rjmarlowe

I want any advice. Even personal prefs. Thanks.

Here is a look at my first completed Craw Pattern. I screwed up a few times but I think this one is at least fishable. It only has one coat of clear on it so it's not done but I wanted to get some initial feedback. Let me know what I can do better or different to make this pattern work. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies. I started off yesterday by sanding my baits all the way down instead of partially. I also performed the acetone dip and tried to avoid touching the bait. Finally, I monitored my heat better and tried to take my time rather than heating too much too fast. I'm not sure which of these helped or if I just got lucky but all 5 baits cleared out fine as of this morning. No cracking or delamination to speak of. I was very happy since I was trying my hand at my first craw pattern which I will post pics of in another post. Maybe I've fixed my problem, maybe not. Too early to tell but the initial results are positive. Thanks guys.

I guess I will start out by sanding down the baits to the plastic and take better care not to touch the bait during the painting process. I am planning on building a bait holder to hold the cranks while I paint them. As of now, I'm just propping them up using hemostats. My biggest obstacle of touching the baits comes when I'm wrapping them with tule for scaling. I guess I will just have to be more careful. I will try the acetone cleaning as well. Thanks.

Thanks for the follow up. Here are the answers to the best of my knowledge... I am only having problems with plastic baits. Wooden baits have all come out fine. I am sanding the baits down just enough to rough up the old finish well. Primarily, I work down until I start seeing some clear plastic. I have tried a couple of bases but the Createx Opaque White (2 coats) is what I've been using. Everything I shoot is water based. (I'm a little afraid of anything else right now working indoors) The paint is delaminating as my clearcoat dries. I have not had any problems once the clearcoat is finished using either Laquer or D2T. I hope you can identify my screwups from this. Thanks again.

I have just started repainting some baits and the paint jobs are looking pretty good. That is, until I start the clearcoating process. I am having issues with my paint separating from the bait. I have been using both clear laquer and d2t as clears with the same effect. To my knowledge, I have properly sanded, cleaned, primed, and heat set the paint job before clearing. Again, this is only happening with repainted baits. I must be missing something in the process.

Thanks for the compliment. I only get to paint for a little while every now and then. I have to put out my spread on the kitchen table and typically get shut down after the compressor cuts on about 2-3 times messing up my wife's tv watching. It limits me to about 2 hours between supper and tv time to paint. I call it compromise! LOL! I have plans for a mobile work station I can use in other locations like the garage (when it gets warmer). I will keep everyone posted and keep the pics coming. I'm definitely hooked now! FYI, here is the setup I bought based on everyone's imput... IWATA Eclipse gravity feed brush with particle filter 1hp compressor with 4Gal Tank and regulator Createx Paint Sets (Opaque, Flourescent, Pearl) Clear Laquer/ Devcon 2 Ton (field testing to see what I like) Blanks and all hardware from BustinBassBaits.com

Thanks! Don't get me wrong, I had my share of screw ups during the last couple of weeks. These are the first few I'm proud of though. Blending, shading, scaling, and color mixing have been relatively easy to pick up. It's the fine detail stuff like craw patterns that I haven't gotten to work for me yet. It is really addictive, I can promise that. I look forward to learning more and advancing my technique as time goes on. I can't begin to say enough about how this site helped me get started. Without it, I definitely would have gotten frustrated and quit really quickly.

Hey guys! I have been digging around on the site for a little while now and decided to take the plunge and start painting my own baits. I found nearly everytime I had a question, I just had to look through old posts and found my answers. I took the advice of many different posts on here as to which brush to buy, what paint to use, and how to paint baits in general. I started messing around on paper around Thanksgiving of this year and one month later, I am putting my first baits to clear. I owe about 95% of my progress so far to the many helpful posts on this site. Here are a couple of pictures of my first cleared baits I did this week. Thanks to everyone for so many detailed posts.