Apdriver

Didn’t know about your misfortune but glad to see you back. That plastic you can still use just mix it well, of course, and add heat stabilizer. I’ve been trying to work through some old plastic myself (5 yrs. old) and adding heat stabilizer really helped. Otherwise it tended to burn easy. To clean pots, Pyrex, and other equipment just a regular old spray cleaner like Fantastic works for me. Worm oil for your injector but some guys spray it with Pam.

Certainly some anti caking agents out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticaking_agent

Gold plated wire is a first for me. Bet it’s a bit expensive with the price of gold nowadays. Welcome to TU, by the way.

I have used some colorshift Pearl powder from here https://didspade.com/ to color plastisol for swimbaits and doing a laminate bait. Works really well and gives some look that’s hard to get with liquid colorants. I like adding it as opposed to brushing it on. Here’s a couple.

Thank You, Bryan. Basskat seems to be happy with it too. I’ll be ordering soon.

Well shoot! I need a good plastic. Was considering ordering this.

I wouldn’t start with remelts. They can be problematic depending on their condition, where they have been stored, moisture content if they have salt as the salt will collect moisture. If you acquired some that bubbled like crazy, it could turn you off this hobby. Just my .02

On the Hagens commercial wire former you can usually get a smooth transition but if I had a homemade twister and needed to smooth that tag end, I would use a dremel and a cutoff wheel.

For a good bond, you need to have the ends of your first bait clean. No oil. This will prevent a good bond.

Sweet unit right there!

I get small quantities of metal rods, all thread, flat, square different stock at my local Lowe’s. Brass can be had at any good hobby shop if you have one around. Nothing special about the rods. Cut to length and chamfer the ends.

Slowfish brings up another important point and sometimes we forget all the little things we do to get faster. Turn your molds with the injection port down so they all line up, clamp them lightly and turn them over. Push the C portion of the clamp down so they will stand and clamp more firmly. Now you can shoot them all. Six inch clamps work well like this. I never clamp individually and when I get a new mold, all the wing nuts, screws, thumb rubbers, and such go in a drawer. This works on most of my molds except the little one cavity thin molds that are 2 inches tall because it puts your clamps too close to the edge on your taller molds. I have very few of those and steer away from them when purchasing. If you have colors that work well with multiple bait types this works well and helps produce baits faster.

I have to agree with slowfish on the pots and stirrer. This will help out but after that, I would say cavity count would be the most limiting factor.

I’ll answer any ? I can. I didn’t get your message but sent you one.

I’ve made a bunch of these, with blades, without blades, attached the blades in different ways. Bought my harnesses, made my own. There’s a lot of ways to put them together. If you use a clevis, there are other components you must also use. What you will find is loading all those components, crimping, placement, etc. takes a lot of time and is quite fatiguing putting a five wire arig together. After a bunch of trying this and that I landed on a component that makes a real clean unit and will cut down on your work. Rosco tackle makes a component called a Swivel Sleeve that will replace sleeves, clevis, metal bearings and swivel and save you a bunch of time. https://www.roscotackle.com/product/romar-sleeve-swivel/

I like the Bob’s Tackle Shack 702 for a craw trailer. It has good action and I can also use it stand alone on a shakey head. For a swim jig trailer, one of the Basstackle ringed swimbait molds would be good. I have the 5 cavity 3.5” top inject mold that laminates well with the dual injector. Makes a really nice bait and shoots well. Bladed jig trailer, I’ve caught bunches of fish on just a single tail grub on those. You can also use a swimbait mold but I know a lot of guys have gone with a bait like the Basstackle 6008 Chatterbait trailer. So it’s hard to pick out “the best” one trailer. A lot of it is preference and technique specific.

Lureworks makes a product called Bondcoat that may work for making a stronger bond on your tails. https://www.ispikeit.com/product/691/bondcoat-4849

Ten degrees at a time. Like I said before, 290 and below you start to run into other issues.

It looks like you have good separation except with one cavity. The other four look good. Before you move any metal, exhaust all other possibilities of solution. Yes, reduce your temps. You may have shot the one cavity faster than the others. Only you with the mold and hot plastic knows your process. Sometimes to work out a problematic mold, it takes a lot of trial and error. Explore them all and just looking at your runners, just lower your temps and shoot slow.

Toadfrog is spot on. Master Tacklecrafter. I bet he might do it for 10 bucks a jig. Maybe 9.50.

Linked above, Les. 4th post from top.

You may be able to remove it by clamping the two halves together and drilling it in a drill press. I have enlarged a runner successfully using this method.

Right where the red circle is he put a large obstruction to the flow of the plastisol coming out of your nozzle and then this cavity down stream that has to be filled before the plastic flows through the gate. If it was mine, I would grind that out, polish it as best as I could and see if that helps. I don’t think you will have any issues if you could successfully remove that......whatever that is.......

After looking at the mold, I believe the way the runner is cut is probably causing you some issues. In fluid dynamics, if you want laminar flow you shouldn’t put obstacles in the way of the fluid. That’s exactly what the designer did when he cut the runner on this mold.

From what I understand, some ac motors you can but some you can’t. They do make speed controls for ac motors, though. Looking at the specs, it’s a split capacitor ac motor and not a good candidate from what I can tell just by some online references. Why don’t you send Baitjunky an IM and ask him what he used when he made some for resale. I don’t think he makes them anymore so he would possibly share that information. He’s a member here but not sure how often he visits.