dv616

What are the pros of using the Surflon instead of a traditional fiber weedguard?

What hook did you end up going with?

I got my order from thanksgiving sale today.

If it gets sticky in the sun, does the stickiness go away once it cools down again?

I have two of the mini fry daddy's with a stirring attachment I set up. It has worked well for me so far. I only use it when I want to make a bunch of stuff. I am not 100% sold yet, it does seem to yellow clear plastic a bit, but I have not burned it.

In my opinion, aluminum molds are clearly better than stone, that really is a pretty obvious given. But, he did not really put forth any effort to make the stone mold work. No oil at first, then way too much oil. He kind of did it in a way that made poor results a guarantee. The only time I have had that much difficult with opening a stone mold was a new 8 cavity ring type one that I did not spray first. I treated all my stone molds with. KBS diamond coat and have not needed to oil a mold since and all the baits turn out nice and shiny.

I get that Z-man and Berkley don't work, it makes sense. I wonder what is special about Zoom? I thought they were pretty much normal plastic.

How do you feel the hardness of plastic affects action with swimbaits? I thought the softer plastic would give more action, but in my very limited experimenting, you loose the body roll with softer plastic.

StankX also makes a silicone mold that is an exact copy if you want to go a cheaper route. They licensed the design from Angling A.I.

Even heating slowly to 350 gets some wisps of something over the plastic. I am not sure it is really smoke or some other vapor from the heating process.

Do you get chlorine and dioxin in the normal heating process when you get a little “smoke” coming off the plastic or it turns yellow or is that when someone really overheats it and starts to literally burn? I have seen pictures of plastic that was really burned, but I have no idea how hot it takes to get to that stage.

I do wonder how much safer phthalate free plastisol is from regular plastisol. I have not been able to find good chemical info and the plastisol sites don't really do a good job with MSDS sheets for this stuff. It would be nice be able to compare a phthalate free plastic vs regular plastic MSDS sheet.

I finally got a chance to get the lure out in some water and sunlight. Those changeable colors and hi lights are hard to get good photos of. Here are a few:

I like anything that is green pumpkin related. Put a purple or chartreuse belly with it too is good. I have a motor oil/green pumpkin blend with blue highlight powder and blue and orange flake that I made up this winter to try and match the crayfish in northern MI where I fish on vacation in the summer.

Here are my weights with the angling a.i. stickworm mold. All need weight added to match a senko. MF Stretch Medium Firm, Dead on Black Finesse , and Dead On Black Swimbait/Jerkbait all weigh 9.5 grams. Dead On Feather Soft Floating 9.2 g grams Dead On Feather Worm: 9.3 g Dead On Feather Swimbait 9.2 g

Thankfully, I am am a painter by trade so I wear a respirator and run a spray booth fan when pouring plastics. I just need to be dutiful and not forget about it when I am just running one few baits. The plastic I use is phthalate free, so that should make a difference too for the better.

Very interesting. I wonder if that is cheaper to ship than a liquid. Do we know if this stuff is safer than our typical plastisol? I would rather not try products with a higher health risk. It seems to be similar or safer, but not sure.

Some kinds seem to have a bit of a wider window. I wish there was a way to get a sample to see how it compares to the consistency of our finished baits. It sounds like it is all plasticizer and phthalate free, so that should be good. I would really want to talk to someone in their tech departments to understand risks before using it though.

This stuff looks promising. Kraton seems to make it here. I can't find a place to buy any to try. It sounds like a lot of potential. But, who knows if is possible to buy any. The best bet might to be buying SEBS clear medical tubing somewhere and then melting it down and trying to make a lure out of it. I do not know if the stuff is safe or not. It sounds safer than plastisol we use.

Just did a quick google translate. Needs to be heated to 356F, should be doable. May ignite at 392 F. I find that a little worrying for microwave applications. I know I at least could overshoot that window.

DESCRIPTION ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REVIEWS (0) CHARACTERISTICS: It is a thermoformable flake polymer, which can be transparent or colored. It is composed of copolymers based on styrene, ethylene, butylene and mineral oils. PROPERTIES: Single component product, which when heated above 180 ° C melts and becomes a well-fluid liquid, which can be easily poured into silicone molds, metal or surfaces that resist color and are not absorbent. After cooling, the product forms a rubber with high flexibility, elongation and tear resistance. USE: Manufacture of artificial baits, gaskets, replicas of human body organs for studies, parts for physiotherapy, gifts and technical parts. HANDLING: The product must be heated above 180 ° C so that it changes from solid to liquid, and becomes easy to handle. Drying takes place by cooling. ATTENTION We do NOT recommend adding any type of mixture, as it will change the characteristics, thus compromising its quality. As it is a material that must be heated to a high temperature, special care is necessary, thus avoiding burns and fires. NOTE: If the product is heated above 200 ° C it may ignite and cause a fire. RECOMMENDATIONS: It is recommended to use thermal flameproof gloves, goggles, gas mask and leather apron, always work with the product in ventilated areas and without excessive humidity. CLEANING For cleaning utensils it is advisable to use Siq raz.

For me, I really do not care too much about matte vs shiny finish on the lures, but I do like not having to spray the molds with Pam anymore. Permanent no-stick is a good thing, especially with baits that have a lot of fine ribs on them.

I am sure other things would work too. The KBS says it can go on engine parts and engines typically run some where in the mid 200 F range. It says non-yellowing to 300 degrees. Of course, we are injecting in the low to mid 300's. But, I do not care if it yellows as long as it does not come off. I wonder if a 2 epoxy would work as well. Not sure on their temperature ratings though. Super glue might still be somewhat porous and not bring the mold to a gloss would be my guess. Probably difficult to apply I would think. Who knows though.

I saw this mentioned here once and tried it. I sealed my stone molds with KBS diamond clear finish. So far, no more Pam spray needed and baits come out shiny now. Someone posted here that they had done this and it has not needed reapplication after a lot of use. I only have limited use so far, so precede with caution, but I sealed all of the stone molds with it. I had one multi-cavity stone mold that I could barely separate it stuck so bad (didn't use PAM since I didn't want to risk contamination the mold if I clear coated it). If you have used Pam on the molds, you will need to degrease well so the finishes stick well. I have brushed and sprayed the finish on both worked fine. I have just done one coat. The sprayed application was thicker and took a couple days to get hard. The Once it is done, you may need to do a little sanding on the pegs so everything fits together. Any finish in the holes or on the pegs does affect the fit of the molds, so keep finish out of the holes and off the pegs. Easy enough to sand it off the pegs. I tend to do a light sand on the flat surface of the molds when everything is dry just to level the surface a bit if needed. So far, it does not seem to fill or clog the air vents either. If over applied, I could see this being a potential problem. I would say try one mold out and see if you like it. It is a moisture curing urethane. Very similar to PermaGloss if any of you are rod builders, so that might work as well. I have not noticed any loss of detail on the ribs of baits but I suppose deep, small details may be prone to filling in.

Also look at MF Easy stretch. That is a pretty tough plastic. I have not compared it to hard plastic, but seems to be the toughest I have found.