Help pouring swimbaits and jigheads.

What is involved in making your own swimbait molds?

Stealing other peoples swimbait design.... 

But seriously, you make a hard plastic mold of a body you want to make.  They sell the material to make molds at those web sites that have been listed already.

It is pretty simple.  Maybe some of the luremakers here can make a photo essay of the process.

MolBasser

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/bb/index.php?topic=1808.0

This would be a GREAT activity to do at Elk, or some other time we are all together.

Bill- I have a couple more questions.  How much liquid plastic will I need to get started pouring some 7" swimbaits and some large scampis?  Will a gallon go a long ways?
Have you ever tried making a mold out of plaster like this guy? http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5393
It looks like a cheap and easy way to make a mold.

Plaster is good for prototyping and small runs, but once you get your lure finalized, hard resin is the way to go.

It is just a matter of durability.

MolBasser

You can get a lot of baits out of a gallon. With 6 oz of plastic I can get 5 7" swimbaits.

I prototype lures using Durhams Water Putty. It is cheap and easy to use. I really will try to get some pictures of the process this weekend. It is hard to explain in words but should be easy with a few pics.

Once I get the prototype done and I really like the bait I make final molds in RTV silicon. It is pretty expensive but it makes great molds and is nice and flexible and easy to demold.

I just performed some rough estimations to figure out cost to make each bait.

1 Gallon of plastic.-26.35
4oz Glitter-12.00
1 Gallon RTV for molds-25.00
4 2oz liquid color-16.00

Total 79.35
Plus 20.00 unexpected other costs.
$100.00

1 Gallon of liquid plastic will yield about 106 7-inch swimbaits.

About $1.00 per bait.

Is the RTV silicone that is used to make molds the same stuff as automotive grade RTV?  I might be able to get bulk RTV silicone through work pretty cheap.

 Just a quck note. My son Ty and his friend go shooting a couple times a week and are always working on guns and handeling bullets (bullets aways in their pockets) I kept warning them to not handle the lead. His friend went in for a check up and found he had dangerous levels of lead in his blood. I have to go and have Ty checked out now. Randall

I don't know much about RTV. I get the stuff from Tap Plastics http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=61& If you can get it cheaper please let me know cause it is about $100 a pop 

I will make a video of a durhams mold making process tomorrow if I can.

hey travis, watch out you are a young guy right? Don't blow the reproductive abilities with lead poisoning.

sure, after you have a couple, you are biologically done, you get to do all kinds of things!

but before, take some care, these are our future fisherman we are talking about.

bill do you not do lead because of the toxicity?

J

hey travis, watch out you are a young guy right? Don't blow the reproductive abilities with lead poisoning.

sure, after you have a couple, you are biologically done, you get to do all kinds of things!

but before, take some care, these are our future fisherman we are talking about.

bill do you not do lead because of the toxicity?

J

Yea, I am rethinking the pouring lead heads for now.  More for the cost of doing it than anything. I think if you wear the proper protective equipment, and do it in a well ventelated area you will probably be fine.................................... ....................................probably.    This making your own plastics and leadheads is more expensive than I previously thought.

Indeed..."real" FTs are $1.00.  Doh!

It is expensive to start out, but quickly pays for itself.

1.00 is very high for a swimbait cost.  It is more like 25-50 cents.

The key things about making your own baits:

1. FUN!
2. Completely custumizible (plastic hardness, color, style etc.)
3. Cheaper (not free but cheaper than commercial)

I think 1 and 2 are what make people pour their own baits rather than 3..

MolBasser

Word.