longhorn

I poured with a two-burner hot plate for a long time....yes, you have to be careful not to burn the plastic but pouring with a hot plate is doable. I recently thought that it might be good to make a little stand of some sort so your pan is an inch or so off the burner. Don't know if this would work or not but sounds like it might reduce the scorching. You'll have to regulate your plastic temp by removing the pan (s) from the burners and putting them back on and doing lots of stirring. You can't leave a pan on the burner without stirring for very long. One thing I know for sure is pans are much easier to pour from than Pyrex, especially with open molds where you need a thing stream of plastic. If I had to pour with Pyrex I think I'd give up. Good Luck.

MT has a valid point. If you're doing this to save money on lures....do some realistic math...not a good idea. If you're doing it for the enjoyment of seeing if you can make some good baits and catch some fish on your hand-poured stuff...then go for it.

Great advice Bear. I wouldn't spend that much until I saw where your pouring goes...keep it simple. I'd include Green Pumpkin and a pearl and/or blue super hi-lite. Glitter to start for me would be green, gold, silver holi, black, blue and red. You can make a lot of combinations with those. But look at your lures and see what you'll be making and it should be easy to come up with a good list for you. Welcome, my friend to the Machine:wink:

I haven't personally tried to but Berkley sells both Powerbait and Gulp alive scents in liquid form. I'm guessing these would be oil of some kind and might be compatible for mixing with plastic like other scents. Just a thought.

make sure you wash the worms with detergent to remove all oils, the POP will not stick to the tape and tap rather gently to remove bubbles. Just takes experience. Good Luck.

I saw a post asking about molds for the flick shake worm and was about to reply and it's no longer there. I made a quick POP mold by taping down the originals and then coating the mold with Elmer's. The baits fish fine. You could also take any straight finesse worm and tape it down with the ends at an angle and make a mold of a "crooked" version of it.

I finally got around to rebuilding my pouring set-up which was a shelf cobbled onto a home-made cart I used for body work. I got a $35 desk and built in the lamps and switches. Now I can sit down to pour and have a desk or light work area in my shop/boat storage.

Good work and good fishin':)

I use Scotch brand in 1/2" Permanent because that's what Walmart has.

If the master has a flat top I use the tape down...if not I use the pin down. I would use the pin down on the shad. You only need one good cavity of each bait. With that you can make overpours and make some good multi-cavity molds which are identical to the master.

You can use the sink down method make sure your POP is thin enough and sink the baits right away after you get most of the bubbles to the top. You will have to stay with the mold and keep pushing the baits back down because they will float. Keep doing this until they stop floating. If the baits have a flat side I prefer to use double-sided tape instead of glue I don't use a thermometer...I think around 325 but not sure...you'll just have to get some experience with your setup. You won't be able to set your burner on 325 and set the pan of plastic on it till it gets to temp...you'll have to watch closely and stir a lot and remove the pan from the burner at times to keep from scorching. You'll soon get a feel for it. An alternative to gluing down is the pin down method where you put a thin sheet of vinyl or plastic over cork board and use straight pins to stick the masters down...then put the mold box (with no bottom) around the baits....seal with masking tape to keep the POP in and pour the POP over the masters.

Jim, Welcome. Here's my on some of your questions. hot plate will work fine but will scorch easily...I'd make a little stand to keep the pan off the burner a couple inches which will help. I would make one-piece open molds of both the baits pictured. They will come out great and will allow you to easily pour laminates and are way faster to produce. The flick bait looks like it has a flat top already. I cure my POP in the oven at 325 for an hour or so per inch thickness I think any POP mold should be at least 1 1/2 " thick I use a flexible box such as rubbermaid...no coating necessary and the flex will allow the release. hope this helps.

You could always move to Texas and fish all year long. Just a thought.

Guess there's no chance it says power bait?

Sounds like you're not heating the plastic enough. When it's ready to pour it should be like hot pancake syrup, not thick or plastic like. Then the molds fill up to the top with no problem. Make sure your mold is level when you pour. I've got POP molds that I've had to shim on the bottom because the surface I made them on wasn't level. I'd bet the bubbles are from a pinhole or holes in the mold seal. Sometimes it takes several coats of seal to get a mold covered. If you look at the bait that came out of the cavity that bubbled you can usually see where the problem area is Good Luck

Lurecraft has an 8" Grub mold #5X617. It's listed under big fish baits. http://www.lurecraft.com/catalog.cfm/molds/plastic-molds/big-fish-baits

Here's the Oomoo calculator you can use as a comparison if you wish. OOMOO

Great looking baits...welcome to the machine

Barlow's Tackle shop also has a great selection of eyes and they ship fast also. FISHING TACKLE for bass fishing, crappie, walleye, trout.Fishing lures, fishing hooks, lead molds. BARLOWS FISHING TACKLE.

Mark, FYI there's a bunch of discussion on some thread about this paint drying up in the bottle even before it's opened the first time. I had this happen to me. I think the bottom line of that was the bottles do not seal well. I have one bottle left and have been putting a couple wraps of masking tape around the lid and this seems to work. So if you buy some from LC tighten the lid and put some kind of tape around it to prevent the drying up. By the way your baits are way beyond awesome

Lurecraft has a bunch of little molds of various things that may interest you. Good Luck.

Don't know if you're hooking the sluggo at the nose or in the middle. If you're hooking it in the middle wacky style you might try using an o-ring and hooking to that. It works wonders on senkos. The bait will last a very long time, even when catching a bunch of fish. Your baits look great.

Are you talking about one-piece or two-piece molds?

I think the water will only affect the plastic that has a lot of salt in it. I have always used a water bath for cooling when I'm making large batches and need to fill the molds again. For small batches of simple baits I sometimes lay them out on a cookie sheet (which I use for all my production trays). Recently I've been pouring mostly swimbaits which take longer to cool so the water really helps. Baits don't freeze into a deformed position when you put them in water...just the opposite...they relax to the shape of the mold. I keep the water far from the hot plastic so no safety issues there. I get no discoloration or ill effects. I also put the swimbaits in water after the final dip in clear so the bait comes out with no pan marks.

If this a POP mold bubbles in the baits are commonly caused by gaps or pinholes in the mold's finish. If they appear in the same place all the time you can carefully inspect the surface of the bait and the mold to see where the problem is. Just re-coat the area with Elmer's or whatever you sealed with. Just a thought.