Revitalizing plastic lures

[rlcam]

Have started messing around with painting with rattle cans lately,and some how the first one turned out rather nice.I'll post pics soon.I don't have a garage to work in right now,so just tinkering with some things.I have a few questions on repainting plastic baits.

1. Do you strip it down to bare plastic and start over?
   
2. If you do,what do you use to get all the paint from scales,gills,etc.,is there some kind of dip or spray stripper you can use?
   
3. Once you get it stripped can you start with Fusion as a base coat?
   
4. After you paint can you seal with a spray polyurethane (or something the like) since you don't have to worry about water penetration?

If any one uses the cans, could you post a step by step,perhaps.

I know this probably sounds juvinile to some of you on here since you all do such great work.I can't start air brushing yet and reading this every day is driving me crazy, just wanting to get started.

Thanks for any help on this subject.Going to bed now so if you post tonight,i'm not at work so i'll respond tomorrow.

[fatfingers]

I'll try to answer a few of your questions. I can't address the stripping of a bait, because I've only tried it a few times and for me it wasn't worth the trouble. Its just easier to build a new body, but that's just me; a lot of guys like stripping and refinishing.

For paint, Krylon Fusion in white is good stuff. It does bond to plastic and it bonds very well to envirotex and Devcon 2 ton epoxy, which are the two main types of epoxy most guys use.

I like to start with the white Fusion as a primer.

Then spray the sides one color, for example, and the back and shoulders of the bait another color. Try to "blend" or sort of "fade" the colors over each other. How far away you hold that spray can will determine how fast the paint goes on. Put on a LITTLE at a time. You can always add more but you can't take it off.

Then make a stencil out of cardboard for the details you want like stripes or gills and spray those over the sides and shoulders with a third color.

You can get fancier than that, but that's the basics of the paint work.

If you're only fishing for bass or walleyes, you can probably get away with clearing the bait with Krylon Clear Glaze. Its is good stuff. It will also cause you paint colors to sort of "light up," which is nice. Give it about 3 medium coats and you should be good to go.

[woodieb8]

normally a guy tries his paint or primer on a small area. we do many re-paints and customs from factories. in past we order cases of white baits. them we do artwork.laquer primers in white have done very well. on a older bait from your tackle box, we prime over the color laquer etchs in to the base coat as long as its stable, not peeling or flaking. then color then clearcoats.. clear acrylic is a good finish coat or automotive clear. it has a thin durable consitency not affecting action.

[rlcam]

Thanks guys,so I take it it's better to just spray the fusion over the old paint unless it's peeling,and go from there.Would you lightly sand being careful not to sand away details.On a plastic bait that doesn't have detail work(like dd-22's and such) would it be better to lightly sand the factory clear before spraying the fusion.And do you use the fusion for the base color or add the base color after the fusion?Thanks again for the quick help...Robert

[rlcam]

Also, I forgot to ask with the Krylon is there a drying time in between sealer,first paint,second color,details,and top coat as with airbrushing.Do you also recomend heat setting each coat?Got afew more colors tonight.Going to work Tuesday so I will have time to try it(in between those darn barges).It's sad I have to go to work just to get a chance to play with my baits.Oh well,they say if you don't enjoy your job find another one,right now i'm enjoying mine....Robert

[mark poulson]

Robert,

In my experience, it's always better to lightly sand with as fine a grit as you can, to promote a good mechanical bond of old paint to new, as opposed to a chemical bond like you can get with lacquer.

I don't make baits out of either plastic or balsa, so I can't really comment on the new bait process for them, but I've repainted some plastic baits using Createx water based paint and Envirotex Lite epoxy top coat. I sand the plastic, blow off the dust with my compressor, wipe with alcohol, blow off again to be sure all the alcohol is gone, and then I base coat with a opaque white.

I've painted new wood baits with rattle cans, and the process I used is prime with something that will seal the wood, and that's easy to sand. With rattle cans, I used a flat white primer. I would spray a coat that completely covered the wood, let it dry per the can's instructions, sand with 220 grit, and then recoat with the primer.

Then, if the bait was smooth, I'd start with my colors. If not, I'd sand the rough spots, and reprime.

My baits were big, so an extra coat of primer or two wasn't an issue.

I used a primer instead of a regular paint because I thought it would give me a better bond to the finished paints. I figured that the bond would be really important, because the rattle can clear I used as a top coat was thin, even with multiple coats.

But the good part was the rattle can paints seemed to bond to themselves really well, even in gloss color coats.