buzfly

I would be very careful with UV around kids. UV Glasses are a must for them. They are like deer and love to stare into the uv lights. Copic is great but finding a good finish is hard. Also heat set the paint on the plugs will help with durability and having it pull or wrinkle when a finish is applied.

Depending on the hook size and brand, materials used and head finish prices can be from $0.75 up to $2-$3 wholesale tied in the US in bulk, I.e. 100 units of same size and color. I tie a few thousand of them a year. If you think you can do quality consistant work 100 at a clip go for it. Also figure in your time at your hourly rate you make at your job, setup, breakdown, tool cost, material cost, packaging, shipping, taxes, and all the other things people that don't do it for a living forget about. Also do you have to keep all your components in stock and what is the carrying cost. It all adds up. It can cost you about $0.05 every time you touch the product from the time you start to the time you ship and get paid and file your taxes. That's my experience over that last 15 years tying.

Buying overseas is ok but you assume all the risk. I do it and have only had a few problems. Most of the US guys are getting them from overseas. It's very expensive to develop your own molds and purchase the equipment and all the other headache involved. If you want customer support shop fome people in the states and expect to pay a little more for that piece of mind. It's a good thing if you need it. Overall I never expect any plastic bait to be perfect because most of them are seconds, overruns or close out blanks.

I would also say it's not a good idea. If I am paying less than $3.00 per blank, I don't have very high expectations of perfect or even just ok blanks. Their is a reason they are selling them cheep. If I get some duds thats the cost of doing business. If I go to a high end place or a name brand supplier then I would expect better quality.

You can tell if the leak before you paint them. Put them in a bucket of water overnight. Then check for water in them. I always seal them before I paint them either with E-Tex or a One Part Spray. E-Tex is better for the larger saltwater ones I do. To me, I always assume that all my blanks leak and need to be tuned and I adjust my process to make them work. I think it is unrealistic to assume all the bulk blanks will be perfect when paying less than $2 for them. The high end one I get that I pay 3 to 5 for that another story.

If you are pooring them it may be primer. You can spare primer in your mold and then poor the resin. When you demold it the primer will be bonded to the resin and will not come off. Just use a primer that is compatible with your paint system. PS you can also dust your molds with alumalite dust.

Have you tried poring it in two lists. First pore with some micro for weight on the bottom. Second a lot of micro for flotation....

Jason P: Ok. I guess the only way to find out is to try it and see if it works. Paint of a few baits and do some with and some without and so how it works. Brad

Jason P: Why would you have to Varnish before you apply a clear coat? So far as along as the paint is good and dry I have not had any problems. Brad

As I stated in the first post this is what I am using: Stray Max 1K Acrylic Clear Coat 368-0058 It appears that it works well on the lures I have painted and coated. You have to do THIN THIN COATS, three in total is what I am doing because these lures will be used in the salt. I sprays great, but make sure the lures are free of dust and oils. I have shot the Createx Clear over them and let them sit for a few hours and then did the three coats of Stay Max 1K. You can see a big difference in weight and build up as compared to Devcon Two Ton. I know the Devcon will last longer on the big baits. Brad

They look nice, but why three coats? What is the recommended time to recoat after the first.coat and successive coats?

I have been getting a lot of adds on the left side of the all the pages playing audio adds. It all has to do with ADDCHOICE and its clients. How do I prevent this because it is very annoying and I think should not be allowed. Brad

Vacuum casting to remove air bubbles from your molds or casted products works if you have the equipment. If you are doing a large amount of bodies, it is worth it. If you are doing a small number of bodies, you can get great results with using some simple techniques. Mostly minimizing the amount of air when you mix and doing a high slow poor with give you the best results. The only problem with degassing the resin is you have very little working time unless you are putting the entire mold in the vacuum chamber. Degassing your mold material works well. Here is Larry doing his thing...

Sanding after the first coat will work the same way you layup firberglass mat. Just grind the edge smooth and recoat. Also, if you want a very clean line for the edge, epoxy down a piece of material bigger than you need, and let this set and trim it to size with a NEW blade when it's in the gel state. For Devcon it's about 20 minutes.

I would sand it down after the first coat of epoxy and then put another skim coat over it. All the scuff marks and scratches will disappear.