Leaderboard

You mentioned the right temperature, what is the number? lLooks like its to hot and denting. Try lowering the temp a lot , like 300-310.

I second what Frank said. Your plastic is too hot. As it cools it dents. If your checking temps, try shooting cooler plastic in 3-5 degree increments until you get good baits.

All together I'd say a teaspoon, on a single color it is a very small amount. It is why when I'm working on new patterns and do a single bait from start to finish I don't even reclaim the overspray. The amount of overspray will be different for each user as well, I probably wasted a lot of powder when I started doing it as I'm not sure if anyone else was using it. In fact when I purchased my first gun, there wasn't a "powder paint airbrush", it was a Badger model 260 hobby sandblaster that I picked up on clearance because it said it could spray up to 200 grit abrasive and I figured it may be good to spray powder. Anyway, when I started using it I would just hold the button down and keep a steady stream of powder going, now I spray by pulsing the button in short bursts to get the color exactly where I want it with precision. So I'd say someone just learning to use it will probably have a lot more overspray than what I typically get. I hope that makes sense to you, it really is hard to gauge especially since some colors spray different than others. I will have to sweep white a second time on a spinnerbait head to get it perfect were as most other colors will work with just 1 quick pass so I always seem to have more white powder to reclaim than other colors.

Lure parts on line have unpainted one ounce heads for $1.00 or $1.50 for 2.5 oz. heads. Good heads to work with.

The arbor press is the way to go. I picked up an old 3 ton press one last night after work. Slightly overkill for this workload LOL but its doing the job. For now, I just have the cutter sutting on it not attached. I'm using a hockey puck (as any good Canadian would) on the plunger.

Strike king & many others have also had the mistake pattern paint job on different crankbaits over the years & smallmouth like it.

Thanks for everyone's help. Results in Pic. I think its a 95% match and Im satisfied with it. I did a 15 min water test comparing to Yamamoto Natural Shad Senko ( same hook and line ). My version had a very slightly slower sink rate so I added another tablespoon of salt for fun ( haven't tested that version yet because I'm happy with my results). What I did notice was after 15min water test the Yamamoto color faded a bit , mine did not, so even a 100% color match out of mold would be irrelevant. My version is a bit softer ( softer plastic and probably less salt/additives than yamamoto) but the action was great. As we know there are so many variables in making plastics I used a lilttle of everyone's suggestions. Below is what I did. Again thanks to everyone who helped and I hope this will help someone.... Next quest sexy shad.... 1 cup of MF soft sinking plastic 2 pinches of .15 black flake 1 pinch of . 15 gold flake 1 pinch of Halo gold flake 3 TBS of MF flake salt 2 drops of X2 black 2 drops of X2 white 4 drops of MF silver

My system works but it is a pain if not doing at least 4 baits of the same color scheme. My booth is an old box my Red Wing work boots came in. I glued a paint stirrer to back of the box, part is glued to the base and then the top part is glued to the lid making it stay open. half way down the lid I glued 2 cardboard strips to the inside of the lid, 1 on each side, the strips are 1" wide and 7" long and run down to the bottom of the lid. The strips are glued in on edge and they run the length of the lid on a taper, they start at the outside edge and then taper to a 3" opening at the bottom of the lid. Just to give you an idea of what this looks like, think of a "V" shape glued to the box lid, this acts like a funnel so I simply have small Dixie bowels that I place in the base of the box under the funnel part. I use a different bowel for each color, so if I'm doing 6 spinnerbaits in a pearl with a black back pattern, I'll do my white base coat first. So I place a bowel for white powder in the box and I spray the white on my first bait and then place on my rack, and then do the second and third and so on. When I'm done with the white base I go to my pearl, so I remove the bowel with the white powder and place in another bowel for the pearl and then do the 6 spinnerbaits. When that is done I remove the bowel and put another in for black and when they are all done I simply dump the powder from each bowel into the proper color of powder. If I'm just working on new patterns I'm only doing 1 bait at a time from start to finish I don't even bother to reclaim the little bit of overspray because it isn't enough to worry about, I just wipe the box out. I hope you can understand what I did.

Hellow fellow anglers, Been a while since I've been on here. My buddy asked me to make another video I thought I would share this video for creating nightcrawler harnesses. I was thinking about using floats with it but don't have any. I only pull these out when the fish slow down burying themselves in the weeds or hang tight too structure. What are your options for these harnesses in general? What would be a good way to spice them up? I've got hundreds of blades in different colors, sizes, and shapes. When do you use these spinners?

I just drilled a hole in the tips of my vise. Close the vise and drill hole a little smaller than coil so it will tighten around coil when used.

Like I said in my first post I was using a variety of weights until I ran across these. Of course I make molds as I need them (and have the time), but I wanted to dial in the hook and weight for the application first. I thought these were a great way to do that.

The Sparkie head is wider. That allows the edges of the blade to bang on the jighead during the retrieve. Some folks use a football head, which is even wider. But, I have never tried that style. The Sparkie is about as close as you can get to the same head shape as on the original RAD Chatterbait. I have made a few using the Arkie head. They vibrate just fine, but the blade doesn't hit the head.

ive taken split shots and applied them to the hook then put a piece of shrink tube over them and hit it with a lighter,made the finished hook look real nice,of course we were selling them and people really liked them,did that until we purchased a hook mold