How to repair and revitalize your old baits and protect your new ones.

[JimD]

Ideas on how to repair and revitalize your old baits and protect your new ones.

Thanks to Shane Mesche for the help getting started. Here are some articles if you want to look at painting or just clear coating your baits to keep the colors on them longer.


Shane’s article in November 08 Texas Saltwater fishing Mag is on page 68 in the FREE archives. You can read about three years of past mag articles.
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/...c#/8844e03c/68 (You may have to do the free signup to see this. I pop right to it.) YOu can access about 3 years worth of old articles.

Even if you do not paint your baits this is a great way to clear coat those reflective baits that the chrome chips off the first or second fish. You can clean up old baits and clear coat them and they will look better than new.

http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/index.php This is one of the largest world wide sites on all types of lure making that I have found. Lot of these guys make the one of a kind custom painted baits that most of us will never do.
Personally I want to be able to touch up add gills, throats and color or glitter to baits that do not come in the colors that I want. Lastly and for some of you they have “brew your own” forum too so you can have something to drink when you cannot fish.

Most of the baits are airbrushed with water based paints from the hobby shop like “Hobby Lobby or Michaels. http://www.createxcolors.com/ then clear coated the way Shane does it to protect the bait

Air brushes run from 15 dollars up. I have the high end Harbor Freight (HF) 15 dollars air brush for what I do.

You need a small air compressor or some compressed air to run the air brush.

You need a small wheel to slowly turn the baits till they dry or to keep the epoxy from pooling. I use a bbq motor with a piece of foam on the end to hold 3 or 4 baits. Tackelunderground has plans that can dry 20 baits at the time.

HF has the cheap exacto knives that you can use to hold the baits while you work on them. Take the blade out and grip the front or back eye on the bait. I take these with the bait attached and stick them into the small holes made in the foam that attaches to my BBQ Motor that I have used to spin rod blanks.

http://www.rivercitylures.50megs.com...aa/ch1/ch1.htm Is an article from SA that shows how to refinish some of the old style lipped crank baits.

http://home.mchsi.com/~djaroscak/buildinglure.html#indexpage Another site that builds lures from scratch and his tips and tricks.

Enjoy.

JimD

You can save me all those old worn out baits if you do ot want them.

[shallowist]

Thanks Jim!! That's some very helpful information. I have heard that the model airplane paints are good, can your experience confirm this?

[JimD]

http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/index.php

Has one of the largest sites in the world for making your own baits. Worldwide. Some of these guys make baits instead of fish. Look at some of the photo gallerias that they have up. They put paint jobs up like you would put that 30" 10 poundv trout up.

Steve- To answer you question there is everything used to paint baits. The Createx is more or less the gold standard as these guys mix and spray paint baits And the Devcon 24 hr epoxy is used to seal most of the baits.

Down side these paints do not like many of the commercial baits do not have uv blockers so they will fade. Notice how some of your TW's fade quickly?

I am not a bait builder. I use this to protect new baits and if needed Add colors, gills, throats, glitter, and other marks to these baits, to refinish old baits as the Devcon will make a dull one look better than new, and to make custom colored baits that I want to have and you cannot find or get.

Down side is no gold or chrome colors you can paint but as I like spook jrs you can get the all chrome and go to work designing what add on colors/marks you want.

Course does not look as pretty but airplane paint and a brush or fingernail polish will still get the job done.

[plugger]

3 M MARINE CLEAN AND SHINE WAX ENHANCER in a pump spray bottle works wonders on making your hard baits clean and shine like new. Read it in an article year or so back and it works great. Get it at Academy. It won't bring back the color. If your plug is way dirty, clean it with Simple Green or something , then spray that stuff on, wipe clean and repeat. This is a good tip, trust me , I'm a doctor !

[JimD]

Here is a quick px

Here is a quick picture of couple of baits and some of the Clean up and painting /repainting that I did.

Does not take much to refinish old baits, Changed the colors, add gills, throats, spots, strips, glitter,brighten the colors, or do your own Avocado top waters. You can tell that I was not a fan of the spook jr in plain yellow/ ch when I was painting.

Favorite is the old Walmart SS. Found some glow in the dark paint and went over the old metalic gray color and added tail dots and it looks spooky glowing in the dark. Will it catch fish? Not been out at night to try it yet. Probably need to send it with Steve or Dan in a little warmer weather since I work all the time.

The clear coat is the neat thing as it will take a scratched up bait and make it look new as long as the paint is not chipped off.
How many of the new mirrored baits hold their finish after a few fish and they charge you more money for it???
You can put a hard coat on them right out of the box. In the pool the action does not appear to have changed with the clear coat other than the bait is a lot brighter.

[plugger]

That's good stuff !! Thanks !!

[JimD]

Here is the post on painting and protecting your top water baits that I was asked about.