Ed Brabant

It may not be as good as the highlite but I like it.

To be honest I have very limmited experience with the traditional stuff. I have a blue and gold from lurecraft. I used a Due Green-Yellow for the back of a sunfish swim bait. I was very pleased. I took an exacto knife and put in about a half of a finger nails worth in a cup of plastic and was very pleased with the effect. I have been looking for a smelt color I think green/avacado and the Due Green-Yellow with a little black to knock the color down will do for the back. I am going to pour a bunch this weekend. I will post a few pictures of them and you can see the colors.

From their web site. Jacquard Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments - An incredibly versatile faux finishing miracle!

I poured some swim baits with it and they look great.

I was in AC Moores the other night and saw this stuff A.C. Moore - Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments 32 Color/Set- They were on sale for $2.50 a jar. The stuff works great. I am going back tonigjht and buying more. i figured $2.50 and a half a cup of plastic I had nothing to loose.

What I do is place the mold on the base. I have one of Del's 5 1/4 stick molds. With the mold under the pot I have about 3 inches of clearence from the end of the nipple on the valve. Looking at the melt as it comes out the stream right at the valve is rather large. being 3" away the stream is rounder and smaller. It seems to fill the cavity better. I put a few pieces of wood under the mold to get it closer to the nipple and it didn't fill as well. The only thing that I may do is to put a peice of wood so I am always lined up in the "X" direction and all I have to do is slide in the "Y" direction. I am going to put witness marks for the "Y" direction. I can hit the cavity pretty good now but every now and then I miss and get a little plastic on the top of the mold. As far as ventalation goes I have a range hood i bought from a guy off Craigs List for $10. He was remodeling. That is where I got the large microwave from for $0. It was a freebe on the side of the road. Found that in the free section on Craigs list. I just need more molds. I spend more time waiting for the mold to cool. The granite surface plate helps that wit the fan blowing across the surface. The granite is a great heat sink. I pour with the temp setting at the max. It seems the hotter the better. I checked the melt with a thermoeter and it read 350 F. I have been in the middle of a pour and got the suppers ready call. Came back 20 minuets later no problems at all. The plastic was still hot and the stirrer motor was going strong no burning at all. It is a 25 rpm I think. Got that off EBay.

I guess that it isn't so bad that we get snow. We don't get the Hurricanes like you guys do well not as often. Good luck and stay safe.

A few more

Here is my set up with the surface plate to cool on. A little messy.

I will try and post a picture tonight.

Try cutting teeth in the bottom of the stirrer. Off set them so that when one side makes a pass the other cleans up what the first one leaves. It works great on mine. I started with out a mechanical stirrer. When I put mine on I cut down the amount of left over plastic by about 1/4. It's great just filling one cavity and moving on to the next. I found out very quickly that I need more molds. Great job.

It's taking the "no stick" finish from the bottom of my presto pot from the stiring paddel that is scraping the bottom of the pot. The salt is a good abrasive.

I think you need to join to PM.

The only thing it can't have is water in it. 350 degree plastic and water don't like each other.

Apologize for what? Any and all input is greatly appriciated. I think that hardbait guys have more experience with oil based paints than the soft plastics.

I am thinking about using that instead of the dye to color virgin plastic. Not for painting the bait after it is poured.

Would something like this work for coloring plastic? Crafts, Etc! ® - T313 Academy Oil Color My wife found something like this at Wally world and I did a search and did not find much about using paint as a dye.

The Stren was it the super braid? The braid "when it first came out" was crap. Diging in on the reel wasn't the word for it. The new "Super braid/Power Pro" is round now or so that is what they preach. I find it won't dig in the reel 1/10 as much. If I get hung up and pull sraight on the reel holding the spool with my thumb it will dig a little but one cast and out it comes. I too was turned off with the old braid but am very happy with it now. It's too bad about the reply from power pro you got. Big companies sometimes don't realize the damage they do to their reputation when they won't help a customer. I guess the bottom line is what ever line you like and have confidence with is what works for you.

Try taking a sharpie or a marks alot and color the end of your line. I use the ones that are about 1 1/2 inches around with a big chisle tip. The one thing that you HAVE to do with braid is loosen your drag. My son has shattered 3 tour edition flippin sticks because he likes the drag tightened down all the way. And with no strech pow the rod shatters. I use Stren super braid and have just started to use power pro. I LOVE the stren and the power pro isn't that bad either. Keep an eye on you rods for cracked guides. And I NEVER use the eye as a hook holder. I see a lot of people do that and then run down the lake with the hook grinding away on the eyes and then they wonder why their line breaks mono and braid. Hook the hook on a keeper by the reel. or stick it in the cork handel but never on the eyes. I use #65 on my slop rod. #65 on my carolina rod and #65 on my flipping rod. The only one I use the marker on is the Flippin rod and the spinning rods. And 20 on my spinning rods I use mono on 2 bait casters for topwater and spinner bait in open water. I have a hard time with a spook using braid. It keeps catching tha rear hook.

I tried using crayloa crayons and was very pleasently surprised.

Do you put the pot holders on the hot plate and then the cup on top of that?

Try Craig's list. Got mine for zippo.

I had good results from using the 2 cups one in each hand and pouring the same amount or as best as I could. I need to search for this divided cup thing I am hearing about. I am almost out of plastic or I would try some more and post the pictures. I went on Craig's list for the microwaves. I use 2 and a presto pot and a 2 burner electric hot plate. For the microwaves I have a total of $5.00 invested. And the 2 burner hot plate was $20. I heat 2 colors up at the same time. Then if I am doing more than 2 colors one is always waiting to get heated. The plastic does holds the heat for a while. I just did a search and I know what my next project is divided cups here I come. I think a thread started kind of I'll show you mine if you show me your's would be kind of cool. It would be nice to see how differnt people have their set up's. Seeing something is much better than reading about it. Like the presto pots or mixing paddels ect.

The only adjustment I can think of is to move the mold to the new position and that is only the pitch of the cavites. The pin would only enter the mold about 3/16 of an inch.