re: making molds for making plastic baits, what are the best products?

Remelting your plastics is ok. Remelting zoom’s may end up like frozen shrimp dropped in a fryer. Melted plastic splattered on bare skin sucks.

I enjoy making my own stuff when I can. Make my own in-line spinner baits and chatter baits and am very proud of the fish I catch on them.

But part of it is that I can make one of those for about $1.00 instead of the $5.00 or more they cost at the store, and mine have better components.

Making my own soft plastics has no appeal to me effort-wise, as I only use like 2 colors. And economically, how many do you need to make for it be cost effective?

That's just me though.

This was part of a shipment going to England.

Mass produced baits use cheaper plastic that have additives. They tend to pop and bubble while cooking. Plus, the bait will absorb water when using them. Adding water to hot plastic is like adding water to hot grease. Look around on tackleundeground and you will see it is not recommended.

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Janky

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thanks for the tip

i dont think i will be messing with and zoom because all i do is salt water so cocahoe minnows is all i can see myself messing with but i will try to remember this

sounds like fun/horror to find this out by accident

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making baits is fun as hell and very rewarding...if you actually catch something with them

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my damn cousin caught a 32" red yesterday and this comment makes me think of that

he got snagged on an oyster so i was bringing the boat over for him to get it off and when the boat hull with running trolling motor kicking up mud was literally 2ft away from the oyster clump in just 12" of water, this big damn red came swim right between the boat and oyster clump, did a quick turn and snagged it right off the oysters and took off with it.

he just decided that a bait, that was stuck and not moving, sitting lifeless on an oyster, he was going to eat that bait no matter what, and to hell with that boat hull with trolling motor boiling up mud getting in his way


that red fought him for about a good 5 minutes and snapped his pole in half but we still managed to get him netted. first thing out of his mouth was he needs to buy more black with chartreuse tails. i told him use the black with whit tails he had but he felt it mattered that much that he had to go get more. maybe hes right, maybe not ? i think white and chartreuse colors (it was a solid chartreuse not the translucent kind) look the same to fish but then maybe they dont?

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Janky

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i see how they do the top and bottoms different colors with the dual color pour setups, but how do you make the different colored tails?

the molds seem to be designed to pour in one direction only, so how do you pour different color tails?

do you cut the tails off and leave in mold? but then how can you pour the main color when the tail is blocking it so the air cant escape to let the new pour flow?

what am i missing? does it require a different kind of mold that you can fill from both ends?

We made spinner baits in my Industrial Arts Class (Kenilworth, Mr. Juneau), that were rather effective. We even made the molds we used using a Dremel Tool. I still have two of them as keepsakes.

what im really not understanding is how to get it to stick together with such a tiny contact point like the paddle of a paddle tail bait when they arent poured at the same time. does new poured plastic bond that well to existing plastic?

im really interested to see what your mold looked like if you have a pic of that. was it something you pour from each end and have reliefs drilled to let the air out? im not understanding the process of making different colored tails obviously

It was just a bunch of tails lined up in a two piece mold. I would pour the plastic in and it would harden. Take them out and cut to length. Then I would stick them in the swimbait mold, close then pour hot plastic. The hot plastic will adhere to the cold tail just fine. I did it with trick worms too.