SouthBelleGroveOutdoors

Thanks pkdmslf for bringing this topic to the top. I just started painting inline spinner bodies and was wondering what the best options were. I'd prefer powder paint. I sometimes chip paint off the ends of the bodies when pulling the wires. Any thoughts on how to prevent that?

Thanks for the replies. I'll try annealing. As far as buying the spoons, yes it would be much easier. Supposedly nobody has figured out how to replicate the spoon. It is very thin and light. If annealing is needed, I would imagine that newbie tackle crafters haven't figured it out and don't know about Tackle Underground!

Hi, A buddy of mine goes fishing up north for pike. He is using a brass and silver spoon that works well but the tackle maker passed away taking his secrets to his craft with him. My buddy asked if I could recreate some for him. To the best of my knowledge, it appears the metal is 28 gauge brass with silver foil covering half the spoon. That's the easy part. What I want to know is how do I get the brass to keep it's cupped form? Is there a heat treatment that would keep it from being malleable? Also, any thoughts on cutting sheet metal, shaping and bending spoons? TIA

Thanks for all the replies. As far as the hair, I am using buck tails from deer I shot last fall. The real reason I'm asking is because my buddy does some trapping and along with his wife make fur based apparel to sell. They often go to craft shows and sportsman's shows to sell their products. I got the idea that I could use his extra fur clippings to make jigs that he could sell. He thinks the people at the sportsman's shows would eat them up.

Paasche VL. I've tried all the needles to control spray but am using the smallest one now.

I have a few questions on some baits I made. I had problems with epoxy finish coat and asked that on FB. I loved how well I was able to get the Rosyface Shiner to match my reference pic. In the baits pictured, 1. The orange gill spot had some blowing when I sprayed it. I turned the air all the way down to literally 0 on my air control but my Paasche siphon feed still blew the Createx Pearl Tangerine too hard and created a little running. I couldn't control air with my airbrush as well as I thought I should be able to. 2. In the bait to the top I have a little bit of overspray that looks to be 'pixilated' for a better term. Some of my other baits are worse as they look like they have fine dots rather than a nice transition to the next color. With these baits I attempted to control my paint flow a little better as I figured a stronger flow of paint would create larger 'droplets'. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the replies. As far as the jigs with flair, I bought a collarless do-it mold and won't have collars

I am disappointed in my bucktail jigs. When I see pics online or in catalogs the jigs have full bucktail skirts and they look great. My tied jigs, however, do not have full skirts and appear thin. I use a bit of hair but after pulling out the shorter hairs am not left with a lot. I have kept on clipping more hair but end up using almost a square inch of bucktail per jig which I think is a lot. My thinning process is holding the tail end of the hairs and pulling at the cut end to remove hairs that are an inch shorter than the long hairs. Does anyone have any advice? What's the trick? What am I missing?

That's what I've kind of concluded. However, I don't have any 'hardcore' fisherman that will go through more than a few packs of worms or a couple crankbaits in a year. I do have a possible venture that I might post on the jigs forum which involves tying hair jigs and selling them to my buddy who would supply the hair through his trapping business. He goes to shows selling fur products his wife sewed together. He thinks jigs made out of his hair could sell. I would certainly need to sell them legit and pay the tax.

I ran some numbers. Soft plastics and hair jigs are difficult to produce cheap, they also are tougher to customize enough to warrant a higher price. Crankbaits seem to be the best money maker since a blank plus hardware and hooks are $2. Paint cost is minimal and the equipment cost isn't too bad depending on what airbrush you get.

Thanks for all your replies. Yes, the OP was about selling baits to friends. Some of my thoughts on selling anything to friends; Often you get into a new hobby and want to do a lot of it. You can't afford to do a lot of it so you try to sell to your friends. You talk to a buddy and he gets excited. He says he'd love xyz product so you go out and buy some stuff to make the product. He ends up buying from you once and you hardly recoup your expenses. I think the way to go is to make a product and then try to sell that product. If someone wants something special, make it, but keep expenses low and use the opportunity to learn something new.

My budget was a little higher at $80 or so but I decided that the kits didn't save money and in some cases had items I didn't want. Some kits didn't specify which colors they might ship. I would go with the above post and buy things separately. Go do a reused shop (Goodwill, etc.) for cheap microwaves, pyrex cups, etc.

Thanks BobP, For #3 I meant hook eyes. Any ideas?

Hello, I'm still fairly new to painting hard baits with 30ish baits done so far. I just started using blank crankbaits. I have a few questions; 1. Do you clean the plastic crankbait blanks before applying the base coat? I have had a few blanks where the base coat didn't coat the bait well. It looked like the paint beaded a little as if oil or something was on the blank. I don't use gloves yet, but I don't finger up the baits either. I also think the person packaging the blanks to sell would touch them up anyhow. 2. I haven't heard of anyone using a spray paint primer for a base coat. Before I got my airbrush I used a white primer but then used spray paint to paint the baits. I tried it this week and didn't see any problems when applying airbrush paint on top. Is the reason I don't see it being used based on cost? Is it just as easy to use airbrush paint? I would think that grabbing the spray paint can would be quicker than cleaning the airbrush out. 3. After the final clear coat, how do you clean out any eyes that are filled with epoxy? I tried a jig eyebuster and also used my small HF dremel. TIA, Matt

What do you use for your baits? I was buying Eagle Claw for my baits since they are generally the cheapest. I can also buy them at Walmart if I'm there and need to buy something fishing.