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BobP last won the day on January 7

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About BobP

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  • Location
    Summerfield, N.C.
  • Interests
    Bass fishing, lure making, tackle, boats

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  1. I assume it is the Solarez Dual Cure Gloss resin. It’s pretty cheap but has one drawback that some guys, including me, don’t like. Namely, it has small wax flakes in it whose function is to rise to the surface of the coating and “suffocate” the curing process so the finish will develop a hard surface. That can leave a light white flush on the topcoat which is more or less visible depending on the color of the paint under it. If you want a resin without this drawback, Alumi-UV or some other “doming uv resins” are available at considerably higher prices.
  2. Propionate works well if you can find some beads (difficult) and it’s not without its downside. You need to dissolve it in acetone to make a thin solution and then dip your lures multiple times. I used 5-6 dips with 15-30 min drying time between dips. So, you see it’s not a very quick process. I haven’t heard of any prop seller in several years. There are various products used to undercoat balsa cranks. It doesn’t necessarily matter which you choose but I like a coating that 1) reinforces the soft balsa and 2) waterproofs the wood. Since I often topcoat balsa lures with epoxy, it’s convenient to also use the same epoxy as the undercoating. Besides being tough and waterproof, epoxy is also chemically inert after it cures so it won’t interact with solvent based coatings, if you use any. Some guys like to smooth a coat of thin superglue on balsa before undercoating to harden the lure. I lightly sand the epoxy after its cured to promote paint adhesion.
  3. Solarez works well as a sealer but IMO, it’s not an attractive topcoat due to the wax flakes it contains. If you want a uv polyester that cures clear, I recommend you try Alumi-UV. More expensive than Solarez but it cures clear and hard. Either of the alternatives, uv poly or MCU works fine. In general the uv poly makes a thicker coating but both are tough topcoats.
  4. I haven’t used it on tannin stains but soaking stuff in Oxyclean bleaches Out many stains well. There’s no need to remove stains from most crankbaits you intend to repaint since the first repaint step is usually to shoot a base cover coat of white or black, except where you want a see-through translucent paint scheme.
  5. Most answers to this will be guesstimates, but I think MCU is stronger than epoxy if you compare equal coating thicknesses. The problem is epoxy is typically applied in a thicker coating than MCU. I build a crankbait used for trolling for lake stripers. Devcon lasts longer on them than a single coat of Dick Nite MCU because it is much thicker and takes longer for trebles to wear through to the underlying wood. But I’m confident that an equally thick (multiple) coat of MCU would be tougher and last longer. I just don’t want the hassle of multiple MCU coats. You pay your money and take your chances. If durability and dipping (I.e., ease and speed) are more important than cost, you might consider a uv cured polyester like Alumi-UV. It is thick, very tough, and ready to fish in a few minutes.
  6. I have no idea what solvent your topcoat contains that caused running. Dipping puts the maximum amount of a finish on a lure and causes the maximum runoff, which is the worst case for color running. You can probably eliminate it by shooting a coat of acrylic clear as a last painting step to act as a barrier, or by using a lure turner to minimize the amount of topcoat movement after application. Another concern I have is using a water based topcoat. I’ve never heard of or tried one that held up to sustained immersion, so good luck with it but I have my doubts. Fastest, most trouble free topcoat for me is flood coating a lure quickly (with a brush) with a moisture cured urethane that is dispensed from its can by the “tap the can storage method”.
  7. Nobody can know unless they try it. But I’m skeptical. Enamel doesn’t play well with solvent based topcoats. It also doesn’t dry as quickly as many other coatings. I just don’t see the advantage.
  8. I’m sure there are different kinds of foam. The Suddeth foam was rock hard, unlike insulating foam.
  9. I think it will work but needs a lot of experimentation. There was a bait company in Georgia, Suddeth, which sold expanded foam baits. They were unique designs that caught bass well. You could order a bait and specify whether you wanted it to float or suspend. I wanted to repaint one and sanded it down, which was a mistake because it exposed many open foam bubbles that were hard to refill. Suddeth went out of business years ago.
  10. There’s nothing wrong with the epoxy, per se. Teeth penetrated the epoxy, allowing water penetration, which caused the wood to swell, which pushed the epoxy off the wood. Remedy: a thicker epoxy coating.
  11. BobP

    Trebel hooks

    Take a look at Amazon.com. They have a wide variety of trebles, including bulk packaging for some models.
  12. Neither a scroll or band saw make much noise. I use a scroll saw ‘cause that’s what I own but most guys would prefer a band saw. For balsa, either is about as fast. For basswood, the band saw is much faster. The scroll can cut exact curvatures better. A lot of power tools can work fine in an apartment setting BUT sawdust and finish fume control can be more difficult.
  13. I use a car polisher fitted with a rubber disk and stick-on sandpaper to size the width of lure blanks and do initial tapering. Not as steady as a bench sander but I can do the sanding outside the garage and avoid getting the dust everywhere.
  14. Yeah, uv polyester resins require specific uv wavelengths to cure. Maybe your light isn’t the right range. As an alternative, you can put them outside for 10-15 mins and sunlight will do the trick, even on a cloudy day.
  15. Putting a properly measure red and mixed layer of epoxy over one that didn’t cure properly will cure the bad epoxy and fix the problem.
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