my first tins...

[jkswimmer]

Nice work on the mold. I have seen tin on Flea Bay but it was over 4.00 a Pound.

[spence]

I've hired Pt. Jude Joe as my personal tin maker...it's much easier

-spence

[numbskull]

MAJOR kudos to you. I've wanted to try the same for 2 years now. Inspiring.

[gone fishin]

I have made a few molds myself. As a suggestion, blacken the bondo with a candle flame held real close. It allows the lead to flow easier and will not allow it to stick to the mold. Make the second half of your mold from bondo also and clamp the two together using a spru hole from the side to pour through. Allow time between pouring to let your mold cool. You will get a lot more use out of the bondo.

A good source of material is tire weights - if you know someone in a tire store, they may save a bunch for you. I use a combination of pure new lead and junk from the weights. Just keep skimming the stuff off the top. It took awhile to come up with the proper ratio for weight.

I hope you are doing your melting outside and are wearing a good respirator mask. That stuff will do horrible things to the body and brain.

[stripercrazy]

when we melt lead for jigs, the tin can be skimmed off. you need to find someone with lead thats not pure and melt it down..the tin floats somewhat, the pure lead is heavyer. I think were done for the year with the lead, a month ago we had a ton and chucked the tin we'll have to put it aside next time if someone will use it...nice tins

[Diggin Jiggin]

Here's some I was working on today. This mold came out a lot better than the other one, and picked up all the details. When I made the first one it was with the bondo in the red can. I did some searches on the internet and on a hobby site they were talking about getting better molds by mixing the bondo in the red can with the bondo fiberglass resin. It makes a thinner mix and was supposed to be better at picking up details. So I tried that on this mold, which was made from one of my beat up 4 oz cripped herrings.

This mold came out much better then the one I used yesterday. For the hooks on these I used some of my big 8/0 jig hooks and used a dremel to cut off the eye of the hook so it would fit inside the mold.

The top one is the original. On my scale, which I don't trust, the original is 3 3/8. The next two I made from lead, and the scale says they are 3 3/4.

The bottom 2 are from tin, and the scale says the are 2 1/2 oz, but I think they are closer to 3.

[Backbeach Jake]

You just made my Hero List with that! Wow, something else that I have to try. Thanks for sharing that.