Martin Posted July 5, 2005 Report Share Posted July 5, 2005 I have browsed this site for a year and have used many of your ideas. Thank you folks for your great ideas and knowledge. As a hobbyist I been building wood baits for a year. I am very satisfied with the plugs I have built, I have caught double digit on my home built stuff. I have one frustrating problem. I pour my heart into making baits only to watch the paint or finish come off after a few hours of fishing. The paint or finish does not wear off it come off in sheets. The products I have used are: Sanding lacquer, lacquer & plastic cups. Plasti-Kote spot filler & primer House of color lacquer paint, Sherwin Williams auto paint, Plasti-Kote classic lacquer, Tamiya color. Devcon 2 ton, Aristocrat, Nu-luster, Spar polyurethane. Any ideas where I am going wrong? Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoRoller Posted July 5, 2005 Report Share Posted July 5, 2005 Sounds like your paint isn't adhering to the primer you use. I am not familiar with the Plasti-Coat stuff, it may need a light dose of sandpaper before spraying. I use Krylon Primer/Sealer and have no problems. Try scuffing the surface of the sealer before priming and scuff the primer a little before spraying. If it isn't that then I am not sure what it could be. I am sure that someone here has had the same problem and knows the fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBait Posted July 5, 2005 Report Share Posted July 5, 2005 Can you be more specific as to how your topcoat is being breeched..... what is allowing water to come into contact with your paint???? How is the topcoat at fault? What are you fishing for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted July 6, 2005 Report Share Posted July 6, 2005 The problem is your sanding lacquer. Otherwise know as lacquer sanding sealer. Get rid of it! Just wipe some polyurethane on the bait with a rag and let it dry. After it is dry then lightly sand the bait smoothe. Then just shoot your HOK lacquer for a base coat an finish painting the lure. That is all you need to do. You are killing yourself with all of this multi brand stuff that you are using. The best way to shoot baits is to keep it simple. Skeeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBait Posted July 6, 2005 Report Share Posted July 6, 2005 I pour my heart into making baits only to watch the paint or finish come off after a few hours of fishing.According to what he is saying.....his paint is coming off after fishing with the baits...... This would mean that his topcoat is not holding up..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted July 6, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2005 Skeeter: Simple sounds good to me. Will the polyurethane seal the wood? Is it overkill to dip the plug in polyurethane. Thanks Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted July 6, 2005 Report Share Posted July 6, 2005 All I know is that anytime that I have used lacquer sanding sealer I have had that problem. There is something in that stuff that many types and brands of paint just don't like. If the bait is made of hardwood the urethane will do just fine. No.... it does not completely seal the wood. So what????? If you put your clearcoat on completely then you will not have to worry about water getting to the wood. What the urethane does is coat the wood and somewhat seal it. Many times folks will have trouble with bubbles in their paint. This is caused from air being trapped under the paint. The trapped air comes from pores in the wood. The urethane will help lessen this. If you make the bait completely out of balsa then I would do the same thing and then clearcoat the bait with devcon just like you would a finished bait. This seals the wood and really hardens the bait. Paint over the devcon and then clearcoat the bait again. Many say this is overkill. But I charge $20.00 for a one of my squarebills. The ones posted on the site are not the ones that I make for sale. That is alot of money for a crankbait. For that kind of money customers deserve the best that I can make. You can take a completed crankbait that is made of soft balsa and press on it hard. Many times you can feel the bait flex even when clearcoated with epoxy. This is why I double coat balsa lures. Many thin their epoxy with acetone and such to get it good and watery so that it soaks down into the wood. This will work, but it leaves an orange peel type of surface on the bait. The only way to get rid of that is either to sand it smoothe or either primer or basecoat the hell out of the lure. Many say that they thin the epoxy because they do not want the added weight of a full coat of epoxy on the lure. But by the time they primer or base coat the lure white, they have added alot of weight with the extra coats of primer or paint. Balsa is VERY forgiving when you weight it. It can take the extra coat of devcon. Tbait may be right also. If water is getting through an unclearcoated spot in your lure and it gets to the wood then that could be causing the peeling. When wood or especially balsa get wet then it will swell and crack all kinds of stuff including the clearcoat. I had this happen also. Is the clearcoat cracked? Skeeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted July 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 Skeeter: Thank you very much for the info. My next run of lures will be done with your method. The reason I was concerned about sealing the wood is, I am hard on a lure (hitting rock). Most lures I build are jointed trout or rats. I toss soft plastic swimbaits (for bass) in the winter but summer I turn into a top water freak. I will toss large top water plugs all day, and I fish 4 to 6 days a week, so I beat up a lot of lures. Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted July 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 By coincidence I met the inventor of a product called ?Classic Rod Coat?. The guy lives near me. He gave me 32 ounces of his heavy bond and 8 ounces of his light bond. He said it should work well as a topcoat on lures. Also he gave me a suggestion. His idea was to use color preserver as a sealer. I just happen to have a quart of water base flex coat color preserver in the garage. Has anyone used the Classic Rod Coat on top or color preserver as a sealer? Just curious. My next try will be Skeeter?s polyurethane idea but I will keep all options open. Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Husky Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 If the paint is coming off in sheets, it sounds as though the topcoat is the culprit, as previously stated. Under a good epoxy topcoat, I can't see that happening. As the poster has said, he used many different sealing methods. I can't believe they all failed to do their job. I'll wager the Rod Epoxy he uses will cure his peeling problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salty's Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 If the paint is coming off in sheets it means the clear is adhering to the paint just fine unless the clear is peeling separately from the paint....it's the paint to primer adhesion or the primer to wood that is the problem. Most likely the primer to wood. Reason being is that each layer adheres to the previous...top coat to paint, paint to primer, primer to sealer, sealer to wood. Where it stops peeling is where the problem is. If you can't see primer anymore then it's primer to wood. If you lose topcoat and paint but the primer stays on the wood then it's paint to primer adhesion which is bad. The weakest adhesion point is where it happens. Most times when you see a paint adhesion problem like this where it comes off in sheets you can usually find that the lure swelled from water intrusion....when it swells it no longer allows the coating to adhere due to the new larger size and it comes off in sheets like you describe. A few tests you can do....measure the diameter of a lure that has paint on it, then dunk it in water....then measure it again. If it swells significantly then it's absorbing water and you need to change your sealer. Also take a lure and cut a crosshatch pattern into it...4-5 lines in each direction like a tic tac toe board...then cover it with a real strong packing type of tape to simulate ASTM adhesion testing tape....rub the tape down so you know it's sticking good....then pull the tape up....good adhesion shouldn't allow much if any paint to come up on the tape....if your tape is full of paint etc then there's your problem. What comes up on the tape will also give you a clue where the adhesion problem is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salty's Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 One other thing I just thought of also...I've seen problem between paints, primers, and clears also....put primer on a lure body...good adhesion....put paint on it and still good adhesion....put topcoat on it and the thing turns into a brittle coating on the lure...different products attack/eat into paints and primers differently. If you are using solvent based stuff try to make sure that all the solvents are from the same family....xylene with xylene etc. You can see alot of info looking at a MSDS on a product to find out what it's made of to determine if it's compatible with something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 Martin, Beating up a lure is just a fact of life. Things wear. All that you can do is to make the bait as tough as you can without sacrificing the action of the lure. NO ONE is tougher on a crankbait than I am. My baits take alot of abuse from rocks and everything else. Many of the crankbait makers on this site are constantly looking for ways to make a bait tougher. No matter what we all come up with.... the baits will still wear. But the materials, time, and the process that a crankbait maker uses when he makes a crankbait will determine if his bait will hold up better than others. Skeeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
