walleye warrior Posted February 11, 2016 Report Share Posted February 11, 2016 Has anyone attempted powder coating anything tungsten? Just wondering if it adhered the same as lead. Or any differances? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
School Master Posted February 11, 2016 Report Share Posted February 11, 2016 I'm hoping it does because I just powdered 10 tungsten flipping weights. On the surface it appears to be the same durability as lead. But I really don't know until the ice melts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasilofchrisn Posted February 11, 2016 Report Share Posted February 11, 2016 I think it depends on what you are attempting to powder coat. A solid tungsten weight should coat and cure fine. If it is a jig then be sure it has the hook soldered in and not epoxied into the hook slot. I have seen pics of powder painted Tungsten jigs with soldered hooks that turned out great! Just watch your temps as the solder melts at a much lower temp than lead. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEEMAN Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 I got my hands on some unpainted 4 MM Tungsten jigs for icefishing a few weeks ago. I've only ever powder painted lead jigs and blade baits before and was wondering if I could powder paint tungsten heads or not. Since this was an experiment I only tried to paint 5 jigs. Three in a two tone color scheme and one in a three tone color scheme and one that failed before I could dip it. I cured them in a toaster oven set at 325 for 20 mins. I used a torch set on low to heat the heads. I just can't get used to using a heat gun. Anyhow, As Kasilofchirsn said, you need to what the heating time. It only takes a split second too long applying heat and the solder that binds the hook to the head will go poof ! I had that happen on one head but was able to glue the hook back into place with a dab of Clear Cure Goo. I'll paint that one with Acrylic paint sometime down the road and see how that goes. The four jigs I baked/cured ( after painting ) came out fine. I was wondering if the bake time might cause the solder to melt causing the hooks to separate from the heads but they didn't. One thing I did notice was one of the hooks broke as I tried pulling it out of my glove while fishing. Don't ask. LOL It broke rather easily which had me concerned. I was wondering if that was the result of a cheap hook or something else. After thinking about it and where the hook broke, I am thinking that the heating process may have changed the temper in the fine wire hook and made it brittle ? Dunno.I've had these jigs out 4 times now and caught a pile of gills, a few crappies and a few bass with them and aside from the one broken hook , I have had zero issues with the other jigs I have fished. I am guessing if a guy wanted to paint bigger Tungsten jigs that there shouldn't be any issues with brittle hooks due to the hooks being made with a heavier gauge wire. I am also uessing there should be no issues with powder painting Tungsten weights. Bottom line is that I am fairly happy with my results and will probably try to powder paint some more heads soon. I would also like to try some other paints and see how that goes. I like powder paint and all but it may not be the best option for these little jigs. I don't know jack about other types of paint save I hate vinyl paint so I'm going to try some acrylic paint too and see how that goes. I'm not too sure what to use to clear coat the acrylic jigs though so I am open to suggestions. Hope this helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 Have you tried painting them with nail polish? It will outlast the jig, if you put a layer of clear polish over the colored polish. You can add soft plastic flake to the clear polish to add a second color, or use a clear with glitter already in it. The clear polish is a much harder polish than the color. That's why it's put over colors on fingernails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEEMAN Posted February 28, 2016 Report Share Posted February 28, 2016 I have used fingernail polish on my walleye sized jigs but I fish them in a lot of rocky areas and the polish never holds up for very long. I use S H Hard as nails to seal my stick on eyes (when I use them ) but that too doesn't seem to last too long. That being said, the cool thing with nail polish is you can get some wicked cool colors though. I have a few different colors of nail polish that I can try. I'll have to paint a few tungsten ice jigs with them and see how it fares. Too bad the ice season is almost done = I'm running out of time to give this stuff a good test run. Re: powder paint The candy and silver hologram paints turned out some really nice looking jigs on the few small tungsten jigs I painted up. The one jig I used regular color powder paint didn't turn out near as nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliClark Posted February 23, 2022 Report Share Posted February 23, 2022 yes i tried powder painting my own tungsten jigs and it worked great just be carefull when heating them up for the solder used for the hooks might melt other that that i 1000 present recomend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basskat Posted February 24, 2022 Report Share Posted February 24, 2022 I know you can't do this to a jig but if you have bright shiny tungsten weights, heat until red hot, drop in cold water and you have black weights that never wears off. (They can't have a plastic insert either) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
