Weighted, bondoed and sealed, ready for primer in a coupla days. Mission accomplished, then the scary part, paint. Then the terrifying part, clearing, make or break all the work. Still have to spin up a little black danny for BF.

Get spinning youuuuuu!:)

After work tomorrow, my sealed plugs will still be drying. If all goes well I'll have yours sealed tomorrow night, too.:hee:

Hey George
 

You are using MS, an oil, to wipe off dust before spraying with Createx, which is water based? Any adhesion issues?

I would suggest wiping with water or denatured alcohol to keep things chemically compatible.

I wait an hour or two, it evaporates away very fast. No adhesion issues.

Let me get this process straight....

1. Dip plugs in whatever sealer you use (helmsman, BLO, epoxy, etc.)

2. Allow ample dry time for sealer... I'm giving it 2 weeks for helmsman spar.

3. Sand down the plug body...

4. Mineral spirit wipe down and let dry for one hour at least.

5. Primer.

6. Paint.

7. Topcoat.

8. Assemble.

9. Give all your stuff away....in this sense its just like making wine...bust your ass for months and weeks, then give it all away....

10. Repeat.

Don't forget step 8A. miss swivel w.through wire, give plug to buddy, who drops fish.

You been talking to Sauerkraut? Been there , done that.

It shouldn't take 2 weeks for the sealer to dry. Varnish ought to dry in a matter of hours. If you sand it and it comes off as powder you are fine. Valoil is good to go in 24-48 hours.

You should sand/wipe between the primer and the color coat.
If you are using rattlecans, some guys spray a clear coat and scuff that then wipe before applying epoxy.

Great, another %$%$%$%$ing step...thanks for the heads up though...that would be step seven, I believe...

Don't despair yet. Ask around. Try the epoxy directly over your spray coat without roughing, maybe wipe first with alcohol. One thing I ran into was that System Three clear coat would not adhere to Krylon clear, so I don't advise trying that. On the other hand, for years I used to fish plugs coated ONLY with Krylon clear. That worked plenty well enough for me. Epoxy is not all it would seem to be. I've had and seen plenty of plugs peel epoxy long before a simpler clear coat would have worn off.

I can think of something worse.... it comes out just as you plan.. simply beautiful.. you take it fishing... you wind up... it sails to the outter bar... and SNAP!!!!!!!! it's heads for the Flemmish cap before you even get to "fish"..UNATTACHED to your line... dont ask me how i know about this feeling.... besides, alot of here already know!

How's that eel bucket looking ? Now you know why we always want extra credit for catching fish ..

George,

Are you saying I could omit the system three and simply spray a rattle can clear coat directly over the paint?

Yip
 

Rustoleum makes a clear enamel (don't use lacquer or shellac) you can build layers up pretty fast. Wait 10-15 between coats and you can build it up in one day. No sanding between coats either. And it doesn't need to be spun. Light coats- just enought to make plug look wet.

I'm going to try it with Helmsman spray urethane, which is much tougher than enamel, but it does have an amber color. Won't matter on my black, yellow or plain white plugs.

Thanks, seeing most of my plugs will be black, white, or yellow, the helmsman may be a good fit for me too.

U-Pol is the best I have found for going over a water based paint for a out of can top coat. You could probably use it over spray bombs too. Pretty tough stuff. You can us it as a top coat but will not last as long as epoxy but pretty darn durable. Mike, fishing freak was the discoverer of that.I used to use it a s a scratch coat over Createx before epoxy but later found that sys. 3 clear coat worked just as good over straight Createx and is what I do nowadays. I never wipe my plugs with anything other than a dry paper towel before epoxy. I install my belly grommets and my nose grommet before epoxy. You need to be very careful not to touch the plug with your hands or you may get some smegma on them and the epoxy won't adhere. I never touch plugs after painting with naked skin. I use disposable gloves or do all my handling with paper towels between my fingers and plugs. Installing grommets can be tricky without touching plug but you get the hang of it after a while. That is why some like to use a scratch coat as they like to assemble before epoxy and all the touching of plug during assembly will leave oils from skin on the paint. If you use a scratch coat you can then scotch brite the scratch coat and then wipe with alcohol the clean off scotchbrite dust and oils from handling. I prefer to eliminate that whole process, but I did it for a while. The down side to u pol is if you spray that in the house you will be sleeping in your car for a while. Got a smell that can end a marriage.

works good .. 3 coats right over eachother like 15 minutes part... Get the Gloss... wear a respirator and vent or you'll be dizzy all day ..shake good ,,, no yellow .. not a commercial finish but good enough . look back at my flaps .. its on there

11. Hang it on a nail in basement
12. go to bait shop
13. buy eels
14. put eels in bucket
15. go fishing

Ok, things are rolling now:rolleyes:

Helmsman spar dip for 30 minutes...wipe off excess...48hr dry down...light sand...mineral spirit wipe...will start priming thursday...

Trying to make sand eel needles.. also stil on an old hardware kick ... I thought this was cool ... Jerry Sylvester Fishmaster trick on arse..

nice needle eddie. Very Stezkoish with the flap

Geez, don't put your name where the fish can read it.....they'll turn it down on principle alone.

Did he use the barrel swivel screw method too ... I was copying a fishmaster plug I seen ...

The same type method is on the Heddon vamp except they used hangers instead of barrel swivels.

Very nice plugs Tagger. Here are some pics of my Sylvester Flaptail for comparison. Your rigging is slightly different. On the original the swivel is actually screwed to the bottom of the plug into a countersunk spot.

Dammm ... I saw this method on a plug I saw .. I thought it was Fishmaster .. I couldn't of thought of it myself ?

it occurred to me
 

that if half a dozen guys
stood say five feet apart
and all cast a similar plug
towards the apex of the triangle
they could imitate a school
of bait fish... by cooperating
similar to how dolphins do it.


just a thought.... MORNING ! :o)

I was positive this was a Jerry Sylvester Fishmaster ... I like the hangers too ... The real question is ?? How the heck do they get that Flap on the barrel swivel ??

I don't know Angler 229 .. I couldn't find your attachment method on Jerry Sylvester Fishmaster ..
Fishmaster
Yours does have indentical hook hangers .. Maybe you have an earlier proto model ..:drool:.. Paint looks masterlure ,,but I know it's not ..

Never happen... It's already been proven that dolphins are smarter and more cooperative than us ,.., morning .. :)

I was looking at this and I think mine is from the days before Fishmaster, just a Jerry Sylvester Flaptail. Your method is right on for the Fishmaster era, sorry for the confusion.

I wnder if you could just wrap a swivel into your tailwrap, use a tiny loop.

yea ,, you can ,, I've done it ,, I thought the Fishmaster way was cool .

Oh man, this PlugFest is gonna be something else!

I FIGURE WIRE THE SWIVEL IN THE END LOOP THEN ADD A SPLIT RING.
SPEAKING OF SWIVELS DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THE FRONT SWIVEL ON THE GTS-3 GIBBS TROLLING SWIMMERS PERFORM A NEED FROM SHORE?

Hey where's everyone? At least we don't have mountains of snow on top of us! Hopefully on my last batch of plugs to e-tex. Plugfest entries are painted and ready for coating. The flaptail version is sweet. I mentioned earlier on attaching the tail , like tagger's picture, wire ina swivel then add the flap w/ split ring. If I had a tig welder , I'd cut open a swivel insert flap then reweld cut. Those older versions look like the wire on the swivel was wrapped around itself. Are those type swivels still available? I'll be back later . Gotta getta mixing!!

2 weeks to go. I've been up since 6 epoxying. Going to church next to pray for divine intervention. About a hundred to go, 12 at a time in the spinner, Most still need paint, then there is all the rigging. Not looking too hopeful. Need to rethink this better next year. Still have a load of other stuff I wanted to build this winter.

Finally, finally primed mine yesterday. Gonna wait a coupla days before I sand and basecoat. Gonna be close but doable.
Those swivels, I wonder if they were unwound, the flap put on, then rewound? I have some of those around here somewhere from years ago if I find them, I'll give that a try.

morning, hit the early mass today because the cat woke me up, then pancakes for the kido. Doing a road trip today down the cape to Biteme's house i think, stop at M&D's on the way down. Spent yesterday making templates and turning so I can return all the great plugs that were lent to me last week. Still lots to go. I have not even started to epoxy anything yet so I won't be bringing much if any to the fest, but that was my intention this year. looking forward to wandering around more this year so I have no sense of urgency. Now when I need to get my boats ready and tackle ready and am still building then i will feel the heat. My motto should be always put off today what you can do tomorrow.