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RiverMan

Envirotex and Devcon

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Since I have been razzin you guys about the Enviro I decided it was only fair for me to try it myself. I ordered a sample amount and just now applied it to a bait. Here are some of my initial thoughts.

Background info:

I am brushing the product on a 7 inch glider with a paper photo-finish. The bait has been primed with two coats of wood sealer.

Findings:

1. The price of the enviro is very good

2. I found it nearly identical to mix as Devcon

3. I don't like the smell altho it's not unreasonable

4. Seemed to be similar amount of bubbles after mixing

5. It goes on very thin in comparison to Devcon, nearly as thin as water. This was something I very much disliked about FlexCoat. Without a doubt at least two and perhaps three coats will be necessary for my Musky Baits. I am not familiar enough with the product to know whether the low viscosity is a result of the hot weather we are experiencing or something that must be dealt with on a regular basis.

6. I noticed very few if any bubbles after applying the Enviro. However, the coating is so thin that I think it will be difficult for bubbles to become entrained...the coating is that thin.

7. I attempted to get the coat a bit thicker but in doing so noted that it dripped a few times while placing it on the dryer...not a big deal.

8. I developed some small craters here and there on the bait. I am familiar with these in using Devcon and this generally suggests that the coating is too thin. I corrected them with the brush and they reappeared. I decided instead to correct them once the bait was on the drying wheel...hope it worked. After 1 hour I noticed several craters had appeared again...able to brush them out as the product is just now starting to thicken.

My garage is about 85 degrees and after 3.5 hours the bait has "tacked" up enough that I turned off the wheel. I am hoping the lure will be dry enough to accept the second coat in the morning, so far so good.

RM

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Day two:

I woke up this morning to find the bait had totally cured, quite happy with that. I signed the bottom of the bait, mixed the Envirotex and began applying the second coat. Again I had a horrible time with it being so runny, dripping all over the place. For some reason too there are so many craters that I cannot get them covered....I have no idea why. I finally gave up trying to cover the craters (small bare spots) and put the bait on the wheel dryer. There is literally a hundred small craters on the back of the bait alone! To make matters worse, the stuff totally blurred out my signature, have no idea why, never experienced this with Devcon before. I am going to wait an hour or so for the stuff to cure some and then try to brush them out. I was happy with the Enviro an hour ago but now having some serious problems with the stuff. I fear this bait may be lost.

RM

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Update:

About an hour or so after placing the bait on the dryer I noticed that some of the craters had disappeared, perhaps 25% of them. The self-leving properties of the product helped some. The Enviro was now at about the consistency of maple syrup; I brushed it over again and smoothed out the craters. Two or three hours into the process and the bait looks to have a near flawless finish, whew! The only thing lost was the signature on the bottom of the bait. I really have no idea why the signature ran like I did as I know many others here sign their baits with no problem. I am using a fine point permanent marker, the same pen I have always used with no problems. The ink was allowed to dry for probably 5-10 minutes.

I expect that many of the hassles I have experienced with the Enviro are a result of not being familiar with the product. The next bait I cover will try to let the Enviro set-up a bit before applying it, hoping this will reduce the craters and dripping. I have noted also that the coating is actually a bit thicker than I had first thought. Two coats on the bait looks to be pretty good, not sure if I will go for a third or not.

jed

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Riverman,

There are many things to learn about using Etex.

The crater thing is not some thing that I have any exp. with.

Paint oil based? Not totaly cured?Really have never had that happen.

You need to let it react fully before using, standing like 20 mins after mixing.

Because of how thin your talking about.

It will clear and thicken, and get tacky.

You should be able to see the change happen, milky look goes away.

If put on before reaction is in full swing it might separate, like you stated.

But from what you have described it seems that the reaction was not complete and that is why you ink blured.

You will have better luck putting that on there long before the clear coat is to be applied, so that it has dryed.

Y-Sam ..........don't worry you will be very happy with what I have hopfully taught you on using this finish.

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Richoc,

I started another bait this afternoon and let the mix stand for at least 20 minutes before applying. This helped with the crater problem considerably but did not eliminate it. It is still far, far, worse than the problems I have ever experienced with Devcon. I don't have any paint on the bait at this point, zero! The only thing on the bait is wood and paper, both of which the product clearly says it is made to cover. The first bait received its second coat about 9 hours ago, it is still slightly tacky and is being held at 80 degrees. The other thing I have noted is that the surface of the baits are somewhat uneven, not bad, but uneven nonetheless.

At this point I am not impressed with the Envirotex but will maintain an open mind. I would not go as far as to say I don't like it but it certainly is much more touchy than Devcon.

1. Mixing takes longer, must sit after mixing for up to 20 or 30 minutes (why?);

2. There are as many or more bubbles in the finish which must be taken out with a torch (which didn't work for me very well);

3. Long dry time, in the time one coat dries two of the Devcon will dry;

Anyway, will keep trying to familiarize myself with the product but at this point the only thing that keeps me interested is potential for longevity that it may possess over Devcon.

RM

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You are coming over to the "E" side eh? Cool.... All the problems you mentioned are easily fixed and the cure, craters, bubble, ink run, etc are only problems of the inexperienced.

I had the same problems too.... Give me a call or talk to Richoc....We will share some tips with you...... You'll love the stuff!

This is one of my Etex baits!

Mike_Richard_Lg.JPG

YOU'LL LOVE THE STUFF!!!

Chip

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I have finished two baits now with the Etex and overall I moderately happy/unhappy with the results. As you read my comments please keep in mind that I have very little experience with this product and some of the problems I had could likely be avoided with experience.

Observations:

1. Envirotex is reasonably priced, guessing that it is better than Devcon altho I have done the comparison.

2. Mixes easily, some odor and mild eye irritant.

3. Develops bubbles during mixing but does a better job of releasing them than Devcon once it is applied.

4. I compared the product clarity on the back and sides of a Devcon bait to the Envirotex Bait. I found the finish on the Envirotex to be more clear altho the difference is subtle.

5. Envirotex takes a full day (12 hours) for one coat to become dry enough to handle without leaving fingerprints. I sped up this process considerably with the use of a heat lamp, still an entire day was required for full cure. For comparison Devcon is dry enough to fully handle in about 6 hours...without additional heat. I might add that a member on this board explained to me that there are other methods for accelerating the drying process which I have not investigated.

6. Three coats are necessary to provide good coverage for musky baits. I found that two coats were enough with the Devcon.

7. It is not as hard when dry as Devcon, you can still dent the stuff with your fingernail but it's interesting in that the dents slowly heal themselves until completely gone. I have not done any stress tests to determine if this is good thing or not altho I suspect it would be.

8. I found you cannot add a signature to the bait as I have in the past. I generally coat the bait with the epoxy, paint, add my signature over the paint and finish with a final coating of epoxy. This process will not work with Envirotex. The second coat seems to react with the first causing the ink to blur. I tried getting around this by signing the bait on the paper stencil prior to using any Envirotex, the signature blurred again! For those interested I was using a fine tip permanent market and allowed the ink to dry for 8 hours before applying the E-tex.

9. Envirotex has a strong tendency to dimple when being applied. These can be removed if you return to the bait and brush them out an hour or so into the cure. I find this annoying as with Devcon I simply smooth things out and walk away from it. I expect this annoyance to be a result of the low viscosity of the product.

10. Envirotex has a low viscosity when first mixed making application tricky...like trying to keep a drop of water balanced on a piece of glass. This too can be avoided by waiting 30 minutes or so prior to applying the product, annother inconvenience.

11. An equal mix of the two parts of Envirotex is more critical than it is with Devcon. I bought two syringes just for this purpose. Still I had one batch of Envirotex that failed to cure on the bait. This as you can imagine was a huge mess requiring me to rub all the stuff off of the bait (which prior to this mess was an awesome looking lure) and start all over again. I have never had this happen once in two years of using Devcon.

To summarize:

I found the Envirotex fairly difficult to use. Perhaps the biggest advantage I see to envirotex is its longevity, baits up to a decade or older have been reported by members here to maintain their clarity. Longevity is something that is very important to me but may not be to others. Since I offer my baits for sale I very much want those purchasing them to still see a quality product 10 years from now.

The biggest disadvantages I see are the slow cure time, the low viscosity, the sensitive mix ratio, its tendency to dimple, which I also suspect is related to the water-like texture, and the thin layer of protection it provides requring additional coats and time.

Overall I would say if a person is doing a few baits then Devcon is much easier to use. If you are trying to finish large numbers of baits then it may be worth investing the time to understand exactly how best to use Envirotex. I cannot say that Envirotex will provide greater longevity and protection than Devcon as I have yet to have any of my Devcon baits fail or yellow in any way. I hope that future input from others on the TU Board will provide further insight in this regard.

Jed

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Oh yeah baby.... the E side. 8O Don't worry Jed, you'll love the stuff like Chip said. I'm sure that there are enough guys on the site that can give you more steps to take care of all of the problems that you are having. As you can tell by Chips picture...... Fish prefer Etex baits 2 to 1 over Devcon. I might be able to help you with the bubble problem. In one of Chips posts he had a picture of himself using a propane torch to help get rid of the bubbles. In the post he explains how he does it. As far as doing allot of baits and Devcon being too slow, you could just use the Etex and buy about 10 of those torches and cook 10 of them at a time. Then you could build an oven and broil those puppies so that they could dry faster. Sounds easy enough to me. That would surely help you get them done in quantity. Just hang in there and keep at it. Someday it will work. :twisted:

Skeeter B)

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I tried to put together a fair test for the product Skeeter. There are guys on this board with a whole bunch of experience that like the stuff and I wanted to know why. I really would like to make Etex work but for me it proved quite problematic. So....after fooling with the Etex for two days I busted out the trusty tube of Devcon, breathed a sigh of relief, mixed it up in 20 seconds, brushed it on, put the bait on the dryer and walked away from it...perfect everytime.

:D

Jed

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Jed,

I have a thought (everyone take notice....I don't have them often!!)You said envi. was puddling......I haven't made any photo lures yet,but have made logo's using decal paper.I had the same problem with Devcon puddling on the decals.Something about the surface of the paper not excepting it....I fixed this by dipping the entire lure(with decal attatched) in polyacrilic,when dry I had no problem with the coverage with Devcon.

I wonder if this would solve the puddle problem with enviro...Also keep that in mind if you try decal paper with devcon.

Sincerly

A Devcon fan forever...Nathan

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Hi Nathan,

You may correct, but here again this would be another step that I would rather not have to take. I think the puddling could largely be avoided by allowing the product to thicken for 30 minutes or more. Devcon is considerably thicker and thus doesn't move about, seperate, and "puddle" like the Enviro does.

Thanks for the idea.

Jed

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Jed

I have used Devcon only one time, on a Reef Hawg. It survived about three hours fishing and about two pike. When it started to chip off I could not stop it. My buddy had always used Envirotex with no problems. So I gave it a try, with the same results you are getting. The only thing is it stood up longer. So one day I made a spinner for my lures, problems all gone. I put them on the spinner and turn it on. When I mix up my Envirotex I use a top of a pop bottle for measuring. Mixing should be completed after about 3-5 minutes of vigorous mixing. Improper mixing will result in soft or tacky spots on the lure that will not cure!! Yes you will get a lot of bubbles but this is how I get them out. I will use a blow dryer and blow in the mixing cup it brings all the bubbles to the top. Now just exhale your breath over it and they will pop. All of this will make it runny that is ok. I go back to my lure with it spinning just goop the thing up. When you think you put enough on put some more on. Smooth it out. When you are done clean up and that is it. In about 8 hours you can turn off the lure spinner. In about 48 hours you are ready to fish no second coat just fish. I can get my lure thicker with one coat then my buddy has in two or three. Give this a try I know you will like it. I finished a lure on the June 17 at about 11PM, Saturday the 19 at about 1pm I caught a 47 ?? musky on the bate. The only thing it accomplished was two insignificant teeth marks. This Bate only had one coat of Envirotex.

-Corey

:idea: :D:)

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Corey,

Hey thanks for posting your experience with the Etex. I do have a wheel turner for the Etex by the way. I think I just became spoiled using the Devcon, it's so easy to use. Also, I have never had a bait come undone as you have described but will admit that reports such as yours do concern me. I still have the stuff and haven't given up on it but am getting very close! lol.

Jed

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Through a combination of suggestions and hints from helpful board members I have developed a process with the Etex that is working for me. I hope the info proves helpful to someone on the board.

I mix the Etex vigorously in a small cup for two or three minutes and put it aside for exactly 30 minutes. This allows the product to thicken making it much easier to brush on and eliminates the problems I was having before with small "craters" and blurring of my signature. I then brush the Etex on and put the bait on the wheel turner. Next fire up a torch and run it quickly over the bait, this eliminates all bubbles. Yes this is an additional step but I don't mind taking the time to do it. There is a fine line between removing bubbles and burning the glue so go easy. Finally I run a heat lamp directly above the baits as they are turning. With this process I can have the bait dry to the touch in 4 hours, completely dry in 6 hours.

Jed

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