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Zolja

From Wood To Plastic

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My first topic here, made a few replys here and there, nothing big. I've been building plugs from wood for two years now, got a few types that I can make with a fair consistence, 4 out of 5 swim like i want. Good enough for me. Lately I have less and less time for my building hobby, and I've been thinking about plastic lures. I thought once I have the mold and process down it would take less time to make one. I love working with wood and i don't intend to stop, but would love to have an option to make a few baits from plastic when I need them quickly, like start on thursday and fish with them on weekend.

I started with a darter style Daiwa swimming plug and made a one pice RTV mold for it. Made few castings from resin and microbaloons. I'm mixing one part resin and one part MB's. Got some problems with air pockets but I'm pretty shure I can solve this problem. I'm very happy with details and overall strenght of the product, but I have problems with weight. Plugs are too heavy. Even without added lead to concentrate weight where it needs to be to make a plug swim. They float, barely, but don't swim. Weight is distributed throughout the whole bait, and to add enough lead at pivot point it would make it too heavy. I think it would be great for some topwater and jerking plugs but not for swimmers.

Now im thinking air pockets in the middle of plug, maybe light foam or balsa inside and cast resin and mb's around or maybe two part mold, gluing two parts of casts with carved out insides together... But all this really complicates whole process, exactly the opposite of why I went for plastic. Got any ideas guys? Maybe a product that can imitate the weight and strenght of balsa, but it's liquid at start? A hard but light foam? Or is there some other material out there that i'm not aware of?

I'm from non english speaking country so I hope you guys understand what I'm talking about.

Zoran

Edited by Zolja
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Your post made me smile, because I could have asked the same question 2 years ago. I was having the same issue with the resin, just too heavy for what I wanted. Resin with MB’s does work and lots of members are doing good business with resin casting lures. It works very well for jointed swimbaits.

Try adding more MB’s. I managed to get the specific gravity (SG) down to 0.68 (water = 1.00), but the stuff becomes un-pour able. I solved this problem by injecting with a cake icing syringe. Unfortunately, the bubble problem gets worse as the mix gets thicker.

Featherlite already has the MB’s already mixed in and has a good working density for lure building, but still too heavy for me, might work for you.

I tried the balsa insert idea. It worked, but like you, I decided that it was too much work. Might as well carve the lure in the first place.

I tried the half pour and roll it around. I did not spend a lot of time on this idea and got a hint of success. Someone posted a video of this method not too long ago. The bait was a more cylindrical shape, which lends itself to this method. Worth exploring. If I was to tackle this idea again, I would build some kind of rotating contraption to hold the mold, in order to get a more even distribution. Here is the link to the above mentioned thread: http://www.tackleund...__fromsearch__1

Personally, I went full circle and returned to wood. Hope this helps and keep us posted on your trials.

Dave

Edited by Vodkaman
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I have found the same thing, the resin works fine for swimbaits but I have trouble getting other lures to swim correctly. I have not tried foam but then I wonder if I would have to go to thru-wire. If I have to go to thru-wire I may as well just stay with wood.

RM

Edited by RiverMan
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Wow! Thank you Vodkaman, a lot of good info in your reply. Like you I also tried mixing more MB's into resin, but like you said, it gets hard and it doesn't run/pour very good. I did my first 5 lures with RTV mold just like Larry Dahlberg in this video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOpUy4GJJ8U. Only now I see Whopper Plopper, which seems to me it's an older video of him. I kinda like the proces. Just gotta find something similar like 16lb foam here in Slovenia. RiverMan, I put wire in the mold, before casting, so it's through wired, but without the hasle :). Thank you both! I'll keep you updated.

Zoran

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The featherlite caused alot of bubbles so I didn't like it.

I don't know if you can use screw eyes with the 16lb foam..................anyone know?

Jed

I have thought about this as well. The idea I came up with is to make half the lure with a 2piece mold, then the other half with another 2 piece mold. You can find unglued crankbait bodies that you can add weight to and put together, so I was thinking, as long as you are not reselling, I am sure you could make a mold for each half of a crankbait body you like.

Another Idea I had, and it may be hard to invision with my description, was to make a regular 2 piece mold of a lure, take one of the halves, fill it with pop and putting a cylindrical object where you want the air pocket and inserting that half way into the pop. After the pop dries in the half mold, remove the cylinder and pour more rtv over the pop in the half mold. That way, the new half mold with form an extrusion into the resin body half, therefore creating a bubble. Then just do that to the other side. I know it probably sounds confusing the way I explain it, but it is just another way to make a 2piece mold for HALF of a lure, just like making 2 two-piece molds for an unglued body.

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Update. Still looking for 16lb foam or something similar. So for now I went with what I got. When I made few small swimmers they were too heavy but I suspected that a little bit bigger jerks for pike would come out good with this method. So I copied a Salmo jerk used for pike fishing. They came out good, still some problems with bubbles but it's getting better with every plug.

rola-foto_7871822_8406984_17555738.jpg

rola-foto_7871822_8406984_17555740.jpg

Zoran

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