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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/12/2022 in all areas

  1. For glides you need a bit more rigidity to the tail IMHO. a floppy or soft tail for me really hurts the glide. I have used saltwater plastisol and it is ok and with hardener its better but I prefer Flex urethanes. Lots of companies have them varying in hardness I like flex it 50. These fins are made with it and are very pliable.
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  2. Have you checked the soft plastics cookbook on this site?
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  3. The lightest density that I ever achieved was 0.67g/cm³ and the texture was that of English mustard and had to be injected. So, I would say that your paulownia plan is impossible. Dave
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  4. You can purchase silicone for making molds. Lots of tutorials on doing this on YouTube. But for the cost Do-it molds are well worth the money. Better quality, safer, will last a lifetime. If this is a one-off custom mold then making your own for prototyping might be all right. But for any sort of production work having an aluminum mold is just a no-brainer
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  5. Regular old wood glue. Make sure the two sides going together are flat, and use a good quality glue like titebond 2, and that wood will be as good as one piece.
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  6. I talked to them about a month ago. The site went down and they decided not to put it back up. They are still in business, you can give them a call and they will take your order over the phone.
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  7. Hi, I thought some might be interested in the method I use to paint and coat metal lures. When I started out I I wanted to do most of the work in my garage in winter where temperatures can be pretty low, 2-4 Celsius. The lures I wanted to make was molded lures of tin, with the line going through. These are molded in suitable silicone molds. Because of the low temperature in the garage a lot of coatings like epoxy etc was not suitable. An letting them cure in the house was not really an option as it would require some ventilation system. I did not want to airbrush either as that required a lot of equipment I don't own. I have a small oven out there so powder coating was appealing. However, I wanted to be able to make more details, patterns and eyes etc. After some research I found that porcelain paint and pens cure at a suitable temperature and can be used in the house without much smell or fumes. So now I work like this: Lures are molded in the garage. Most times I give them a coating of powder coat, usually black or white, and cured in the oven. Then they are taken inside to painted with porcelain paint. This is available in a all sorts of colours, both transparent and opaque. I just use a brush or a sponge and a fine brush or a pen for smaller details. There is also possible to mix some glitters and other pigments with the porcelain paint thinner and add some sparkle or other effects. I then cure them in the oven and when they are done and still hot they are given two or three dips in clear powder coat. This method is probably not suited for any mass production but is a valid option for small scale.
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  8. Today I made my 16 year old kid sit down with the fluid bed from TJ's, 5 of TJ's removable cups, and 5 jars of 2 oz Pro-Tec powder paint. I told him to make it work and show me each color when he had it right. He got all five colors working great. He took the full TJ's cups and dumped each back into it's original Pro-Tec jar. He then took one color at a time and added powder to to the cup a little at a time and played with the air until he got it fluid. The trick for him was to add about 1 oz. to the TJ's 2" diameter cup. He showed me every color and they were all fluid. If you tipped the cup to side it was as fluid as a liquid. Took him about half a hour and when he was done, he asked me if there was anything else I needed him to do. If any else has problems, I suggest you get a kid to do it!
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  9. Hello, new guy here. I started making spinner baits in December 2020, mostly safety pin spinners. When I first started I had no clue what I was doing but I knew what I wanted for the outcome. After I assembled several baits I went to a local park lake to try them out. They all looked good but there was very little spin action. I bent the wire different ways but nothing helped. I used swing blades on them and everything looked good. I swapped out for some small willow leaf blades and those REALLY had some spin to them. My blades looked identical to the blades of the factory made baits but laying them flat on a table for comparison I saw the difference. The swing blades I bought had too much thickness/scoop. They just flopped around on the spin arm. I put a few in my bench vise and squashed them to about half their depth/thickness. That fixed the problem. I bought the first swing blades from a Chinese company on eBay. They had only chrome but a kind of hammered/rough finish. Not knowing what I wanted it took me a while to figure out they were called swing blades. This Chinese company was the only one I could find selling them. Now I have found another company and I can get them in gold, chrome and chrome ripple. I don't have to squash these. :-) So if your still having problems with the blade(s) not spinning, try flattening them some. Match the thickness of a store bought bait or actually use a store bought bait's blade to see is that works.
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  10. FYI - powder paints are subject to humidity issues and will "clump" over time resulting in some of the issues your having. I had a plastic jar of black from harbor freight sitting around for quite awhile and it "solidified" - I was able to break it back up and sift out some of the solid pebble sized clumps I couldn't break down - but be aware that sealing the powders up after use is a key to help keeping them "fluffy and flowing". J.
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  11. I love this topic. I taught it to 7th graders for a few years. The metric system is cool in that it has standardizations you just can't do easily in the standard system. When talking about water: 1 gram = 1cm3 = 1 ml Water has a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter. So a 1 cm cube block of water would mass at 1 gram. You can do a lot with this. There are two ways to make something float more. Make it bigger for it's weight, or make it lighter for it's size. Take a 50,000 ton block of steel. It sinks. Shape it into a battleship and it floats. It has nothing to do with the air in it. It's the size. The same block of steel, when made larger will float more in water. It's size has to get larger than it's weight (to put it roughly). If you have a lure that has a mass of 10 grams, and is 10 cm3 in volume, it won't float or sink in water. It will stay at the level it is put at. If you have a lure that has a mass of 10 grams and is 11 cm3 in volume, it will float in water. And sink if the numbers are reversed. Oil has a density less than 1 gram per cm3. So the same lure will sink in it. And of course oil, which seems denser because it appears thicker than water is actually lighter, oil floats on water. This principle causes submarines to work, weather to happen, plate tectonics to occur, computer chips to be made... and a myriad of other things. Things in this universe can be explained by some basic principles you can count on one hand. Density is one of them. Thanks for your indulgence. I retired awhile back but I still have the ability to get long winded in the sciences at the drop of a hat. Ask my kids.
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  12. I use the nylon weed guards from the medium size ( 2 strands ) for the wacky rig hooks . 4 strands for the drop shot hooks and smaller finesse wide gap hooks . 1 ) Lay some thread wraps down for a base , flat thread keeps it looking nice and won't bulk up at hook eye . 2 ) Place weed guard material and wrap with flat thread as shown , whip finish with four or five wraps . 3 ) Bend back the fibers with finger to position them and trim to length , I hit the ends with a little heat to round off sharp edges . 4 ) Apply some Hard as Nails and let dry . I have found these can be bent, splayed , or positioned very easily and have held up for years and so easy to do .
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