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joelhains

Elaztec, Z Man, Strike King 3X...what Is This Stuff?

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Ive been very curious about Elaztec since the first pack of soft jerkbait I bought a few years ago. I could catch dozens of river smallies on a single bait without having to replace it. Ever since, I've hoped one of our plastisol producers would come out with a similar product for the home baitmaker like myself. I recently bought 10 pounds of bulk plastic tube baits. I didnt know what they were until I got them home. They are Elaztec or very similar! I decided to try melting some down to see how they would work in my molds.

I started out by cutting up a handful of tubes into smaller pieces and put them in the microwave. I started out with a minute and a half like i do when i cook regular plastic. Well after that mount of time ot was barely even warm, so i put it back in. After 6 minutes in the microwave the elaztec wasnt showing any signs of melting. So i took some out and filled one of my smaller measuring cups and added a small amount of uncooked plastisol. I got that to all melt down and smooth enough after about 4 minutes. I shot a few swimbaits. They are stretchier than normal but sticky. I figured I would take the rest i had cut up and put it back in the microwave for as long as it took to get it ro melt. After 12 minutes it was ready to shoot. Just pulled them out of the mold. A 2.5 inch bait stretches 35 inches before breaking! Just need to find a source for uncooked elaztec!

Edited by joelhains
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Calhoun I believe offered a very similar material at one point. I talked to someone that mentioned the process to use it was WAY different than we are used to. It was such a pain to use that they no longer offer it. The elaztech material requires specialized equipment to process, kind of why Zman makes the strike king 3X products ;)

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I really admire how you found a way to make them work for you.

I had a bunch of elaztech baits that I gave away because they didn't play nice with either other soft plastic or plastic crank baits.

I'm glad I didn't see this post first, or I would have surely tried to reuse them.  Hahaha

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Those look like Terminator Lures "SnapBack" Series of Tubes. Strike King was the first to market their 3X series of Baits followed quickly by Terminator Lures with SnapBack. They were both Marketed as made with CyberFlexxx. Now you can find Elaztek, which is basically the same as CyberFlexxx but i know they have tweaked the formula and made it a bit better (reduced tackiness). There are other manufacturers that are beginning to try to market this material in soft plastic baits but they seem to be foreign entities so far.

 

This rubber is a whole other animal when compared to traditional PVC when it comes to manufacturing and processing. It has been discussed to try to introduce this material to the hand pour market but getting people to re-invest in new colorants and new equipment can be a hard sell. That being said it still may happen but you not likely to find any at an affordable price or in small quantities.

 

Like Mark said dont mix those with your PVC Baits, it makes one heck of a mess, keep them separated. To reduce tackiness of those baits you can use a light coat of Talc. They may look ugly in the bag but the talc will wash off in the water and you can always reapply as needed. Also keep in mind the more you cook that stuff the more the resin breaks down and the stickier it will get. It does have a Pot Life just like PVC; but not as smelly as burnt PVC.

 

In addition to the great stretch it will float like nobody's business, no flotation needed.

 

Good Luck!

Edited by McLuvin175
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Thermo Plastic Elastomer-- TPE it will become flat in any regular bait bag.  Leave it in the sun on your boat deck and it absorbs the heat, almost untouchable.  Mix with plastisol and will loose shape over time.  They usually shoot these with pressure and use different colorants than we do.  I have 10LBS of the pellets in a viscosity grade similar to plastisol and it will liquify on a stove and take powder and glitter.  Still not successful in creating multiple use good baits, have tried several suggested methods but none are successful. 

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We have it here in Brazil, it's a mixture of styrene, ethylene, butylene and mineral oils.Here it's named under Borflex For me it's easier to work with this stuff than plastisol, the only big problem is, anything that it touches it will melt. I used same colorants used for plastisol without any problems. In the USA there is a Brazilian brand named Monster 3x that uses this stuff. 


 

 

 

 

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On 1/17/2020 at 6:21 PM, BradfieldFord said:

Borflex 13 is the name given to it here, probably 13 would be it's hardness. Maker dosn't sell any additives to it, such as hardener,softener or colorants.The only option is transparent or flesh color for us to buy. Can get in touch with them to see what could be added

 

Do you have a link to the website of this maker by any chance? 

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