BobP

I add a FEW drops of denatured alcohol to D2T to thin it out a bit and also to e tend the work time a couple of minutes. Maybe 4 drops into enough epoxy to coat 2 medium bass baits.

You’re using it.

I get wire from McMaster-Carr online. Lots of types, lots of sizes, pretty good prices.

Like most of the above, I’d opt for KBS. It’s clear, cures well, and yields a tough high luster coating. Big plus: you simply dip lures into it and hang them to drip and cure. Optionally, you can brush it on and hang it. I use several coats to build a very good coating.

I build various size baits and a store-bought stencil kit wouldn’t be very useful, if that’s what you’re talking about. I went to an art store and bought a roll of FRISKET, which. Is paper with a peel off plastic backing. After using it awhile, I realized it was best if I didn’t take the adhesive backing off and instead just held it against the lure. Added benefit, you can keep the template and build a library of them. Frisket is easy to cut with a razor knife.

I painted some spoons with acrylic airbrush paint and topcoated with Dick Nite Fishermun’s Lurecoat, which is a moisture cured urethane. The Dick Nite seemed to penetrate the paint and adhere directly to the metal, forming a very durable finish. No primer was needed. Dick Nite is a spoon manufacturer who also sells paint and topcoats. Mark above mentioned an important detail - your primer, paint, and topcoat are a related system. Not all paints work with all primers and not all urethanes work with all primers. I tried an aerosol auto primer on some spoons and hated the esthetic result and the strong residual smell. Bottom line, you may have to experiment to get a finish you want.

Amen. Ben was a very good friend for the TUers who knew him.

I think basswood is similar in density (23 lbs/cu ft) and much nicer to sand and finish to a creamy white texture. It’s also widely available in hobby shops.

I’m mostly a Devcon 2 ton user but you gotta respect builders that swear by Etex. Their baits are often some of the most beautiful to be found. I looked for the Fatfingers tutorial I mentioned but couldn’t find it. The primary suggestion it made was to mix the Etex and let it sit for 12-15 minutes before application to allow some of the solvent to flash off and let the epoxy start to cure slightly. I haven’t heard a lot of complaints about Etex, except that it is more prone to fisheye than other epoxies. Frankly, I didn’t use it because it requires longer to cure and multiple coats to build up a finish as thick as glue or casting epoxies single coat. Nowadays, I mostly use KBS MCU in 2-3 dip coats. It’s the lazy man’s finish.

Whittler, I surely don't “know it all” after 25 yrs of building lures but the idea of acrylic paint curing escapes me. I’ve not heard of any chemical reaction taking place after application of water based paint, which would constitute curing. I always thought it just lays there and dries. I use a hair dryer after shooting every color and don’t have a problem clearcoating lures soon after. Redaddy24, Etex lite is a good product but it takes peculiar application procedures to apply it over a painted wooden lure. I suggest going to Member Submitted Tutorials and looking for a tutorial by Fatfingers for best Etex practices. Bar top epoxies like Etex contain lots of solvent to expel bubbles while curing. Casting and glue epoxies don’t, which can make them easier to use.

Etex in multiple coats is popular with guys who build large musky baits. I’ve used Devcon Two Ton glue epoxy for years on bass baits with good results and it has good abrasion resistance, so I still use it on baits that will be trolled for hours. I really prefer to use moisture cured urethane on most bass baits, usually with 2-3 dip coats to build up a thicker coating to fend off rash. For the same thickness of coating, I think MCU is just as tough as epoxy.

Yep, PPE protection is not a bad idea if you are concerned. I don’t expose my skin to a uv lamp for more than a few seconds, and I don’t look into the super strong light either. How much exposure is too much? Well, suntans are caused by uv light too. And sunlight contains the widest spectrum uv radiation. Do you mummify yourself before fishing? Some do. But I think a common sense approach to handling lures under uv is sufficient. Whatever works for you.

I’ve tried a few different uv polyester clearcoats, most recently Chinese resin from Amazon. You don’t really know the quality of this stuff, which is sold for amateur jewelry making. Having the right uv light source is important. My fingernail uv lamp from Amazon was not a good match and I had to set the lures out in the sun on a lure turner to get them hard. After storing them for a few months, I found the clearcoat was becoming somewhat tacky again. I gave up and returned to using KBS moisture cured polyurethane, which yields a hard very clear tough coating.

If you’re gonna build 500 baits I guess it would be cost efficient to buy a press and have a tool steel punch made professionally. Got a few hundred bucks? But as a hobby builder, I think using Wiss aircraft snips to rough out the lip and a Dremel sander to finish the lip is an easy and efficient way to go. It takes me maybe 45 minutes to shape 6-8 lips this way. Of course, I build bass baits and use 1/16 inch thick G-10 sheet. Using very thick G-10 would be a problem but I use thin stock expressly for better lip performance and so do commercial bait makers.

There is no topcoat that won’t hook rash. Epoxies are only slightly more dense than water so you might be surprised at how well a bait will float with even a fairly thick epoxy coating. IMO, the thinnest and hardest topcoat is probably moisture cured urethane such as KBS.

Stockman, with MCU you dip it or brush it on and simply hang the bait up for the excess to drip off the tail. Then the MCU reacts with moisture in the air to harden to a very durable, very clear and smooth finish. KBS Diamond coat MCU seems to be the most popular brand now. You can order it from auto sites or direct from KBS.

Yep. I can remember lively, even heated, discussions re top coats some years back. Which brand epoxy was better. How to preserve MCU. Auto clearcoats. Water based coatings. You name it! I can’t imagine here will be a new and unique clearcoat that we haven’t already seen and tried. But I’m probably wrong.

I really like MCU but have always had the same storage failure problem regardless of the heroic measures I tried to stop it. Now I think it’s just the nature of the beast. I’ve also had Solarez harden in its container after lengthy storage. I don’t know of any coating that stores indefinitely, except maybe epoxy.

I used prop dissolved in acetone a few years back. Over the years there were two members who sold prop pellets. One passed away and the other disappeared from the forum. Some have used dissolved plastic cups but results depended on the specific cup brand and the specific solvent used, with many failures and cracked clearcoats. And as far as prop goes, I’m not much of a fan. It takes 7-8 dips to coat a bait properly and at least 24 hrs to dry. Nothing wrong with the results but it’s fidgety to use and there are alternatives like MCU that are superior and faster. Jmho

His online site is still active. In dealing and communicating with him, you need to remember that his primary business is manufacturing and selling metal spoons, not supporting hobby builders, which he does as a generous sideline. He uses the DN MCU on his spoons. I have too and it works great.

Balsa is good for shallow running square bills that are lively and rise quickly to get over cover that you hit (which is what you want to do). Paulownia is similar to balsa in density but harder than balsa. It sometimes has crumbly grain that can be a problem. I use basswood for deeper diving baits, or sometimes white cedar. Basswood sands great to a smooth hard surface. Lots of woods can be used although some of the most dense/heavy hardwoods can be so dense that it is hard to build a bait that floats after the hardware is added. Generally speaking, lighter woods are more lively and that’s usually a good thing. IMO, it’s best to select just a few wood species and stick with them because it makes building easier when you know how a wood shapes, sands, is ballasted, and takes finish.

I don’t think there is a practical way to design lips without iterative testing and modification. Lips don’t work by themselves. They are attached to a bait and the whole assembly, its shape, weight, and balance determines how it will swim and how deep. The shortcut I use is to copy a commercial bait i like exactly, and then customize the copies one after another to get different and perhaps better performance characteristics. Going through that process will teach you a lot about bait design.

I painted an aluminum reel using automotive primer and enamel. It began to chip almost immediately. You have to use very thin coatings if you want the reel to go back together. We’re I to do it over (I would not) I’d try KBS MCU thinned and shot with an airbrush as a clearcoat. but I do not believe there is an amateur coating regime that can be as good as a factory job so my scratched and chipped reels will have to wear their damage as a sign of good times.

Dick Nite s81 is a moisture cured urethane. I wouldn’t try to spray it ‘cause it will harden in the brush but it is very good for dipping if you have a large batch of lures to coat. For small batch, you should simply brush it on and hang it to cure. It does have storage limitations and any unused finish must be discarded, not poured back into the can. If you’re interested, do a search and read up on it.

Thanks! I’ll try this method. I used some Chinese craft UV resin to clearcoat a few baits and results were not good. First, it took a long 20 min to cure and then I had to set them out in the sun to get reasonably hard. Stored them in a plastic box for a few months and then found they had become sticky. Eventually I coated them with D2T epoxy, which fixed the problem. But the experience was not promising.