I am wanting to start my own Bass Jig company. But the main concern that I have is, would it be legal to buy the jigs already made by a company and just add the weed guard, paint, and skirts myself and consider them as my own design?

You could do that but you'll have to sell them for $8.00 each to make any profit. In order to curb the cost of doing it like that you would have to go a place like Cast Industries or Hook Solutions and have them make them for you. That will cost you around $300 to have a mold made, and then it will cost around 30 to 45 cents per head depending on the hook you want in it. If you plan on having say 3 sizes of jigs well that will be $900 in molds that will need to be made. Buying jigs from BOSS or some other places that are raw without paint and a weed guard is going to cost at least $1.50 to $2.00 per head and then you have to figure 2 to 3 skirt tabs per jig which will run 40 to 60 cents, the weed guard and paint about 4 cents not to mention shipping and you are close to $3.00 per jig before you even start selling them. Then you have to working in FET tax, state and Federal income tax, sales tax depending on your state and now you are over the $3.00 per jig price and that is the break even price. If you want to charge $4.00 or more you'll have to have a premium hook and then you are talking even more per cost of the pre-fab jig head. So yeah, you could do by pre-made jigs and add your own skirt, paint, and weed guard but it won't be cost effective in a way that will allow you to make anything beyond breaking even unless you do like I mentioned and that is having molds made and casts for you but the upfront cost will take awhile to recoup.

Thanks for the info @smalljaw67! 

If you don't have a high quality vice you will need one of those ass well doing big quantity, that's another $300 expense. I got a PEAK Jurassic vice in February. LOVE IT!!!

8 hours ago, Mosster47 said:

If you don't have a high quality vice you will need one of those ass well doing big quantity, that's another $300 expense. I got a PEAK Jurassic vice in February. LOVE IT!!!

Haha! You said...

On May 3, 2018 at 10:14 AM, ICCFishing said:

I am wanting to start my own Bass Jig company. But the main concern that I have is, would it be legal to buy the jigs already made by a company and just add the weed guard, paint, and skirts myself and consider them as my own design?

You could buy a Do-It mold that has a jig head design you like, buy bulk premium hooks, lead, weed gaurds, make up a paint bed, buy skirt materials, jig vice etc and try to sell your jigs. If you have a jig head design in mind you can have a custom mold made. 

Good luck!

Tom

Not to be a jerk, but what will make someone buy your jigs?  What will make them different:  price, quality, innovation, convenience, or what?  How do you plan to market yhem?  Just some thoughts.