Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Hi everyone, I just started making plugs with my friend for fun. They are turning out really well and so far we are only having problems with the paint sticking in some spots. We are trying our best to make professional looking lures as we have quite a plug collection of our own from other builders. We love their lures and if we went through them all we probably have some from people on this site, but most of them are my friends so he would know if he had any of your guy's lures. But it is such a shame to lose a lure that you like so we are making some of our own so we can keep all the others and build up a good collection of plugs from builders around the world along with our own. I am an avid fisherman but he is the one with most of the knowledge of lure building so he taught me everything he knew about them in a couple months while I shared my Mechanical Engineering knowledge with him to help us refine the process to make high quality lures for fun. We are quickly getting away from the paint problem problem as it was very minimal but we'd like to be able to fish our plugs more than a few times without worrying about getting them scratched up so we have to get the process down pat. We are getting the problem less and less but it has to do with the paint sticking to the primer. We are using water sealer with shellac B-I-N primer and Createx airbrush paints with a marine epoxy coating. We have thinned out the paint since the problem arose and tried heating the paint to the recommended 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes as recommended by Createx. We might just need to take more time and care between coats of paint possibly to make sure they are all dry but from what I know we are painting the lures properly. We are using a lathe with duplicator and then otherwise it is all simple equipment. We fashioned up some custom fabricated jigs to make the cuts and hole drilling as easy and fast as possible. Using the jigs we were lucky to take around 45 minutes off the process of cutting slots and drilling holes in the lures which helped us out a lot in order to get them done faster so we could fish them sooner. Thanks for reading if you made it to the bottom, I attached a picture of a perch painted lure that we had just finished yesterday. We already caught some good Stripers and Blues on that color style and size (unfortunately we lost the one that caught the fish in the jetty) so we are pretty excited to get out there and test this baby out. I thought it came out pretty good, but you guys know for sure if anything. That's why I came to this forum. Let me know if you have any suggestions about the paint because if we can't get this sorted out we are going to go to Urethane paint, and that is opening up a whole 'nother can of worms. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 this is absolutely pathetic, try making one that looks like a fish..i would throw that one in the trash... PM me your addy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
echopeus Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 yeah what he said ^^^ look at that tail... no hook only feathers... what are ya thinkin.... sigh -- good try though... good try... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 this is absolutely pathetic, try making one that looks like a fish..i would throw that one in the trash... PM me your addy. Haha I was real upset when I read the first line cause I thought the end was your sig, I was like damn is it that bad? But I got it when I reread it, thanks man, I appreciate the sarcasm too, put a smile on my face. But I actually don't know how to PM on this forum yet, I just signed up today and I am also confused as to why my signature is not showing up. Edit: The signature showed up on this post. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 yeah what he said ^^^ look at that tail... no hook only feathers... what are ya thinkin.... sigh -- good try though... good try... Haha, thanks. Yeah we did make some with hooks on the tail but 3 hooks was too much and the rear ones mated and we figured since everyone else pretty much does 2 hooks we might as well do it that way and see if we catch fish with it before we up the hooking power. Because I don't even know if it will swim the same with 3 hooks compared to 2. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shady grady Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 If the fish are telling you they like it, than you have your answer. Good color for freshwater too. The best part of trashing plugs is making more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minivin5 Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Nice start to a madness.... you will lose all sense of reality soon. BTW love the Perch! What you do with your time is more important than the amount of time you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishdoc Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Stick with the 2 hooks, the 3rd is just a hand grabber. I have gone over to siwash for most tail hooks as of late. Mostly just a matter of ease of hook removal from fish as well as myself ! If you're using a dressed tail I think the siwash provides for better plug performance, but that's just my $.02. With no tail dressing trebles or siwash work just fine. here are some dressed hooks that I use, note the bottom is not a VMC siwash. It's a mustad that I think will haul an anchor. Very strong hook but needs to be touched up for sharpness. OH, by-the-way...you can send that perch directly to me for inspection . I find it hard to believe that you just started this addiction...slamin' lookin' plug. Great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 If the fish are telling you they like it, than you have your answer. Good color for freshwater too. Thank you, yeah now that you said that I think I'll put up the picture of the muskie my friend caught with it because I didn't even remember I had the picture of it until you said freshwater. He caught it without me and the fat thing put the lip on the lure out of commission. But he got in the newspaper for it. Haha, well since he's out fishing now and I am doing networking work from home I will post the picture and tell him later. I covered his face for his sake, some of you might know him and I don't know if we are posting pictures of our faces with our fish online yet. But this one is worth it. Nice start to a madness.... you will lose all sense of reality soon. BTW love the Perch! Haha I know, I feel it coming. My friend was telling me once you start building these it's like an addiction to build em and fish em. But thanks on the color input, I also like the color too. The color started from a tiger looking blue base coat torpedo shaped lure that we did silver/white pearl stripes on but we decided to change the color scheme and we came up with this perch design. Since it catches we have one design scratched off that we are comfortable making. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Stick with the 2 hooks, the 3rd is just a hand grabber. I have gone over to siwash for most tail hooks as of late. Mostly just a matter of ease of hook removal from fish as well as myself ! If you're using a dressed tail I think the siwash provides for better plug performance, but that's just my $.02. With no tail dressing trebles or siwash work just fine. here are some dressed hooks that I use, note the bottom is not a VMC siwash. It's a mustad that I think will haul an anchor. Very strong hook but needs to be touched up for sharpness. OH, by-the-way...you can send that perch directly to me for inspection . I find it hard to believe that you just started this addiction...slamin' lookin' plug. Great job! Thanks so much for the input. I believe we are using VMC hooks but I will have to let him know about the siwash tail hooks, he might even use those. Heck I tied some of the tails and I don't think I ever caught the name of the tail hooks we use. I know how to make plugs now but I am still learning what all of the different hardware is named in order to be able to make different styles. Before I started building these it was all just lip, grommet, swivel, coil, wire, and hook to me. Now it is becoming pikie style lip, danny style, etc., still grommets, swivels, and wire but there are multiple sizes and strengths, but now I am learning the VMC, Mustad, the sizes, 2/0, 3/0. And there's a ton of other stuff I need to learn too. Yeah he has been interested in building the lures for a while so he has done a lot of research on it. But he has told me I am pretty good at the handiwork and using the machinery so together we make a pretty good lure building team if the paint sticks. I wish I could send some out now but we only have a few made so far. And we want to make sure we have our paint sticking 100% before we let anyone use our lures. We are real finicky about what kind of work we hand out to people/do in a job. I believe that if the job isn't done right the first time, start over and do it right. So once we solve this paint situation I am sure we will have more than enough to get some out there. We aren't really trying to sell them btw, just building for fun and if people like them and want to pick up a few off us in the future that is cool with us, but we aren't looking to intrude on anybody's business here. We just want to have fun and fishing with a bag of prototypes is some of the funnest fishing I have ever done. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Cloud Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Those muskies are a good way to find out if your paint sticks 100% nice perch im goin pike fishin right now after seeing the pics thanks for the push CHRIS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wysoczanski Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 u sure u just started and ill gladly give u a free inspection of the entire plug but that sure is perrrrty nice work keep it up and welcome to the site A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of school. SOL # 43542 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Those muskies are a good way to find out if your paint sticks 100% nice perch im goin pike fishin right now after seeing the pics thanks for the push CHRIS Thanks!! We actually test out all our lures with the fingernail scratch method to see if the paint is sticking but that perch was one of the plugs that the paint took. I just wish it was the same for all of them but we will have that sorted out soon. Good luck with the pike, hope you catch a massive one. Yeah I'll be getting back down to the beach pretty soon, hopefully we get a few more protos ready for the weekend. u sure u just started and ill gladly give u a free inspection of the entire plug but that sure is perrrrty nice work keep it up and welcome to the site Well I just started but my friend has been trying to get the lures to look like this for about a year. Since we were able to shave a lot of time off in the production stage we are able to turn many more prototypes than we thought we could. Just the painting and drying we are working on now. As I said in my other post we are not looking to sell them, but when we perfect our paint we might be willing to send out/trade some. Thanks, and I will be around the site starting today. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camel24 Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 the same plug? Have you made multiples of the perch? On pic (with the fish) doesn't have a second belly hook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plasmafish Posted November 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 the same plug? Have you made multiples of the perch? On pic (with the fish) doesn't have a second belly hook. Yes we have made both sizes with the perch color. And yes the one that caught the muskie was the smaller size, doesn't have the 2nd belly hook as the larger style does. It also has the siwash tail hook in it as I just found out from my friend over the phone. But as you could see any lip takes a pounding when you get a big fish like that on a plug. As I heard someone say, if the fish is big/strong enough to bend the lip, it's a pretty good chance that the fish was worth the plug. But yeah he's down at LIB state park right now and he caught a couple Blues and a Striper today so far, but he said it slowed down considerably since the catches earlier in the morning. It was all on the plugs so far too. "If you were guaranteed to catch fish it would be called catching, not fishing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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