starting out pouring lead free jigs

["hamma"]

I thought I asked this here before, so i did a search but found no results so here goes,...

 

 With the advent of my states lead ban, and being a avid bass angler, I am stuck fishing without the varied and multiple jig styles I need, or risk negative ranger involvement,...lol

  I fish bass jigs,in different weights, flipping, skipping, casting, and swimming. Jigheads that will vary in weight, round ball, darter, football, standup, and swimbait, as well as underspins.

 

 Now, Ive never even poured lead, but I have researched some. I will use the right safety gear, goggles or face mask, heavy gloves, long sleeved heavy shirt, denim jeans and boots, maybe even a welders apron if I can get one. Proper ventilation via fans in the windows of my shed, and a heavy bench top,...no water present, and careful steady hands.

 I searched robometals for a viable tin/bismuth, but  found none that I can powder coat (correctly anyways), so im thinking of going with a pewter.

 My questions,...is there something saftey wise im missing? Is pewter a viable alternative? and will it act like lead, or differently?,. do you know of a better way? and does pewter weigh comparably?..then of course there will be questions reguarding certain molds which I will ask later as to not ask to much at once.

 Please feel free to reply with whatever your thoughts may be

[Tim Kelly]

I would think you could powder coat any metal just about, you just need to heat it enough for the powder coat to melt onto it. Other than mercury, most metals should be fine with that?

["hamma"]

Thanks for the reply Tim.,...I have some powder coating, and painted up some lead jigs (before the ban) the powder coating needs a curing after application which is done by placing the jig in a small toaster oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or so. The time Im not sure on anymore because it was a while ago I did the powdercoating. But,,.....tin/bismuth alloys melt at 290 degrees, not allowing a curing, so the coating is now compromised and brittle, almost falling off the jig.

 I tried a lower temp at a longer time,with a store bought tin jig., and the results still ended up being an inferior coating, brittle, and falling off by touch alone.

[Tim Kelly]

Fair enough.  I had no idea the melting point would be so low. I expect lead bans are going to see the end of home pouring as there isn't much choice of metals that melt low enough and are dense enough for people to be able to do at home. 

[smalljaw67]

Find Cadman, he does lead free and he may be able to help. I have done Tin/Bismuth alloy and you are correct, powder can be applied but it never really adheres to the head because it can't get hot enough for the paint to bind so even cured at 270 for an hour doesn't lead to a good hard finish. The only reason I used it was to make larger profile jigs with a lighter weight for a slower fall, I wanted the bulk of the larger jig but the fall of a smaller jig. I also discovered you need to use a mold release like Drop Out when using tin alloys as that doesn't shrink when it cools, I learned it the hard way by having to melt my first pour out of the mold. I have only made a handful of jigs with it and I don't intend to use it again for a long time, if ever, it isn't user friendly to work with and in order to paint it I had to use vinyl paint, and I almost quit tackle making because the fumes from vinyl paint, even outside, were giving me headaches and powder coating was the perfect solution.

["hamma"]

Thanks Smalljaw67,..I bought a pack of 4 or 5 tin jigs and experimented with them, the powdercoat failed miserably the first two I did, the second attempt I manipulated, I squashed the sides a bit with needlenosed pliers for a eye socket from the topside, then heated it up real hot, and dipped in a yellow/orange mix, as a base, and tapped some dark green kinda hard from the top, then a light tap of black on the top, and let cool, then in the oven at around 250 for a half hour, then I let cool again and added some stick on eyes, and coated the whole thing with 3 coats of "tough as nails" nail polish. This "seemed" to work and looked great as a perch patterned 4" slugo fin-s-fish jighead,..it lasted just about a day as the smaller bass were nailing it,.. near the end of the day a whole side was gone.

 I used some vinyl a long time ago on some crippled herrings, and gave it up for the same reason you did, the headaches were brutal. I will get some drop out to have handy when I finally do go get the equiptment Im planning to start with , Im thinking a lee's hot pot 11, a roundhead mold that has the screwlock bait keepers, and maybe a arky weedless as well to start. Hopefully they will receive the eagle claw lil nasty hooks as the thread I read about them seemed to depict a decent hook for pouring. 

 

 Thanks again, I will seek cadman out well before I start getting my gear

[fishwizzard]

Could you use tungsten powder with some kind of expoy binder?  You would still have the issue with bake-on paints, but maybe there is an epoxy that can take the heat? 

[IndianaFinesse]

Those lead bans would really be annoying and expensive, with the price of store bought tungsten so high, and how hard it is to pour without lead.  Purely out of curiosity, of course, is there anyway for them to enforce lead bans?

["hamma"]

On 1/6/2017 at 11:53 AM, Bunnielab said:

Could you use tungsten powder with some kind of expoy binder?  You would still have the issue with bake-on paints, but maybe there is an epoxy that can take the heat? 

 I thought of that as I found a topic about it on another site. I did negate it as Im not sure how the mix will react in different molds

 

On 1/6/2017 at 1:12 PM, IndianaFinesse said:

Those lead bans would really be annoying and expensive, with the price of store bought tungsten so high, and how hard it is to pour without lead.  Purely out of curiosity, of course, is there anyway for them to enforce lead bans?

 I was told by some shore fishing trout anglers that they were checked by a ranger. They had to reel in their lines and the weights were inspected, how im not sure, but they were checked.