Soft Hard Body

[Sonny.Barile]

The changing one tiny little thing doesnt work anymore. The patent people are clamping down on the folks that screw with OPP's (other peoples products). If a change could be considered "obvious" they wont be able to do it. Also, if your invention is "obvious" they wont let you patent it. They have been getting held responsible for patents that were granted to easily and without thorough "prior art" investigations.

Sorry if this is off topic as it is not really important info for most us but it is good to know.

Sonny

[sallystrothers]

What about making silicon molds and casting the bodies with a dyed urethane foam?

Edited December 27, 2011 by sallystrothers

[Montana Riverboats]

What about making silicon molds and casting the bodies with a dyed urethane foam?

You're over my head now. That does sound interesting. I need to update the photos. I do have 1/4" thick closed-cell EVA foam in 4 different colors. Water-based fabric cement makes a nice-looking colorable finish. So do various spay adhesives from 3M and other such outfits.

Molded foam? Maybe. But all the urethane foams I'm familiar with are open cell, and you do need the buoyancy of closed-cell to make wigglers work. I made a few today with brass weight (instead of lead) buried inside a slit in the foam body. They're starting to look like nice lures.

[flyonline]

I've made a few lures with foaming PUs, but the stuff I have and most I can find are too light (i.e. lighter than balsa), and certainly not strong enough. The through wire rips out easily from the foam even if I add weight to get a decent casting and less bouyant lure.

Here's one all painted up.

I have however been wanting to make a mold from solid PU and mold an RTV silicon lure - kinda soft plastic hard body

Steve

Edited December 28, 2011 by flyonline

[Montana Riverboats]

I've made a few lures with foaming PUs, but the stuff I have and most I can find are too light (i.e. lighter than balsa), and certainly not strong enough. The through wire rips out easily from the foam even if I add weight to get a decent casting and less bouyant lure.

I have however been wanting to make a mold from solid PU and mold an RTV silicon lure - kinda soft plastic hard body

Steve

Closed-cell EVA foam (what I have been using) is too light for large plugs. You need some buoyancy though. So for large plugs I've been gluing carved blocks of vinyl worm resin to buoyant foam. Balsa and basswood work well too, but they take too long to carve and shape. With foam and worm resin blocks I can hand snip a lure body in seconds, not days.

I gave up on wire for the same reason (rips through foam). You can use thinwall tubing buried inside the foam, to run a 20lb monofilament back to a rear-mounted hook, treble or otherwise (many West Coast salmon fishermen think a large single hook is more reliable than a treble). The tubing is stiff enough to keep the soft lure from collapsing as you reel it back toward the rod.

For me there are two design goals/rewards for soft plugs:

1) snip-ably soft means fast and easy to make (compared to wood carving and especially so as compared to injection molding)

2) soft means fish bite down and then hang on and chew, rather than spit. Soft is better. Hard is a fish-catching handicap.

For compound material bodies (closed-cell foam glued to heavier worm resin) you can wrap the body with spawn sack and then spray it with 3M contact adhesive, or Duro "All Purpose Spray Adhesive," etc. That way you can build a soft, squishy and yet still durable plug of arbitrary size. Water-based fabric cement might work for laminating spawn sack onto the surface too, but I haven't had time to test that yet.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Montana Riverboats

[greg.p]

its a new meaning to ultra lite lures. fantastic idea. can i ask if you would sell any to the public.

i would love to use tho's on a ul setup.