Pouring my own rubber
 

I just got the word I will be on shift work for the next 6 months which means 3 or 4 days off a week, which will be great once fishing season starts. But during the winter I am looking to fill the gap with something constructive. I use alot of Fin-s fish during the course of the year and it's getting expensive. Last winter I started to pour my own jig heads which not only gives me good quality jigs, but saves me alot of money. OK, know I want to pour my own rubber as well. My question is where do I start. Is there how to books out there, good supply companies I should go with... etc. Any help would be very welcome. You can PM if you would like.

Several sites give instructions if you google it.

carve a model out of wood or clay.. The easiest shapes are ones you can pour from the top, or in other words, if you have a flat back, you only need a one piece mold to pour into, as opposed to a 2 piece mold, which can get tricky...After you make your model, make a quick silicone mold of it, then make several hard jewerly casting quality wax pieces from that mold. I say wax because ou can use a torch on the wax to clean it up so its super smooth and will allow for some really clean pourings. However many you make will dictate how many baits you want to be cast from your final mold. From there, you make your final mold out of RTV rubber.

depending on how thin your mold is, you might need to make a mother mold of plaster or something to help the rubber keep its shape.
smoothon.com is a great place to get all that stuff. AS for the actual rubber you use to make your baits.. i cant help you there, i have only made molds to cast glass.

I was thinking of giving this a whirl this winter, but i dont think i will have the time :(

i dare someone to do up some prerigged sluggo type lure, with 2 hooks molded in and lead and everything. if companys like storm and stuff are doing this with shad bodies i dont see why they arent making things sluggo like with the same technology. there definitly would be a demand for something like this.

Yeah, what Christian said!:humpty:

Rigging Sluggos is a pain . . . if you go through the trouble to do it right you mind as well just rig an eel. I think the company that figures out how to make a quality rigged and weighted Sluggo with quality hooks will make a killing. If the eels are in as much trouble as some people say maybe that will be what it takes to push someone into doing it.

The reason it is a pain is that you are putting the hooks in ***after*** the mold is poured. I bet a production shop could be set up where you have pre-rigged hook packages in place at the time of pouring, elminiting the "rigging" process altogether. My concern is that they would use cheap hooks.

The only problem I have with sluggos are: when you finally get one to come out perfect this happens on the first cast....
http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripert...5&d=1128873065

They need to pre-rig one with top quality hooks, a soft stainless coated wire braid so it is flexible yet cut proof and have built in weights. It would not be cheap. Until they do this, you are probably better off making them yourself and re-using whatever you can.

i seriously didnt even have to click the picture to know what you were talking about, 3" of sluggo with a little dacron tail. ugh.

Imagine how much they would charge for those!!!!!!!!!!!

more importantly, how much would people pay? I would probably not pay more that $3 each, well, maybe $4.

lol. i can't tell ya how many. it's almost like there's a bunch of surgons swimming around out there. it's almost surgical. my revenge has been the habs pencil poppers with the eyes in the back. for some reason , probably the eyes, they like to hit them from the back. mouth full of trebeles and a plug stuck in there to boot. mr blue fish gonna get himself eaten. they're still way ahead!!!!:bl:

http://www.smooth-on.com/default.htm

look on www.tackleunderground.com too

Got Stripers a member here should be able to fill you in on what plastic.

Bob! You should make a copy of a sluggo, and pre-rig it with hooks!!!!!! :bgi:

He makes a copy.. 9" ledgerunner on a leadhead is killa...

I have been thinking of this for a while...:wall:
would be nice if I or someone could pour it.

I call it the SQUIGGO...Now I just have to figure out how to mend the two...

I hope to have some ready for the squid runs next spring

:wid: