Kasilofchrisn

As far as molds in stock I have noticed Barlows now has an option to be notified via email when something is back in stock. I've used it successfully to purchase a mold recently and can recommend signing up for this notification. My big problem with Zeiners is not wether or not they list things that are in stock. It is the fact that years ago on an order of mine they threw in a 2 oz jar of powder paint in with a lead mold. No tape on the jar lid and no additional packing materials. The jar cracked and there was powder paint all over the box. They were notified and yet made no effort to make it right. So I've since written them off completely. There's enough other suppliers put there who have treated me well enough that I don't need to use Zeiners! Barlows always tapes lids, staples bags shut, and packs things really well! Jann's and LPO also seem to pack things well. I know some of you have had good luck with Zeiners. But that's just my personal experience and why I refuse to buy from them. Had they attempted to make things right with me I might think differently. I hate to put down any company but when they treat you wrong it sometimes just leaves a bad taste in your mouth that's hard to get rid of.

There really is no best bead answer it all really depends on what you're wanting to make and how you're wanting it to perform. For instance if you're copying a certain brand/model spinner than you would want to use the same beads they use. Metal beads are great for a bearing surface under your clevis. They're also good for adding weight to a spinner when needed. Glass beads also work well for adding weight and are often more colorful than the metal beads. Plastic beads are lighter but add a lot of color, come in a lot more colors, and are the cheapest. I'm planning on making some wedding ring spinners for some trout fishing this summer. Well the Mack's wedding ring spinner uses two plastic stack beads and of course the wedding ring in the center. So to replicate it I'm going to use the same plastic stack beads. And I will use a small brass bead under the clevis to act as a bearing bead for the spinner.

The problem with Zeiners is their website doesn't show you if it's in stock or not. So they may list things even if they don't have any in stock and you won't find out until you place an order. I gave up on Zeiners years ago as there customer service is also lacking. Barlows has treated me the best. But Jann's and LPO have also done well for me.

So I tried some pure lead and that didn't solve the problem. But I did a little filing on the edge of the mold and then used the pure lead. After that I had to tap the mold with my hardwood dowel and then with a little jiggling of the spue with a stout pair of pliers I was able to remove the jigs. They wouldn't come out from tapping on the mold nor would they come out from just pulling on the sprue itself. I had to do both. My understanding is there is a design flaw with this mold that makes it difficult to release jigs from it. I only poured one cavity at a time because the mold is very hard to open when I poured all four cavities at once. But I was able to get some usable jigs. I think a little more file work and I will have it working better.

I usually spray my dropout when the mold is warm to hot. That's where I seem to get a much more even and light coat of it and it's always worked well for me that way in the past. When I spray dropout on cold it seems to be much thicker and sometimes ends up with a drop pooling up in part of the cavity. I'm using an alloy of mixed scrap I'm sure there's some tin in it and some antimony. Though I couldn't tell you how much and I haven't tested the hardness of this batch. I don't have a ton of pure lead but I will give that a try. I usually like to save my pure lead for making muzzleloader balls and shotgun slugs. Someone on another forum suggested filing on the mold a little bit and I just did that I will see if it helps. They said the back part of the mold was made too flat and doesn't want to release well and I can see that being an issue.

Yeah I tried grabbing the sprue and the sprues rip off before the jigs even move half a millimeter. I have a large hardwood dowel or closet rod that I use to tap on molds that have jigs or sinkers that don't want to release nicely. But in this case I'm just destroying the dowel.

So I just got in a brand new swimbait head jig mold. It's the do it mold with the four larger sizes 3/4, 1, 1-1/4, 1-1/2. The problem I'm having is that the jig head stick in the mold to the point they just won't come out. I have a hardwood dowel that I normally use to tap out jigs that are slightly stuck in a mold. But this does not help at all. I'm actually having to melt them out of the mold using my plumbers torch. It is always the same side of the mold that is sticking. I went back and checked on Barlow's website and there are several reviews with others having the same issue. I used dropout in the mold but that didn't do anything to help. I ran a q-tip through the mold but cannot detect any serious burrs. So I scrubbed all the mold cavities on the side that was sticking with an old toothbrush and some toothpaste. But that didn't seem to help. So then I made a paste with some 400 grit powder for my rock tumbler and again scrubbed the cavities with the toothbrush for several minutes. And I still have not fixed the issue. Is there a way I can fix this mold or do I need to contact do it and get a new mold?

I've shipped 40+ lb of jigs at a time in USPS flat rate boxes. That's usually the most economical way.

Another good bead source is Fire mountain gems and beads. I've ordered from them with good results. https://www.firemountaingems.com/

Whenever I've had a custom mold made I just gave the mold maker a good idea of what I wanted and he did all of the cad work for me. They usually have all that stuff figured out pretty well and are a lot better at it than I ever would be.

There's two different solders that I use. One is a mostly lead solder that I purchase from Jann's netcraft. Or you can buy solder from your hardware store. You just want to be sure that your solder is rosin core solder. Usually the hardware store stuff is lead free but if you get the electronic solder you can get some that is 60/40 lead/tin . Make sure the 60% is lead. This is what gives you the weight for the jigs. And don't press the solder against the tip of the soldering iron as you'll just burn up your tips. You need to heat the blade and the hook until they're hot enough to melt the solder onto them and then just add enough solder until you're happy with the shape.

Do you have one of the round silicone molds that Reinke brothers sold when they were in business? It basically holds the hook and the blade to make soldering ice jigs so much easier. I've got two of them that have all the different blade shapes on them. But they also made them where they were all of One shape. Hard to believe somebody else hasn't come up with something similar as it sure does make it a lot easier to make your soldered jigs

I think we know why the prices went up. You can't just print all the money you want to and give it away to everyone and expect they're not to be consequences. Inflation is real. I watched a gardening video the other day where a guy built a raised bed to replace one he built in 2015. 2015 price was somewhere around $25. Fall 2021 price was over $85. It's not just fishing tackle that's gone up it is literally everything. Go price some lumber nowadays if you really want sticker shock! Let's go Brandon!

I always touch mine up. I've been using dropout for the last 10 years or so and I've never completely cleaned out a cavity to recoat it. I like to heat my molds up first and then just the lightest coat should do it. The heat helps it set quickly so it won't drip or run. If you're finding there's marks in your jigs from the Dropout then I would consider removing it and recoating But that only happens to me if I end up spraying way too much and get it to where it has pooled in a cavity which is a pretty rare occurrence. Actually it's probably only happen to me a couple of times and I caught it before I even cast a jig. Rather than clean the entire mold I just got some q-tips and denatured alcohol and cleaned the one cavity and recoated just the one cavity. But if you got spare Time to kill and you have nothing else better to do I guess you could clean the whole mold out first and then recoat.

I almost forgot I've also made ice fishing jigs from the freestyle jig mold, swim jig mold, tube jig mold, herring head under spin, and some others that I'm forgetting at this time. Hopefully this helps and gives you a place to start.

The jigs you made look to be pretty light. Usually for ice fishing jigs you want heavy dense small jigs that drop quickly and show up well on our electronics. I made quite a few soldered ice jigs over the years with blades from Reinke Brothers, LPO, Jann's netcraft, Barlow's etc. Usually I use gold Aberdeen hooks and solder them on with ice jig solder from Jann's netcraft or 60/40 solder from the hardware store with the 60% being lead. And you want rosin course solder not the acid core. I've also made ice fishing jigs from some Do- It molds: The crappie jig mold, round head jig with wire keeper, minnow head with wire keeper, tail spinner, and probably some others. I also have two Jigging Rapala molds from Kent Desautel. And some lead spoon molds from Sean Collins customs. And a Marmooska mold from Bug molds. The Do- it flutter jig mold in small sizes would also work well. But I don't have that mold in my collection. There's a lot of options out there for ice jig molds. And for making the soldered ice jigs if you could get a hold of one of those old Reinke Brothers silicone molds that holds the components that would be a great way to go.

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

The fluidizing plate that is used on the TJ's fluid bed is good stuff. But as Cadman said even with the proper stuff there are some paints that just are problematic. I built my own vibratory base for my fluid beds. I used aluminum C channel with spring feet. Mine has two fluid beds on it and two vibratory motors connected to a rheostat switch. With the aquarium valves I can easily adjust the air volume and with the rheostat switch I can easily adjust the amount of vibration given. Some paints including some good quality paints will still volcano some even with adjustable vibration, air, and fluidizing plate on the bottom. I make all my own fluid beds and I don't use a union in any of them. All of mine are made using ABS flat end caps. And the majority of mine either have fluidizing plate on the bottom or Tyvek from post office envelopes. By using knockout test caps you can easily switch filter media to find the one that works best for you. Anyway I wouldn't throw any fluid bed in the trash especially the one that TJ's makes. If it made me that upset that I was throwing it away I guess I would give up on powder painting all together. But it works so well and is durable enough that I just can't give it up. I just work around the issues and do the best I can. And I still make amazing looking jigs! Or so they tell me anyway.

I actually purchased some glass fly rattles today for my version of the rattle spoon. Is going to order from LPO but the smallest size was out of stock so I ordered them from another vendor. I thought about making them out of brass tubing but then you have to find the right size BB's to fit in it. Then there's the soldering the ends closed and all of that hassle. For the cost of them I'd rather just buy them and epoxy them on. I'd like to try these first and if they don't work then I'll switch to a different rattle. But the brass ones are a bit more expensive so I'll play with what I've got first.

I actually plan on doing that myself this winter. Barlow's has some glass rattles that should work fine. They're only about 30 cents a piece. For that price it's not worth trying to make your own at least not in my opinion anyway. I believe the ones I have are 0.80 in Long. I figure I'll just epoxy them on with some D2T or possibly some JB weld. I'm going to be using one of my Shawn Collins molds but I'm sure the flutter jig would work well also.

If you want inexpensive paint that's better than the harbor freight try buying some from Cadman. http://cadmansjigs.weebly.com/powder-paint.html He only has a limited number of colors but I will say the ones I've tried were top notch. I love buying his plain white as a base coat that I use on many of my jigs. Before adding the primary color and any accent colors. Columbia coatings has some good powder as does prismatic. I won't ever buy Harbor freight paint again even if they would ship to me. I don't think it's very good paint. I do buy quite a bit of Protec paint by the pound from TJ's tackle. Mainly because I want the glow colors and I can't get those in as good a glow from elsewhere.

Very well said toadfrog! I like to carry a few different options in sizes, colors, and styles when I'm fishing. Some days the first lure I tie on catches them all day long and other days I have to switch it up to find something they like. Or something catches several fish and then the bite turns off until I find another color or style that the fish like. I like to let my imagination, my budget, and my previous experiences determine what tackle I'm going to make and use. But personally I would never limit myself to brass lure bodies or just using the lure body mold.

I use both depending on what I'm trying to make. I do like the lure body mold and use it. For some spinners such as a rooster tail that is what they call for. But I also keep a few brass bodies on hand when I want a more traditional Meps style presentation. You don't have to limit yourself to one or the other. There are also some other do-it molds that make good lure bodies as well. The worm rig sinker mold makes a body very similar to a Panther Martin body. You can get in in sizes up to 5/8 oz.

I would guess the best way to do a crab replica would be in soft plastics. Then just make an appropriate weighted jig that would hook into that.

I don't use Zeiners anymore because of crappy customer service. But if you check their website it says somewhere on there that the listings do not mean the item is in stock. Other companies have figured this issue out but apparently not Zeiners. I feel your pain pieterbez. There's a couple molds I'm thinking of buying if they ever get them back in stock. But checking every vendor each week gets old. Good luck on your mold hunt.