Vodkaman

They both look great. I knew snakes were good for something. Maybe I should pay a visit to the snake restaurant, a few miles away. Dave

Chris, BigM is correct, should seal the wood before painting. This serves three purposes: 1. It adds another seal against water ingress should the top coat get pierced. This is especially true with soft balsa. It will allow you to keep fishing the lure without it becomming water logged. 2. If you seal with a thinned epoxy, it will add strength and hardness to the balsa, again resisting tooth penetration. 3. after the seal coat, a light sanding with 400 grit paper will remove any raised grain. This will give you a vastly improved paint finish with no visible wood grain. Hand painting is very difficult. Do a google on painting with sponges. Their is lots you can do with paint without having to shell out for an airbrush. Rattle can paints are good too. You have mad a good start, keep it up. Dave

Tom and Cbooms, both methods are valid. I prefer pouring over the master, purely because the bubbles rise away from the master. I pour enough PoP to just cover, then go around the master(s) quickly with a soft brush, to release all the trapped air. I then pour the remaining plaster in a corner. Some tap the box to release any remaining bubbles. Instead, I apply a low vacuum from a shop vac, it works great for PoP. Dave

As far as I know, all the clear coatings commonly used are roughly all the same density, around 1.2gm/cm3 (fresh water = 1.00). So if you add 1.2 grams of D2T to your bait, you are adding 0.2 grams of ballast. The difference between the various coatings is largely down to the coating thickness. Devcon is much thicker than most of the others, so will seem to have more effect on the buoyancy of your lure. When I messed around with neutral buoyancy, I found that 1/200th of the lure weight made the difference between a floater and a very slow sinker. This is a very fine tolerance to control. You may find that down sizing one of your hooks would get your buoyancy back. This may not be desirable, depends what is important to you. You probably work in ounces, sorry about that. 1 ounce = 28.35 grams. Dave

Pregnant dog! Did I type that? Why are we even talking about a rival site? This should be disallowed in the rules. This thread should be deleted. Is this some kind of subsidiary to TU? All I see here is references back to TU, this is so wrong. What is the point of this site, if every time a difficult question arises, you just refer members to TU. This site has quality members, more than capable af answering any questions that arise. Step up and do some work, I say. By all means, shoot me down if I am wrong. Opinions please. Dave

Seems all the sites are working again now, except one. I'll let you guess which one is not working. I'll give you a clue, the one where no one moderates. I know, what a *****. Dave

Well there's another member lost! True, TU is a good site, but what is this forum for, if not to answer questions like the above? To start off the answers: Createx is a good paint. It works for airbrushing and is water soluble for easy clean-up. Originally designed for Tee shirt painting, it has to be heat set, to 'fix' the paint, air drying is not enough. This is easily achieved by a good blast with a regular hair dryer. Createx is classed as non-toxic, but still, if you are spraying indoors, a spray boothe with an extractor fan, pulling through a filter is reccommended. It won't poison you, but it will build up in your lungs. Here is a link to the createx web site: ??? well I tried, but aparently I need to post ten times before I am allowed to do anything helpful, like post links. Try createxcolors.com for a more detailed read and to see the colors available. Some prefer other types of paints, like lacquers. But these solvent based paints require some heavy duty precautions. You do not want to be breathing in solvents. Epoxy is a good top coat, but not all epoxy's are equal. A lot of experienced builders use devcon 2 ton. This is a 30 minute epoxy (supposedly) and gives you more working time. The lure has to be turned regularly after application, to allow the epoxy to level evenly. Cures in 24 hours, but takes longer to fully harden. Some prefer etex (envirotex), this too is an epoxy, with a thinner consistency. Dick nites lure coat is a moisture cure polurethane. Designed for dipping lures. It has to be stored correctly to prevent curing in the can. Any moisture and the stuff goes off. Some use bloxygen, a heavy argon gas spray, a quick spurt before closing the lid. A lot of experienced builders love this stuff. The auto industry has some favoured top coats too. I use propionate dip. It, like all the other top coats, has problems. The perfect top coat does not exist. I have only scratched the surface here. It is upto members to comment in more detail on what they use, pending more questions from Jacob of course. Dave

Did you lay some thread down, before adding the hair? This would help grip the hair from above and below. Thet look great to me. Dave