quickdraw

Solarez is brittle. I have found that using multiple coats and letting it bake in the sun for several hours makes it much tougher. It will set in a few minutes but it seems it needs longer to fully cure. I do like it for doing touch-up and repair work.

System Three SB-112

I just started using water transfer decals also for everything from detail pieces to entire skins as shown by Larry Dahlberg in his videos. Looks good and works great.

I don't worry much about those small holes. After it gets several coats of paint and a clearcoat you will never even know that they were there.

The holes will work great. I almost bet that just the consistency of the resin will go through the holes but the resin does even swell a bit as it cures so it will grab the holes.

Yes it will be very solid and strong cast in place like that. One of Larry Dahlberg's new videos even shows him casting the lip into the poured resin. You could even rough-up the lip material that will be inside of the poured material if you wanted.

I use a medium body Super Glue on my screw eyes and a basic 2 part epoxy on my lips. http://www.supergluecorp.com/zap/zap-glues/zap-gap

My shapes are fairly simple. I only use a lathe, belt sander and band saw for most of my shaping and both Basswood and WRC are very easy to work with. The Basswood is a bit harder but finishes smoother with it's tighter grain. Once the WRC is sealed with Solarez though it can be sanded very smooth and makes a good base for paint.

or you just mix your own color into the Alumisol and pour one. If it isn't hard enough you melt it back down again with a little more hardener and pour again. You can do this over and over again every 10 minutes till you find what you want. Write down the mix and you are good to go. Custom color and hardness out of your own microwave oven.

You could go either way with an 8" bait but I would probably go with the .092. I use .125 brass rod for my hinge pins which fits right through the .092 screw eyes. On some of my bigger baits I have even used bigger hardware style screw eyes and the brass rod still works well.

I make my tails out of Alumilite Alumisol soft plastic. The have several dies to make about any color you could want and you can add hardener to the mix to stiffen the rubber how ever much you would want. http://www.makelure.com/products.cfm

I use .092 on 9-13" swimbaits built for large stripers and have never had a failure. On my baits 7" and under I use .072. My line tie is usually a 2" but the inline hardware for joints is 1 1/2". Hook hangers are 1". I also use a super glue when I set the screws. On your line tie and inline eyes you can drill your pilot hole slightly off of the horizontal axis so you don't have a direct straight pull on the eye when you have a fish on. It will still track straight when being trolled or retrieved.

I put some Acetone in a small jar so I can reuse it for awhile and it cleans my acid brushes just fine.

Not over a sharpie but I have marked on the Solarez with a Sharpie and that holds up pretty well. You could try to heat-set the sharpie first before coating or a quick coat of some other clear before the Solarez.

There are UV's present even on a cloudy day, just not as strong. Look-up you local weather on the net and you can probably find your UV index. Where I live we have 362 days of sunshine a year and most of the time the UV index is 9 or 10 so I don't worry about finding a good source of UV's.