Fly Tying & Tacklecraft: Buggers, Molten Lead, & Hot Plastic Injections

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > The Great Outdoors > Fly Tying & Tacklecraft: Buggers, Molten Lead, & Hot Plastic Injections

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

I see you bought a rather big mold....

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 01:31

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 02:06

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

Hi, I bought 6,900 nice hooks this week, all Mustad , old stock but sealed boxes. I was planning on buying 0, but somebody on eBay bought the contents of an old tackle shop at auction and was willing to make a hell of a package deal. I'm so loving pleased right now.

I'm going to have to spend some time watching this channel. Also, have you seen any molds that look similar to Gulp sandworms? People up here swear by them for surf perch.

Oh hello.... That's a lot of hooks.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2019 04:57

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

Personally, I love that this thread has united the fly tiers and the birb crazies! Share what you've got and you'll never want. My dad always used to say that. No, wait, that wasn't my dad, that was the diner cook from I Accuse My Parents. Still, he's right.

Anyone make anything recently? I wanted to pour some trolling sinkers but it's supposed to be wet and windy all weekend. I work outdoors with liquid metals, and a raindrop in a pot of hot lead is a steam bomb. Maybe I'm bottling cider this weekend instead.

Got your bars. They are beautiful. I wanna spray them with some gloss to prevent the lead from going dull. I should paint a few white with stripes or something too.

Now I gotta do some research on paint good for this application.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2019 01:31

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

Dude, you're gonna be a fuckin' pro! Early January is also going to be when I order my soft bait kit, so there's going to be a whole lot of learning happening ITT. Hopefully it doesn't involve serious molten plastic burns.

In case anyone was wondering (I sure was), I had lead levels tested in my blood when I went to the doctor last month. Barely any present, well within the healthy range! So if you're thinking about melting lead as a hobby, it's perfectly safe with the proper precautions.

This good. Very good. Should I buy you a mold of my favorite salt water grub?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2019 01:53

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

When I get home I�ll pull out a measuring tape to my favorites.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 19:52

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Elmnt80 posted:

You may also want to keep in mind that saltwater baits usually use a much harder blend of plastic compared to a freshwater bait to hold up to toothy mouths taking a nip.

Also, what injector did you get (or are planning to get) kobolds? Most of the locking tip style ones I looked at were out of stock. I finally found an 8oz tip one, but I'm still waiting on them to make/ship that fucker.

Oh man all those fancy tails aren�t really needed and are usually gone after a fish or two. I use crappy sized plastics for my teaser hook and just replace them as needed. As long as a small chunk is left (white for high vis) they catch dumb rockfish.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 21:24

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

Do you think that a plastic pork rind would do the trick?

A plastic cocktail weenie would work.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 23:19

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

gently caress, now I'm just picturing a flathead jig with a tiny dildo threaded up the hook.

Yeah that would work. Give it some of those brushy whiskers form pubes.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2019 00:23

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

Yeah, 3D printing seems like the best option if you were to go that route. The cheap kitchen table mold method has historically been plaster of paris, but those do require a positive and are about as fragile and temporary as it gets. I guess you could carve out a blank by hand somehow if you were really committed.

It's worth distinguishing the difference between injection molds and open pour molds when it comes to soft plastics. Open pour is the simpler method of the two, but the bait designs are simpler too by necessity. Elmnt80 and I are fancy boys who want to make fancy baits, so we're going hog wild with injection molds. I had really not considered anything that wasn't milled aluminum for this. If molten plastic is anything like molten lead, it gets really, really loving hot.

Don�t turn him down on the 3D mold. The rumors of them not working might just be Big MoldMaker trying to hold you back.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2019 18:43

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

I will be the first to admit that I am inexperienced with 3D printing so it's probably fine. My simple lizard brain feels good about a heavy chunk of metal, though.

Injection molds seem to produce more intricate bait designs while open/hand pour baits are more simple, and seem like they'd usually wind up with a flat side. That's ideal if you're making something like a plastic pork rind trailer, but less so with tubes, skirts, some bugs, and I'd think anything that needs to be perfectly round. You can definitely hand pour a grub or a worm, but I think that the ones from an injection mold would look nicer.

You're definitely right about mass production, though. Hand pours in quantity would be a chore.

I would not turn down a test mold, but I want to get some experience before I ask anyone to go to the trouble of making one.

Imagine asking a real company for a 6� penis mold.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2019 19:46

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

the lady I'm seeing is super crafty and has like ten pounds of organized feathers. I'm hosed.

Man you move fast....

# ¿ Dec 17, 2019 18:33

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Yooper posted:

I'll make a mold. Find me a photo/something and I'll hire some poor fucker on Fiverr to turn it into a 3d model. My 3d modelling skills are industrial, I have no idea how to actually sculpt something.

I have like 15 gallons of Smooth-On resin too, but I think it'll be the wrong durometer.

*snicker* I would but there�s a no homegrown rule

# ¿ Dec 17, 2019 20:28

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

I see what you're saying now; you can definitely freestyle with open pour whereas multiple colors with injection molds usually require lamination plates. There's certainly potential for artistry there. I was coming from the perspective that most people who open pour do it because it's cheaper and less involved than an injection setup. Multiple interpretations of fanciness.

Also, gently caress, I've never even considered needing a 7" swimbait. Is that for bass or saltwater?

We use them for shallow water rockfish. In California we had abnormal good results with rootbeer, green and orange swimbaits targeting cabezons(still catch a lot of rockfish that will literally hit anything). Had to be pretty drat shallow though like 20ft or less. No reason why that wouldn�t work in the sound if you found some rocky area. Certainly would work on the jetty in West Port. I dont like them for going deep because they seem to take too long and get caught in the drifts and swells. The jig heads are only a few ounces.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2019 18:25

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Patagonia repair policy seems unreal.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2020 22:35

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

This is such an interesting and intriguing project. I only have experience melting lead, so the low temp stuff is interesting. Is the alloy as dense/heavy as lead? I was just thinking if any of the jigs or sinkers would need to be larger to accommodate the difference in physical properties. I'd love to see this work, and I hope someday that 3-D printing materials can handle lead temperatures since the low temp alloys seem to be 15-20x the price of lead. Don't forget how often people lose lures and sinkers when they're fishing! So for metal work it's pretty much a curiosity for me until then, but 3-D printed molds for open-pouring soft plastic baits would be a very good application for this.

While you say that soft lures are mysterious, they can be whatever you want them to be. Worms, insects, other little fish, or something that doesn't look like anything in nature can all catch fish. I'd love to play around with that.

I need a 2-6oz jighead shaped like a nice ballsack and a soft lure penis to go with it. I swear to go this old man brought one a fishing trip i just went on. It was simply a purple tube. First thing I said when I saw it was "That's a penis" but he couldnt hear me.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2021 01:02

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Ghostnuke posted:

he was just ignoring that weird dude on the boat that kept trying to talk to everyone about penises lol

it would be a weird trip if someone didnt

# ¿ Jul 13, 2021 04:22

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 02:06

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but tackleunderground.com is a decent forum to lurk if you're interested in making different types of lures and tackle. On that note, I found a thread about 3D printed molds for soft baits. Some kind of simple design like a long worm or eel shape could be a great launching point.

Also, we're now running into a little bit of shop jargon since plastic softbaits can be made two ways: open-pour/hand-pour and injection molding. Open-pour/hand-pour has a mold laid out flat on a surface and you pour liquid plastic into it from a pyrex measuring cup. Injection molding is a two-part mold clamped or bolted closed into which one injects liquid plastic from a giant metal syringe. As you may expect, the potential for catastrophe is far, far greater with molten plastic injected under pressure.

The only project that I can think of involving metal work is jigging raps. Seems like it would be the perfect lure for the effort: this way you don't have to gently caress with hooks and things, you'd be able to make a fair few of them with a pound of turboexpensive alloy, and they will require a wire form to cast around so you could go hog wild designing that.

Also I made some poo poo: 1.5 oz. spearhead jigs on 3/0 and 4/0 Eagle Claw saltwater hooks. Not sure what plastics to pair them with yet.

Those need a white paint dip and red spot. Gorgeous form can�t wait to try them.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2021 17:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > The Great Outdoors > Fly Tying & Tacklecraft: Buggers, Molten Lead, & Hot Plastic Injections