Best plastic for pouring that floats

[Bassachusetts]

Made an original wooden model of my wakebait and it is exactly the way I want it  but with the time it took me to make I want to just pour copies.

Made a silicone mold and it all came out great. What should I pour into it that will give me the closest action to wood? Will plastic with half microballoons be super botany? Better doing microbaloons and then drilling holes and replacing them with wood? Any material I can pour that will float easily and still be tough?

[JRammit]

Resin with enough  micro balloons will approach the buoyancy of a light hard wood, like pine.... If you want something with even more buoyancy, closer to balsa, look at Alumifoam 

[mark poulson]

JR,

Is alumifoam strong enough to hold screw eyes, or do you need to through wire?

[JRammit]

49 minutes ago, mark poulson said:

JR,

Is alumifoam strong enough to hold screw eyes, or do you need to through wire?

 

Ive never used it.. I've been wanting to try some, but I wanna do a lot of things...... So I'm really not sure, but I hear it's pretty dense and hard.. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe

[Bassachusetts]

Cool, will look into it. I've avoided foam this thus far because I thought it expands inside the mold. Is this true and is this hard to work with as a result? Thanks

[ravenlures]

The foam is hard to get the same results with each lure, that's why I use the white resin with micro balloons and I get within 1 gram of the wood lure that I copied each time I pour, but your measurements must be right on, with just enough resin to come to top with out wasting it. That  will take a little experimenting. In my case it was about 40 grams of resin and the same of the hardener with 15 grams of micro balloons, it took awhile, about 4 times to get it right but when I got it goes 1 2 3.

Wayne   

[Anglinarcher]

I think the following graph might help some regarding densities.  Sorry I have been off the site for so long.  I know that the answers below are pretty random, but I am trying to answer the questions above the best I can.

I have given the density on the side of several woods, but you can look up the average density up yourself.  Remember, wood is far more variable then any plastic or foam, no matter what you have or are being told. 

No amount of microballons will get Alumilite White to balsa (and still be strong and pourable), and Alumifoam will be much heavier then balsa as well, but a lot less dense then microballons and Alumilite White.  The 610 foam matches balsa, but it will require through wires for most applications in my opinion. 

Alumifoam does not require through wire.  In fact, it can and will hold screws on Muskies or Saltwater fish.  Tough stuff, but densities about .47 g/cc.  Consistent density results come from careful measurement and large vent holes.  It is much harder to use then other foams because it has a lot of expansion force.  Firm molds, like ones made out of Alumilite Quickset or VacMaster 50 are best.  Developing your pouring method with Alumifoam, it  might take some time to develop YOUR proceedure.

The density of white pine ranges from .35 to .50, so Alumifoam is on the heavier side of white pine ranges.  Yellow pine is about .42, a little lighter then Alumifoam.

Yes, the foam does indeed expand inside the mold.  You will need to pour less then the full amount and let it expand to fill the mold.  I prefer about half full with Alumifoam and have a large vent so that the excess can expand out and be trimmed later.

I think that when I closed down my YouTube account that my videos were lost, but I had a video of how tough Alumifoam was.  You could hit it with a hammer and use a rod and smash it into concrete and do little damage to it.  It is not the easiest stuff to get use to, but I have never found a fish that could hurt it yet.

 

Hope this helps some, and again, sorry I have been gone so long.