Leaderboard

I had ever used etex until recently, though I have been top coating my lures with an epoxy for years. A far superior product in my opinion is Kleer Koat by US composites. Its a tabletop epoxy . You get a half a gallon for 23 bucks. It is much easier to work with than eatex. Etex pooled on my lures. Problem i did not have with Kleer Kote. Over the years the harder did turn yellow. but the resin did not. I am still using that resin with eaten harder now. The etex resin is too thin. I like to to heat my lure and my resin before coating . with heat this product will dry in about 3 hours and your fishing.

I didn't know about it at first, but i've used baitjunkys, lureworks & baitplastics & i just ordered another 5 gallon batch of baitplastics plastic. The only thing i don't like is the jug it comes in & would rather it have the regular old small gallon jug mouth. The bag in the box from lureworks is great too in my opinion.

@mark poulson - I too use alcohol in a spray bottle. I distill my own Dave

Nice lure. I think it comes down to personal preference. I have used Etex and D2T. As Mark said, Etex is more flexible than D2T. My lures cleared with Etex get punctured by teeth more frequently than D2T. I have had small pickerel under 20” puncture Etex. Some of my Etex lures look like they have been hit by miniature machine gun fire. On the positive, I have not had a chunk of Etex break off yet. Any pieces that have broken off have been very small, usually because of multiple punctures in close proximity. D2T seems more resistant to toothy fish damage and hook rash. But when it does break, the damage is worse than what happens to Etex. Wood swelling is more likely to crack D2T than Etex. I once had a 1” x 1” piece of D2T break off from a pike bite. I have had another chunk of D2T the size of a nickel break off. The damage to D2T can be catastrophic when a rock or bridge piling darts in front of your lure mid-cast. Small pike can be just as deadly to lures as the large ones. The small ones don’t have the power of the big ones. But, the small ones make up for it with their finer teeth. I have only lost clear coat and paint. I have not had any of the lure body (the wood) break off. I use either superglue or wood hardener for sealer to prevent damage to the lure body itself. Nothing is bullet proof. Also, it looks like you are getting some hook point nicks around the rear treble which may have cause the damage when the lure landed. You can increase your lure’s chance of survival by going to a T-type treble like Owner ST-35 trebles. Decoy used to make T trebles. I don't know if the Decoy trebles are still made. You can also make your own T trebles by bending a treble with a softer wire. Be careful doing this as it can be dangerous, use gloves, pliers, and safety glasses. Owner ST-36 trebles are too stiff to try to bend into a T. I will save you from leaning that mistake the hard way.

Congrats. on a great lure! When I made epoxy coated wooden baits I used Etex. It is a decoupage epoxy, designed to move with the large wooden surfaces it is used to cover, like bar tops. It stays somewhat soft and flexible by design D2T is glue epoxy, designed to be very rigid and hard. It is designed to act as a glue between two surfaces, not to coat them. That makes it brittle over large surfaces, and prone to chipping off in big pieces on big lures. If that were my lure, I'd touch up the damaged section with bondo, and then paint to match. I'd scuff up the D2T with fine sandpaper, wipe it down with denatured alcohol, and then I'd put two coats of Etex over the D2T. It won't be perfect, but it should hold up for a while.