Leaderboard

That’s from not mixing your plastic before you took some out. Mix it well before you do anything else. And always get into a habit of it. All plastic settles some slow some fast.

So does the time differ with a different 8oz cup. Doing this even once in awhile should give you a time that is accurate enough to not have to fuss with it. Not like I never heat small amounts. But a good starting point if I was going to heat 2 cups would be half the time of a 4 cup. Then adjust from there slightly.

Buy color change paints. Lots of choices out there just Google Color Change Paint.

Ok thanks. I figured the some was just from it getting hot. I stir it with the thermometer needle but it seems to jump around on temp since the burner goes on and off

I agree heat or vacuum forming is the way to go. Dave

Stencils can be fairly difficult to 3D print. You have to go really slow and tune your settings to avoid stringing to get a clean result. The easiest way to go about creating a stencil is to use Fusion360 (free). Find a design online in the svg format. Import the svg into Fusion then extrude it 1 or 2mm. Export to STL. Import STL model into your slicer software. There are also stencils already available on thingiverse etc. I make stencils in PLA and use a heatgun at 100F to form it to the body of the bait. Make two sides and clamp it together. Others have made molds the bait goes into.

There was another recent post on the same subject. Basically, you need to model your lure body in CAD in order to communicate with the printer. There is no way around this. Learning CAD is daunting, but is not that difficult if you are prepared to put in the hours. I will add; if you go to the trouble of teaching yourself CAD, you will have to use it regularly even if you do not have a project on the go. In between projects, I like to get in at least an hour or two per week. Fail to take this advice and you will have to learn from scratch every time you start a new project. CAD is NOT like riding a bicycle. Dave

Been using the orange high temp silicone o rings for years. The number for the Basstackle injector is 214. If you go to mcmastercarr and put in that number it will get you to the area and you can see all the sizes.

A loofa is nice too

Maybe it's semantics. I'm not sure. Maybe I have a lack of comprehension. If I take a cup out of the micro and it's 350 in the middle and 320 after I stir it, I heat it the next shot like it's 320 degree plastic, not like plastic that "was" 350 at one point.

I recently got a Grex Tritium TS. Well thought out and user friendly. Maybe just a hair under the quality of my Iwatas. What I’d love to try would be a nice Harder and Steenbeck. I would consider several things if considering putting money into a good airbrush: 1) Am I using it just for lures? If doing paintings or things like helmets, a higher end brush with a finer tip needle might be needed. 2) Do I paint lures freehand? If you mainly doing large portions of a lure, or mainly using stencils, then you’d be better off with something other than a Micron, irregardless of price. On the other hand, if you are hand spraying in the rays of the pectoral fins, a Micron might be perfect. 3) What kind of paint do I use? If you use Apple Barrel paint from Walmart, or even straight Createx, Something like a Micron would be frustrating. If you are using thinned Wicked or Illustration, or illustration inks, a Micron level would be great. It would also matter if you are doing production vs a single bait

Maybe I am missing something here, I never stir while it is cooking. Maybe I know my microwaves better than most but with 4 cups I put my plastic in and set it for 7 minutes. Pull it out stir and shoot. I have two microwaves same brand and model but one cooks faster so I reduce the time about 15seconds. After awhile you should know what your microwaves doing and not have to stir to make sure. That being said my original question was the statement that if you are doing laminates you need a probe but that’s not true you need whatever devise you measure temp with to be within 10 deg of each other. Doesn’t matter which one you use as long as it is that close to each other. I don’t say one is better than the other because it’s not. But an infrared one is much faster and you never have to clean it.

http://www.lurepartsonline.com/Online-Store/Screw-Eyes/Stainless-Screw-Eyes.html 1/2 inch lenght probably the common length used for bass cranks. A properly glued line/hook tie will hold just as well as a screw eye. You can also make your own twist eyes if you want also. That takes away the adhesion issue as you now are anchoring the tie into the glue. So glue strength one variable and then the other is wood/glue bond strength. The epoxies and super glues typically used are stronger than the wood so your crank will give out first.

alsworm I bought some hi lites from baitjunky's few weeks ago so i'll be trying them soon

If you have green hi-lite, you can add a touch of that to blue and that would also give you turquoise....... .....or........add blue hi-lite to a basic green. That confusing enough for ya? LOL