SENKOSAM

Very little time is needed to separate a 2-part mold and coat the cavity and surface once the plaster dries. I would look for a wallboard sealer instead of ModPodge because after a while MP separates and has to be recoated. Make sure the pour hole is enlarged with a knife for ease of pouring. Plaster doesn't hurt plastics and sometimes I rub worm oil over them for a easier release from the mold. It pays to use a small brush and spread some kind of oil into the cavity before pouring, which serves as mold-release and to give the new bait a glassy surface. (A must with silicone molds!) Hardener is a waste of money, softener goes a long way (good for finesee worms) and heat stabilizer is sometime needed when high temps are needed.

...or better anglers!

Excellent workmanship!! Bet they catch fish! What wood are you using?

http://www.bobstackleshack.com/

The one at the bottom looks okay cast from a plaster mold, but a 2-part aluminum mold would be perfect. The design is the best jerk bait I've ever used and has caught many bass and pickerel this season.

Exactly! What Bob and Del can't get out in a timely manner, you might be able to. If you're serious, I could send some one sided mold designs (mostly grubs and flukes) to see if it's possible. http://zipperworm.blogspot.com/

If the price is right and the quality good, that only leaves service. Bob has always provided good service, not so for Del. I have some custom designs that you may sell on your web page to anyone, after I buy them from you. Plaster is okay, but not near the quality of metal. (Anyone know what happened to Tackleunderground.com?)

Go to the top of the page and open Fishing Articles dropdown. Go to Fishing Equipment and Tips and then down to plastic worms making articles. This forum also has many past posts on worm making. Tackleunderground.com has been down more than up, so you might not get info from that source.

http://www.colorite-glowmaster.com/index.html Cheaper than Spike-It, but service sucks. I've used their products for 5 years and they've lasted to the present. Supposedly you can dilute colorites product with acetone (which is what their clear solution is, so don't waste your money). They have a great color selection. I use pipe cleaners to dab on color and make laminates, which saves color rather than dipping the whole lure. Re-use the pipe cleaners of the same color.

Dye comes in unscented also. Other than Spike-It (best service), I use Colorite (average service) which is cheaper, but comes in more colors. Spike-It has better Chunk Paint for dots and stripes that won't bleed into the plastic. Colorite's paint is average, though I do like the pearl, silver and gold solid coats.

Save your money - buy plaster from Home Depot for $7/20 lbs. (also DAP). Practice makes perfect and timing is less crucial with a thinner plaster, but also takes longer to harden. Legs, paddles, and other thin tails only need to be in one half. When you overpour the thin parts, shape them with scissors after the plastic cools and pour them seperately from the body.

Add more salt or more hardener - both add firmness to plastic. BTW - Del's 4" T-sticks are great for smallies and lm. (Ignore the name in the picture. I've decided that the T stands for taper.) Senko copies are better for wacky rigging; T sticks are better for jerk worming.

Home Depot or Lowe's sells Valspar and it lasts much longer than Mod Podge. It comes in a paint can and is water soluble (for cleaning paint brushes and thinning). It gives a nice hard glossy finish that lasts for a year. The other surface finish some have used is 2-part Devcon epoxy, which lasts forever, but which is harder to use.

The T-Sticks have a nice tail taper and work great in 4 and 5". I like them for smallies and L as jerkworms. They also excel with split shotting. As long as no salt is used, they have a much slower fall and stand up at a 45 degree angle to the bottom. For wacky rig, the Senko style is best.

http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/pouring_plastic_worms_supplies.html The link to making your own molds is included in the tutorial. Bass Resource is the source! I'm surprised that more people don't know of the tons of articles related to fishing on this site. For jig, spinnerbait and treble hook tying, you need: A good vice (about $22 from Cabela's) A strong thread A spool holder (also from Cabela's) hair, feather or acrylic ( ") for skirt or dressings living rubber or silicone skirt material (livingrubber.com) super glue or a hot glue gun to secure the wrap Powder paint for a hard finish on jig heads Get started and you'll never stop!

www.livingrubber.com has been a good source for silicone and rubber skirt material. I sold off about 100 yards of rubber skirt material in 10 colors and the jig maker was happy to get the supply since rubber is hard to get in a square cut. Rubber deteriorates and needs to be retied every 2 years or so, but silicone doesn't have the action that rubber does. Silicone is great for colors and patterns, though I'm not sure the fish care that much. Last year I tied the following combos with rubber and caught fish all season: black, purple and kelly green; black, green and brown; all black; black, blue and lt blue. Flashabou is great for irridescent hair and Cabelas, Jannes Netcraft, Stamina, and others sell it on their sites. Great for making flash jigs. Marabou is nice, as is deer hair. It comes down to how much flutter you think you need in a hair jig. Buck tail has done fine for me, especially if I add a bit of flashabou. Some people use rabbit hair, which I equate with the fineness of feathers and rarely use feathers except as an attractor to the rear hook of a popper.

Fantastic, but who can afford the price tag? I still use my Wide Eye by Humminbird and it is adequate for sidescanning up to 100'. Total cost - about 250 bucks with optional side scan transducer.

Nice quality! Keep going with other designs.

Also to follow what cedar said, don't ever put garlic salt into hot plastic. If you don't puke the first time, you will after five minutes. If there's anything that will deter the bite (and tick off your wife), it's burned garlic! :-[

The above is a two pour laminate using clear plastic and florescent glitter colors. The coachdog pattern was applied with Spike It soft plastic paint (bottom picture). I laid one mold down flat, poured one color near half full and the put the mold upright after the half cooled. I heated up the second plastic to 325 degrees (285 won't work) and carefully poured the second half through the pour hole. Guys on tackleunderground.com have a gallery full of laminated baits and all of the favorites: red shad, tequilla sunrise, blue shad, copper head, frog and bass. It takes a little practice, but timing is not a big part of making laminates. Heck, if I get a bubble in a stick, I cut the plastic down to the stick, place the bait back into the mold and pour it to the top. Looks like it was poured for the first time! Also, tell me how the two part Lurecraft molds are. I'm very interested in saving some money on a stick mold because when I make 50 at a time for customers, it's a pain to have to wait for the baits to cool before the next pour. I can't see buying another metal mold for $118.

Always pour tails and appendages first and make sure the attachments are thick enough to avoid being too fragile. To avoid bubbles, make sure the plastic isn't too hot because moisture in the cavity will be just enough to cause sudsing, the bane of hot plastic. People also pour certain lures in two steps, especially to produce laminates. There is no problem of the second pour not permenantly atttaching itself to the first layer.

Bass don't care about pretty. They strike because of profile, color (at times) and action. That bait is probably beautiful to a bass or pick. Nice job.

Most salt is too coarse (even Del's) and you need to grind salt to a flour. (See the picture in the article on this site.) I sell a clear glitter in .015 that is used in conjuction with floured salt, which helps keep salt suspended in plastic and which adds weight. It's called sugar. I've taken Senkos, cut them in half and felt the texture of the plastic/salt mix. I'm just about certain that GY is using the same type of glitter to do the same thing. The texure is very close. Sugar also allows more light to pass through salted plastic ;most Senko colors are completely opaque. I also use sugar in place of expensive white pearl powder to give the plastic the appearence of white skim milk. (Yamamoto color - cream white) Dynamite sub for pearl or opaque white. The finer the salt, the easier it is to pour without settling. Of course stirring and zapping in the microwave is always necessary after the 3rd poured cavity, if the plastic starts to cool.

Thin tails or paddles are accomplished with hot plastic, but not too hot to avoid changing the color of the pastisol (yellowing) or adversely affect glitter (curling or bleed). A good temp is around 280-300 which can be tested with a candy thermometer or with a metal butter knife. Take the metal knife that you stir the plastic with and pull it out of the hot plastic. If it runs from the knife like thin syrup, it's thin enough to fill in the cavities. (If the plastic is smoking and smells strong, it's much too hot.) For curly tails, start at the pointed tip and pour towards the body, tilting the mold to allow gravity to quicky move the plastic into the largest cavity. The cavity of the tail should be shallow and overpouring is not a problem if you use scissors to cut the excess off. To get a curl tail that doesn't collapse upon itself, yet has good action, you might need more hardener or better yet, use M-F saltwater plastic. No one says you can't pour the tail with harder plastic and then the body with regular-soft plastic. Again, thin hot plastic, pour tail-first using gravity to thin the plastic and a shallow cavity for tail or appendage. Note the the shallow tail cavities on these plaster molds: