need help rebuilding some old stuff
 

i have quite a few old plugs that i want to rebuild.. several bottles and three giant pikies... they are all structurally good..paint is a mess.... wire is a mess and i know how to handle that..



not sure if i should stippem somehow, just sand em down or what? should i seal them like a new plug i'm building.. on the ones that have decent paint, should i epoxy over the existing paint...

Hey Thumb,....It's Johnny from the other site :wave: I have to start posting here too. For stripping, try a heat gun and scraping with the edge of a razor blade. Do kind small sections at a time, and vent the area. Before you put anything down, sand and scuff the surface good. I epoxy seal, so I repeat that step, if it penetrates anymore, good, if not, it makes a nice scratch coat to start the paint process over again. If you oil seal,.....I don't know what will work,..primer? Good luck.

Strip em if they are really beat - that is if you don't care about the mojo. If the plug was good to you and you don't want to change the paint, just finish coat them with your usual finish. I had a pencil that was chewed up real good - caught plenty on it. I figured that I would refinish the plug. Same color etc. After the refinish, It couldn't catch for beans. I swear I lost the mojo.....:spidey:

I've been buying trashed plugs to take apart to see how they were built and also to rebuild. I tried paint striper and thats okay. Sanding with a sanding block seems to be good and you get a nice surface. The striper leaves a mix of striper and paint that hardens so you have to sand anyway.

Winch on the other site is famous for useing fire, a torch, to remove old paint. I guess if you have good ventalation and wear a respirator it would be okay because I'd be afraid of the lead and other stuff coming off the burning paint.

I've resealed with BLO/turp and painted like a new plug. A couple of my favorites were old Gibbs 2 3/4 oz pencils. They don't sit in the water the same way they did when they were bought used, but they caught fish.

Gone fishin - I think when you redo a plug, you seal, paint and finish coat and the weighting of the plug changes so you get different action. Like I said, the Gibbs were different and walked differently but still caught. I've got a few giant pikies that I am going to start rebuilding soon :) .

Torch em,..