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Bentrod425

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Everything posted by Bentrod425

  1. Pre-heat the molds first. OR pour a bunch of blanks without hooks/pins to heat up the mold before adding your hooks/pins.
  2. I've been using braid with a 6'-8' section of lighter test mono or flouo tied to the end as a "bumper" or leader. This allows for easy cutting and tying on of new terminal tackle and if I get hung up will break before the braid preventing braid from being deposited in our waters. Works well, but depending on type of water/species, full on mono works well.
  3. Diagonal cutters and then a light file to touch up the flat spot.
  4. For my Do-it mold I put it on my melting pot, but for some of my smaller custom molds I picked up a used toaster oven off of my local Buy Nothing FB group. I use that to heat my molds and keep them hot. It also doubles as a curing oven for after powder coating jigs.
  5. They spin because there isn't enough weight to counteract the inertia of the blade. You may try using a heavier spinner body or and offset-weight spinner body that's crimped to the thruwire. There was a spinner made a while back that had a body similar to a rooster tail, but the wire went through it at a slight angle resulting in a 'bottom weighted' style spinner.
  6. Look at gold nail foil transfer. You can adhere it to the jig with most any type of tacky glue or epoxy and then epoxy clear coat over the top. Warning, nail polish or poly acrylic will damage the nail foil finish.
  7. Sorry, not familiar with that one. I'm near Seattle.
  8. I've never had a single hook act as a rudder. Worst case is maybe the single hook isn't as heavy as a treble, so doesn't balance the spinner correctly, but I use a lot of single swiwash hooks on spinners here in the PNW and am rarely disappointed.
  9. Home made or store-bought, a bobbin is a useful tool. I have a cheap one that came with my childhood fly tying kit. It isn't perfect, but works well enough for my imperfect flies and jigs.
  10. I used some from one of those my daughter got...the feathers were definitely not as good quality/condition as the ones I bought from he fly shop, but they did work for some fly tying applications.
  11. Sounds like either too thick of paint or not enough air pressure. These two can be interchangeable. Watch some videos on thinning paint. I like mine about as thick as heavy cream or half and half. Air pressure to the brush will vary between 20-40 psi. Really watered down or thin paints will use less air pressure and thicker syrupy paints will need more. I find I tend to stick to about 30psi these days. I like to thin with a little 90% alcohol and createx thinning solution, but water will do in a pinch.
  12. I recently got into this hobby myself. I got a Master airbrush kit (G233) off Amazon for about $40. I already had a shop air compressor and ended up buying a Master mini-regulator/moisture trap to place inline ($15). I did end up having to go to the hardware store and buy some fittings to get the whole setup the way I wanted, but in the end I have a quick connect from my compressor to the moisture trap/mini-regulator and that is screwed to my workbench and stays connected to my airbrush. I DO recommend having the mini-regulator with air pressure gauge as i feel like it's much more precise than the air pressure gauge/regulator on the compressor itself, but I'm sure it's not absolutely necessary. For paints, you don't HAVE to go buy specialized airbrush paints. You can buy plain water-based acrylic paints and thin with water, alcohol or store-bought thinner. The Createx are nice as they are mostly good to go out of the container, but I've found some variability there too depending on how I want it to spray/laydown. You'll end up changing up air pressure between various paints as well (that's where that mini-regulator comes in handy. I've been extremely happy with my Master airbrush. So far it's performed very well. Also, being inexpensive I don't stress as much about messing it up. P.S.- The $40 G233 kit came with three needle/nozzle sizes (0.2, 0.3, 0.5). The 0.3 was installed and I've yet to swap it out, so you could save some $ and get just the airbrush itself with one needle.
  13. You cannot. They're made with a different substance which does not melt with heat. All you'll get is burned rubber/plastic.
  14. Each have their advantages/disadvantages. POP is rigid and brittle, so, yes, undercuts, complex rigid masters will be difficult to make molds from. POP is cheap and easy to work with and quite a few YouTube tutorials out there. Silicone is flexible and allows you to mold some of those undercuts, etc, but unless you buy the two-part stuff made for mold making, then it can be a bit of a pain to figure out. Either way, it's about having fun and making your own stuff, so hope you get some good results!
  15. Unless you're a real DIY guy, then there will be less frustration with buying a two part silicone and following the directions. The DIY silicone caulk Can be done successfully and has it's place, but you have to be wiling to invest some time and effort into figuring it out. The POP really isn't any different, just cheaper and non-toxic. You can get a tube of silicone at the hardware store for about $5. It doesn't keep well after opening, so plan to use as much as you can. You might be able to get a couple uses out of it if you only go a few days in between. You'll need a caulk gun...guess you don't HAVE to have one. Wear gloves and plan to fail the first try.
  16. Silicon caulk will usually be smooth. This CAN be good for what you're looking to do with a few caveats. There is usually a big trial and error with phase with the silicone caulk/mix that is messy and the price adds up fast. Those fumes are nothing to mess with either, so do it in a well ventilated area and/or use a respirator. You need the 100% silicon caulk as previously stated. There are many ways to mix it. Adding some cornstarch or soap/water will allow it to harden throughout. It will be somewhat flexible, but it is pretty stiff compared to the two part silicon made for molds. I tried to thin it once to make it pourable. It worked, BUT the thinner then evaporated out over time and my mold shrunk considerably, so that is not a great option...and it off gassed for a long time. My most recent success was not thinning. I just added a few drops of food coloring and a bunch of cornstarch until I got a playdough/clay like substance. I then pushed my master into that along with some filler and vent placeholders. Let it set up and then did the same for the second half. The detail was very good. It would have made a good mold for soft plastics of resin lures, but my intention was for a lead jig mold. Unfortunately the cornstarch burned when pouring the lead and the result was pretty much worthless.
  17. Reading this again, if you're asking about MAKING a lure out of POP, not recommended. Heavy and brittle.
  18. Yes. Maybe not fully, but enough. When making a two part mold, I will make one side, then coat the face with Vaseline before pouring the second part. This will help with separation of the two halves. If pouring epoxy or casting resin you'll want some sort of coating/mold release between pours. Those who do soft bait molds from POP also will coat the mold with epoxy or something to help with release/smooth surfaces.
  19. As a mold material? People use POP for making soft bait molds...I'm sure there are YouTube tutorials on it. Warning, there will be some trial and error on getting the stuff to behave the way you want (mold forms, viscosity, bubbles, etc), but the plus side is that it's super cheap. It's not suited for super complex baits, but can be useful when just starting out to get a feel for things.
  20. POP is pourable. You can actually adjust the viscosity to your liking.
  21. You could make a mold out of plaster of Paris (super cheap!), then use that mold to make an epoxy master.
  22. Everything JD_mudbug wrote I'll reflect. There is a lot of trial and error going on to. I started with my air pressure to low....I was thinning paints thinking that was the problem, but then they'd run cuz they were to thin....Found that some paints needed thinning and some paints needed higher air pressure. So, trial and error until you figure out what you like. I also worked on PVC pipe for practice.
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