes, but I'm using a 1/4" fluidizer plate instead of the commonly available 1/8" as I couldn't find a "good deal" on the 1/8th.  The main difference is ease of use, once set, you don'thave to mess with "paper", as to the optimum swirling motion both are pretty close BUT the plate seems to perform just a bit better as it seems there's more motion in the side to middle swirling action (liquidity) and, probably most importantly, if you take the time to measure the medium height between paper and plate, you'll find a distinct difference in height in that the plate seems to "raise" it a bit more.  Be that as it may, paper is just fine as I was using it prior to the plate install.  If you're just doing a few, as opposed to the many hundreds I do, you'll be just fine with the paper.  I happened upon a youtube video after I had done my own tests with 30 and 60# paper, as well as vaccum cleaner bag cutouts and coffee filters (both white and brown) and the heavy craft (brown) paper performed the best.  I tested it by measuring heights as well as the "swirl" or level of liquidity.  The thing is though, that's just me, your tests may be skewed in a different direciton as I went from a Elite 900 series aquarium pump to a regular air brush compressor, etc.  I'm still using the paper on my three-jig stand as I'm still looking for that "good deal" on the 1/8th as I don't feel the 1/4" would be the way to go due to diameter differences in the bed itself, again, I've got nothing to base that on though :-)