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Knockout

Metal Spoons / Paint & Clear Coat

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Hello, I am new to this site this should be the first post of many from me.

I am currently working on creating some custom spoons for fishing on the great lakes, not alot of manufacturers make the colours or the quality of blade im looking for so I decided to make some myself.

I have made the tooling stamped out the blades and electroplated them silver, and copper.

Question and advice would be greatly appreciated on the following:

1. Surface preparation

a) for some colour combinations I have been told to use self etching primer in white colour any other suggestions?

b )for lures that I want the metal to show through and do some fades what should I do to prep the surface? I read to try 10% nitric acid with water soak for 10-20 seconds.

2. Paint Types

a) the only paint that I could find to do metal spoons was Vinyl Paint made by CSI Paints, any other choices out there?

b )issues with the vinyl it doesnt seem to get that hard, seems that I can mark it with my finger nail? Any ideas?

c) I spray the paint with airbrushes it was sugested to thin the paint to a 1 to 3 ratio. the thinner would be composed of 3 parts vinyl thinner to 1 part vinyl retarder. The mixture seemed to cobweb too much and dry before hitting the blade, I changed my mixture to 1 part thinner mix to 2 parts paint. This seems to be ok but it takes several coats to get the richness in colour that I like. Any ideas on mixing vinyl paints, with thinners and retarders for airbrushes would be great.

3. Air Pressure, I am not sure whats the correct air pressure to use with an airbrush, so far I have been using 45-50 psi it seems to be ok but I wouldnt know otherwise, any guidance to these issues would help.

4. Clear Coat, i read the other post but I didnt see much information on clear coats for airbrushes or vinyl paints. I currently have a vinyl based clear coat but to me it seems soft. Do you need to heat cure this type of paint? or how long does it need to dry?

5. Tip size I have 0.3 0.5 0.8 mm tips what should be used for what with these paints?

6. Making maskings for spoons, currently I have tried a few things, tape, paper, even using a dremel on a spoon and drill then laying it over top. I was thinking of vacuum forming sheets of polystyrene over some spoons then I could use an art knife to cut in patterns. Any ideas?

Does anyone else on here make metal fishing spoons?

Thanks in advance, hope thats not a question overload!

Edited by Knockout
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You might get other answers on the wire bait forum from guys who paint blades. I mostly do wood crankbaits so when it's time to paint spoons, I use acrylic latex paint and clearcoat with Dick Nite moisture cured polyurethane (which is designed to coat Dick Nite spoons). I wipe the metal with solvent to clean it and airbrush the paint. For solid color spoons, spray a white basecoat before applying colors. You can shoot transparent acrylic paints without the basecoat to get transparent effects.

The polyurethane clearcoat is the step that makes acrylic paint durable. Dick Nite seems to soak into and through acrylic paint to bond well with metal. Just dip the spoon and hang it to dry, then let the moisture cure process proceed for 3-5 days before fishing the bait. Check the Dick Nite website for the whole array of paints he sells, which he also uses on his commercial spoon products. I think most of them are lacquers. Crankbaiters don't usually use vinyl paints. I see it mostly on some jigs, and it is a quite different coating system with distinct primers, paints and clearcoats. I think vinyl inherently has a soft surface.

Whatever pressure that will shoot a pattern you can control is right. For water based acrylics, most of us shoot 20-45 psi. Less psi and nearer the surface for finer lines, farther away for shading.

The spoons I've done with acrylic/Dick Nite have held up well to fishing abuse. Lacquer paint would probably be even better but I don't want to shoot solvent based paints due to the health hazard.

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Hello, I am new to this site this should be the first post of many from me.

I am currently working on creating some custom spoons for fishing on the great lakes, not alot of manufacturers make the colours or the quality of blade im looking for so I decided to make some myself.

I have made the tooling stamped out the blades and electroplated them silver, and copper.

Question and advice would be greatly appreciated on the following:

1. Surface preparation

a) for some colour combinations I have been told to use self etching primer in white colour any other suggestions?

b )for lures that I want the metal to show through and do some fades what should I do to prep the surface? I read to try 10% nitric acid with water soak for 10-20 seconds.

2. Paint Types

a) the only paint that I could find to do metal spoons was Vinyl Paint made by CSI Paints, any other choices out there?

b )issues with the vinyl it doesnt seem to get that hard, seems that I can mark it with my finger nail? Any ideas?

c) I spray the paint with airbrushes it was sugested to thin the paint to a 1 to 3 ratio. the thinner would be composed of 3 parts vinyl thinner to 1 part vinyl retarder. The mixture seemed to cobweb too much and dry before hitting the blade, I changed my mixture to 1 part thinner mix to 2 parts paint. This seems to be ok but it takes several coats to get the richness in colour that I like. Any ideas on mixing vinyl paints, with thinners and retarders for airbrushes would be great.

3. Air Pressure, I am not sure whats the correct air pressure to use with an airbrush, so far I have been using 45-50 psi it seems to be ok but I wouldnt know otherwise, any guidance to these issues would help.

4. Clear Coat, i read the other post but I didnt see much information on clear coats for airbrushes or vinyl paints. I currently have a vinyl based clear coat but to me it seems soft. Do you need to heat cure this type of paint? or how long does it need to dry?

5. Tip size I have 0.3 0.5 0.8 mm tips what should be used for what with these paints?

6. Making maskings for spoons, currently I have tried a few things, tape, paper, even using a dremel on a spoon and drill then laying it over top. I was thinking of vacuum forming sheets of polystyrene over some spoons then I could use an art knife to cut in patterns. Any ideas?

Does anyone else on here make metal fishing spoons?

Thanks in advance, hope thats not a question overload!

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this may help you out! i was the product developer and painter for fishlander for years. We used alot of PPG automotive paints for our 3 step painting process. First off you need an adhesive to spray on the blank. This makes the paint stick. We used a 222s adhesive from PPG, this gives the lacquer paint something to bite on. I sprayed alot of Lure Master paints like your deep pinks, yellow(chart), greens, and flame reds. The other paints were radiance colors that you had to mix. These are a concentrate that you mix with color blender and reducer to make the paint sprayable. The colors appear irredescent(you can see the finish underneath the paint) on silver gold and copper blanks. About 35-40 psi is suitable .........any more and you will not be consistant or accurate. These paints dry extremely fast. Within seconds. As far as your clear coat goes once again PPG. You can find it on there website. I think its called speed clear. It was PPG speed clear, PPG harderner, and PPG reducer. Following the ratios this clear coat was dry within 6 hours. But you could accelerate drying process by heat lamp or a fan. This is the way all spoon manufactures Stinger, Dreamweaver, Yeck, Silver Streak and Fishlander do it. This is the way i still do it. Hope this gets you on your way. Oh and for stencils you have the right idea w the dremmel. We used this process for dot patterns and other shapes or lines(perch bar marks and firetiger squiggly lines)Important....drill on the bottom side of the blade or spoon to prevent flattening blade....it wont fit properly. We would sotter a handle onto the stencil and you were golden to spray. Easy to clean too.....dunk them in thinner. Give a shout if you have any other questions

Email me

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this may help you out! i was the product developer and painter for fishlander for years. We used alot of PPG automotive paints for our 3 step painting process. First off you need an adhesive to spray on the blank. This makes the paint stick. We used a 222s adhesive from PPG, this gives the lacquer paint something to bite on. I sprayed alot of Lure Master paints like your deep pinks, yellow(chart), greens, and flame reds. The other paints were radiance colors that you had to mix. These are a concentrate that you mix with color blender and reducer to make the paint sprayable. The colors appear irredescent(you can see the finish underneath the paint) on silver gold and copper blanks. About 35-40 psi is suitable .........any more and you will not be consistant or accurate. These paints dry extremely fast. Within seconds. As far as your clear coat goes once again PPG. You can find it on there website. I think its called speed clear. It was PPG speed clear, PPG harderner, and PPG reducer. Following the ratios this clear coat was dry within 6 hours. But you could accelerate drying process by heat lamp or a fan. This is the way all spoon manufactures Stinger, Dreamweaver, Yeck, Silver Streak and Fishlander do it. This is the way i still do it. Hope this gets you on your way. Oh and for stencils you have the right idea w the dremmel. We used this process for dot patterns and other shapes or lines(perch bar marks and firetiger squiggly lines)Important....drill on the bottom side of the blade or spoon to prevent flattening blade....it wont fit properly. We would sotter a handle onto the stencil and you were golden to spray. Easy to clean too.....dunk them in thinner. Give a shout if you have any other questions

Email me

I emailed you but no reply yet, knockoutlures@gmail.com is mine thanks!

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Thanks for the info, I have been having the same problems with my metal spoons.I use Dick Nite paints but I think i was missing a step. I also tried painting my blanks first with white rustoleum paint but found when I used a automotive clearcoat spray such as Plasticoat or something like that , it would soften or crinkle my paint and ruin my paint job! any advice ? Thanks... dino

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I know this post is old, yet thank you for the info. I make small panfish and ice fishing jigs and have a hard time with the paint getting just right.  I have been using the vinyl paints from CSI we acquired from Bass Pro.  However, the paints are extremely thick.  I have not ventured in to air brush since these are small items.  We paint with small brushes.  Anyone else have experiences with better paints than the vinyl.  I was looking the Tester paints for models and crafts, followed by a clear coat.  I was also looking to make a small paint station, hanging the lures in a row and then using a air brush or spray paint to get the base paints on them.  This would allow me to paint a dozen at once uniformly and without over paint.  Any ideas on these?  We eventually will be moving our pattern to larger spoons all the way up to the 3"-5" range for Musky and Northerns.  However at 1-2oz a spoon, we want to make sure we have the paint patterns and techniques to an art.

 

Thanks Again.

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