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mark poulson

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Posts posted by mark poulson

  1. On 3/25/2024 at 8:45 AM, bass100 said:

    Hey Mark, glad to see you are still around. It has been about a decade. I had to shut down the company and stop fishing due to medical problems but I am slowly getting back into it. This coating is something I would not use because I use PVC. This community is crafty so who knows what someone might want to do with it.

    The reports of my death have been exaggerated, but just barely.  Welcome back.

  2. When I'm making a new-to-me lure, I start by looking at some of the successful commercial baits that are similar, and use them as a starting point.

    One other thing I would try is taking the tail off completely to see if that helps.  The longer the bait, the more stable/less action it will have, because there is more lure body inertia to overcome.

    • Like 1
  3. 1 hour ago, CNC Molds N Stuff said:

    I forget who it was, but there used to be a de-facto expert here years ago who had put together a list of crazy dipping techniques that worked.  I think he published a CD or something like that on it.  

    I'm not crazy about dipping at all myself.  Its just to slow for me.  If I want tubes I make a mold with an insert and I inject them.  I do slice, but that's still faster than dipping.  

    Bob, if you're thinking of Bojon, he died a while back.

    • Like 1
  4. On 3/8/2024 at 10:16 AM, Outback Jack said:

    I have made a DRT swim bait. Tiny klash imitation. Itsinks perfectly level. 
    very slow sink!  Glides perfectly side to side. But if I retrieve it a little quick it wants to roll and even spin. Is this weight placement?

      Tohickon lure Co.

    When I used to make jointed swimbaits, I found that the key to keeping them stable at higher retrieve speeds was to make the body taper from top to bottom, creating a V cross section.  In my case, my swimbaits tapered from 7/8" at the top/back to 5/8" at the bottom/belly.  This kept more buoyancy higher in the lure body, so I could put less ballast into the belly and still get the stable retrieve at higher speeds.

    I actually started the taper about a third of the way down from the shoulders of the bait, as you can see in this picture"

    It doesn't look like much, but it worked, so I could burn my swimbaits without them rolling.

    • Like 2
  5. 23 hours ago, CNC Molds N Stuff said:

    That is so weird.  I'm not sure what is happening, but its doesn't sound like tempering.
     


    Various heat treating terms get thrown around all the time, and their slight misuse misunderstanding makes it hard to have a conversation sometimes.  

    Tempering is used as defined above, to reduce the hardness of a metal that has been hardened.  Why your hook appears to be getting harder from some sort of heat cycle is a weird one.  

    Many alloys at maximum hardness can shatter almost like glass.  By making them less hard through "tempering" they become tougher... or less likely to break or shatter.  

     

    I read that reheating to 350-400 for an hour relieves the stresses that the initial heat hardening puts into the hook, or any metal that has been heat hardened.  It seems to redistribute the stress more evenly throughout the metal, so it won't break.

  6. I use my Do-It Arky weedless jig mold to pour 1/2oz vibrating jig heads, using Mustad 5/0 60 degree jig hooks, but I found the hook eyes would crack when I tried to open them to insert the chatter blade.

    So I tried heating my hook eyes red hot with my torch, and that made them soft enough to open by driving an awl into them until I got enough gap to put the chatter blade on.  That worked, but the hook eye felt soft and ovaled when I pinched it shut with the blade in place.

    So I took a batch of the opened eye hooks and put them into my toaster oven for a hour at 350 degrees, the same temp I use to bake my powder coat, to retemper them.

    When I pinched them closed this time I felt much more resistance, but none broke, so this is another step in my vibrating jig making process.

    Success!

    • Like 1
  7. 5 hours ago, Mad Moose Baits said:

    OH! I made a video about this!

     

    Years ago I had take a lead abatement class in order to keep my contractors license, and they went over many of the same things, but related it to removing lead-based paint in residential construction.   Lead paint is a real threat for children.

    My instructor emphasized that lead dust can also lead to sterility, but I think he was just trying to get the male case to pay attention.

    It has been 20+ years since I had to worry about this, and things may have changed, but that's how it was in the 90's.

  8. On 2/28/2024 at 7:26 AM, barrybait said:

    Like Mark, I seal my wood wake and top water baits with slow cure epoxy like penetrating epoxy of Devcon (D2T).  After I have done my shaping and have epoxied the hook hangars and the lip in place.  Then I can use needle nose vise grips to hold the bait while I work on it.  I think it helps to heat the wood bait with my heat gun before I apply the slow cure epoxy.  That helps it pull the epoxy in as the wood cools.  You can't really get the sides of the wood grain to absorb epoxy but end grain will.  This makes the end and tapered sections harder and on my 2 piece baits I get a really great wood knock like that.  Of course you will end up adding or moving weights as needed and you have to be diligent about sealing each hole.  Be advised that warmed wood will make the epoxy more fumey, use an extraction fan or I use a fan blowing across my bench to keep the fumes away.

    Barry is the Jedi Master of wood baits!  I learned a lot of what I know about wood baits from him.

  9. I shape (including ballast holes adding hardware hangers) and seal my baits with penetrating epoxy (epoxy thinned with alcohol), add ballast as needed to get them to suspend, seal the ballast holes, paint, and finish.  For me, the paint and topcoat don't effect the suspension enough to worry about.

    • Like 2
  10. I've found that decoupage epoxy, like what is used for bar tops, works best for my wooden baits, because it is designed to move with the wood's expansion and contraction.

    For small plastic baits, Devcon 2 ton, which is a glue epoxy and designed to be rigid, will work, but it cracks on bigger wooden baits.

    • Like 1
  11. 3 hours ago, Tiderunner said:

    Everything you folks responded with is what I've been doing. Experience I have. Been shooting my own stuff nearly 30 years. This is my first attempt with my dual injector. Up until now I've either use commercially made laminate plates, or made my own from heavy aluminum flashing. Wanted to leave that behind and speed the process up.

    I think my biggest issue is my plastic cooling too fast. There are those, for lack of a better word, condoms that form over the nozzles. They cool and prevent the plastic from shooting. Too much pressure and I make a mess. Nozzles are hot enough, so then its got to be my plastic temps.

    Viscosity to me is everything. After I get to temps, no matter what or how I'm injecting, I check viscosity first.And yes, salt or glass beads make a difference. Plastic and additives too. These really had an effect when I first started shooting core shot baits.  I guess just as I had a learning curve with core shot baits, there's going to be a learning curve with the dual injectors. Sooner or later I'll get the feel of it.

    Just be sure to keep a log of what you're doing, so you can duplicate it once you've got it solved.

  12. On 1/16/2024 at 3:37 PM, bassjiggin1955 said:

    The old flat living rubber had better action easier to tie better flare and was and all around better material in fine regular & heavy grade.

    Old school flat rubber is just a spin off of the true flat rubber of years ago. Not made with the same quality grade material.

    Round rubber is a good product in fine regular & heavy grades. It works well with silicone flashabou and bucktail accents.

     

    Thanks.

    Does flat rubber fall more slowly?

  13. On 1/13/2024 at 8:13 PM, Painter1 said:

    The worm does move differently but I have to say, I’ve no idea why that is effective 

    Maybe because it's sub-til!  Hahaha

  14. 8 hours ago, CNC Molds N Stuff said:

    As a retired specialty contractor insert appropriate insult about generals here.  _____________________________________________.

    (Non-contractors wouldn't appreciate the humor.)

    I always had mixed feelings about small jobs.  Sometimes small jobs were just a pain, but sometimes small jobs turned into big jobs.  They offered me an opportunity to show customer I knew what the heck I was doing. Fixing a microphone turning into a new phone system.  Hunting down an amplified handset for a hearing impair associate turning into a new video surveillance system.  

    I have tried to tell Jeff that out of the hundreds of tiny orders that don't pay to do will come the next big customer.  We argue when we talk, but we also sometimes listen.  When he gets more settled and organized in the new warehouse/manufacturing plant I expect things will get more back to normal.  

    I just wish people would be more understanding.  He's doing a hard thing right now.  Nobody begrudges people getting what they need when they need it.  There's just no need to be unpleasant about it.  

    In the machine shop I do small jobs for people who ask nice or bring me a case of my favorite beverage instead acting like their doing me a favor to burn my time negotiating over tiny jobs.  

     

     

    Hahaha...I hear you.

    I was a residential construction contractor for forty years, and kept the same group of sub-contractors over those years, because they did their job well.

    I typically had 10-12 employees at any one time, again the same group of people.  I took one job at a time, or maybe two, if some of my men needed work.  And we treated our clients like family, because they were letting us into their homes, and their lives.

    My clients knew we would take care of them.  If a previous client called me with an emergency, I would explain to my current client that I needed to help them, and that I would do the same for them if the need arose in the future.  People understood, when I explained it that way.

    For small jobs, if people couldn't afford what I had to charge if I took their job on the books, I would give the job to one of my guys, to do on the side.

    In forty years, I never had someone's side job come back to bite me in the ass, and, as you said, quite a few of those customers came to me when they had big jobs to do.   

    I don't know MF Plastics, but I hope he can get his business, and his life, back on track, and I wish him good luck.

  15. 19 hours ago, CNC Molds N Stuff said:

    That's not precisely what I said, but he was being overwhelmed by small orders.  Small orders cost more to process than they make.  I think he's planning to institute a minimum order like Barlows does and eliminate some of the smaller quantity options as things come back together.  


     

    Makes sense. 

    When I was a general contractor, I would tell people to try a handyman for small jobs, because it cost me too much to send a carpenter to do their job, and they couldn't afford it.

    • Like 1
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