sloegoe

-mostly a waterskeeter kick boat -if I have to walk far a regular float tube -if I have to walk real far my shoes -on tourament day a bassboat (probably the days I enjoy the least)!

Looks like you just missed all the fun!

I've got 1 in that color but I think it's smaller than the one in the picture, if I find some I'll let you know.

I've used power pro in many tests, I forget what the max test is. I used to flip hair raisers in the bridge pilings of the San Mateo Bridge in S.F. bay for stripers. I remember being very pleased with whatever that test was and it was HIGH.

I'm having a hard time keeping the mold, master and relief all straight. You're going to make a master out of clay then cast over it with let's say a plaster of some kind, then take the clay out of the plaster (durahms) and coat it with laquer or the like.( you can and I do make slight adjustments to the mold with a dremel before you coat.) Then we can make multiple copies of that master with this mold. You can use Rtv or plastic worm material for this. Take these "6" copies and glue them to a peice of glass and build a dam around them. Then cast them out of whatever material you want. You're done. Ithink redg8r was then saying you can make a relief of your 6 worm mold by building a dam around your mold and casting that out of RTV so you can easily make new 6 worm molds. any quick Q's (sloegoe@sbcglobal.net)

I was also interested in using something other than wood, I've heard of people using the PVC board but I couldn't find any. Anybody know where I could get some?

Savacs, I too have stumbled on to that same idea offered to me my a TU member. The hardest part of the bondo mold for me was getting the clay flat and sitting against the centerline. You can try and put the bait back together after you're done with the first side of the mold then pour your second side instead of building two boxes. -Slogoe.

Hey Mojo, all I know is that's $410,000, That's about 25,000 sweetbeaver molds, man that's alot of beaver! I think TU handpourers could keep up with prodution on a budget like that. My girlfriend pours my baits for me so I get all the SWEETBEAVER I can handle -sloegoe

I've made many Cranks that can go that deep. You really have to be precise when making an oversized bill, if it is not perfectly square to the bait you will never get it to run true. You will also need to add a substantial belly weight near the nose of the bait to get that sucker pointed down, and you better have this positioned and balanced perfectly also. There are some tutoials that will add much more to this topic, do some searching on this site under tutorials, look especially at the one on making you own lexan lip, the one on adding belly weight, and mabye the Bomber tutorial, there is also a great one on balancing a bait with a model airplane prop balancer here somewhere, this will get you started. You may also have to use a heavier wood than Balsa to support all the added weight over time. Just my opinion. Sloegoe.

I totally second redg8r advice and I would recommend using clay for your master like sculpey then coat it to gloss the finish. With an RTV you are looking at even more resiliense than the actual plastic worm so you will have no problem getting it out. -sloegoe

Mabye you are right about Andre and his bussiness. This was just some hearsay at Waltons' Pond in CA, where he's been ordering baits every other day and been told that productions' not going to be able to keep up with demand, at last count they were putting out 1/10 of the orders.

I was just joking around with the FOB comment, we are all brothers here! I actually have two of those baits one is the magnum the other is a bit smaller. I forget what color they are, but both are in crawdad, I do believe one is ghost craw. They are out of the package but they are both brand new. Sportmart a store near my house was selling them for $3. I tried to put up a picture but my camera won't work. If you want them you can have them, just give me an address. sloegoe. -Send me a picture of the one you want and I will see if it's the same! sloegoe@sbcglobal.net

thanks guys, great info as usual, all those techniques will be put into use today.-sloegoe

I heard the same thing from a shop owner who told me that the owner did it as a small bussiness/hobby, when his beaver got hot the demand gave him cold feet.He didn't close up shop though, he just wanted to keep production #'s the same, the lack of supply got a lot of people thinking he closed shop. Who would figure that? -sloegoe.

Hey, you're a FOB! nice fish! I guess over here we don't think much about the fishing in that region, I think your point of veiw would be refreshing and well appreciated FOB. It looks like you have to reel in those fish a little faster. Welcome -sloegoe.

That's a uniquely shaped bait and I assume it is round (two sided) I've made many two sided urathane molds but the pour is going to be very hard with all those turns. You might have to move the mold around as you pour. If you have more than one cavity you will mess up the other worms. If you want to make a one sided mold this is a slamdunk. -sloegoe.

when you flour your salt how fine are you getting it. I put mine in the food processor and it gets between normal salt and flour. My plastic gets real chunky with all that salt. Help, please and thanks guys.-sloegoe.

I will post some pics when I'm finished, if I ever finish. I have a master trout swimbait I'm carving out of Balsa that will probably get the urethane mold. I'm also making a non rattle trap with the bondo mold, which ever is done first I'll post, thanks Husky. I was getting so frustrated with the bondo mold that I just put anything in there just to do it. It's not show material!-sloegoe.

I tried the bondo mold that Husky has as a tutorial. I had a few problems that I finally solved. So if anybody else is going to try I'll let you in on what not to do. -There is a reason Husky keeps talking about the centerline of the bait. It is impossible to get the bait out if you're even a fraction over the center. You have to be precise. You also must make sure that your centerline is indeed your center, I carved my bait a little lopsided and ran into problems that way. I'm not a master like Husky! The mold release I made out of Mineral spirits and Vaseline wasn't thick enough, I'm guessing, on my first mold because the two sides fused together. I added more vaseline until the consisteny was like honey, Let the mixture stand overnight so that it isn't chunky, and it released like a charm. - The one thing I did to cheat was to get a sanding block and sand the top and bottom centerline of my balsa master making it flat on top and bottom, this gave me more room for error and made the process much faster for me.-sloegoe.

I have seen a few posts on how to pour the sticks. I found a way that works best for me and it's different from what I've heard. First of all your molds do have to be warmed if they are cold, this will allow the plastic to get all the way to the bottom without hardening. Set your mold so that it is straight up and down NOT at an angle. Get your plastic really hot and pour a thin stream staight down through the top hole being very careful not to get plastic around the hole or it will plug it up, if this happens move on to the next stick! -Make sure that you fill the mold so that the cone you pour into is completely full, go back over it as the plastic cools if you have to. This will prevent you from making hollow nosed sticks.-sloegoe. ps. you will never be able to get as much salt in your sticks as Yamamoto. If anybody out ther can let me know, I've tried flouring my salt and everything it just won't pour thin enough with all that salt.

If you want a braid I'm partial to POWER PRO , it's a good product and relatively inexpensive. I fish all condition all over California, Which is very diverse in water types and structure, and it's been 5 years since I've used anything but P-LINE CXX 8lb max on spinning though, but it plays more like 12lb.[/u]

That's what I'm talking about great story. I was fishing once and lost a rod over board in 40 ft of water. 8 years later I snagged it with a pig and jig, the curado is still working today!

For all my personal handpours I always try to mix it up. I like adding more plastic to a previous color and add a drop of this and that color just to see what happens, 5 of the same bait is my goal just in case it kills em. My favorite color right now is 3 green pumpkin senkos to one chartruese slimy slug. I haven't found a way to duplicate it from scratch. Conformity sucks!-sloegoe.

I'm always amazed at what can happen if you throw a line and a hook in the water a few million times. I've been fishing around 150 days/year for 20 years (age ten), so my lines been in the water an awful lot. I am very interested to see if anybody else out there has had weird things happen to them. So many strange things have happened to me personally that it seems that even the laws of probability can't explain it. I'm going to post a story a week, if nobodies interested I'll stop. If anybody else has a story please PM me or post it. This is just one of maybe 50 strange things and the first one to come to mind. -About 3 nights a week my Friend and I would fish under the Bay Bridge in the San Francisco Bay. It was usually a warm evening and boredom that would send us out. This is how cool we were in high school.(You always get skunked if you stay home!) We would get out there at 10pm and stay until 5am, it's amazing anything weird would happen at that time. The bridge was pretty well lit to warn ships and planes of its existence and we would tie the boat up to the piling closest to the deep water channel. I would say the water was around 20 ft deep and our rigs consisted of a Carolina rig type set up with a glow in the dark hoochie tipped with a piece of squid dropped on the bottom. The quarry was small shark, stingray and the occasional striper. I got a bite and set the hook on a pretty good sized fish. The fight when on for 5 min or so when the fish broke off, no big deal it happened all the time. So an hour or so went by without a bite which was pretty uncommon. It was my turn to set the hook again and I stuck him solid. The fight went on for 10 min or so when I got a glimpse of my glow in the dark hoochie. The funny thing was that the 4 ft shark was about 3 ft up my line thrashing around on the surface and my hoochie was still 3 ft under water. At first I thought my hoochie had fallen off and was just floating in the water. When I netted the shark I realized that my hoochie was still on my line and the bait was untouched. My Friend and I got the lantern to see how I brought the shark in. My old hook, the one that broke off earlier was still in his mouth, the eyelet of the hook had opened slightly from the previous battle and my main line had actually got caught inside the old hooks' eyelet. I brought the shark in as he "bottomed out" against the sinker. My Friend tried putting his 20 lb test into the opening and it barely fit! With all that water what are the chances?- Sloegoe.

I'm sorry and hope I didn't offend too many out there by saying I was duplicating the Castaic heads. I was actually hand carving a replica so that the same dimensions would allow me to attach all my old soft bodies to something. The Bluegill has been my go to bait for years and Castaic has discontinued the sunfish series. I have about 30 bodies just waiting for a head. After all guys isn't the Idea of CUSTOM tackle the ability to use and produce whatever you dream up or need? Just becuase they stop selling them does that mean I shouldn't be able to use them? Every fused hybrid design has taken from others concepts, every sweet beaver mold and stick bait mold is a bite. The reason I got into mold making is so that I could continue an old anglers choice bait that I still use today 10 years later! Thanks for all the info guys.-Sloegoe