Home made soft plastics

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Oldskoolfool
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Home made soft plastics

Post by Oldskoolfool »

I'm thinking about trying to make my own soft plastics using too pour moulds and plastisol. Never done this so any tips or insight?

Seems quite easy from online video but welcome any insight
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Mike J
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Re: Home made soft plastics

Post by Mike J »

Good luck with the project. Lots of moulds available online and also companies who will make them to your own custom design.

But its worth bearing in mind that plastisol used not because it produces an angler friendly lure but because it is cheap, easy to work with and does not have a long working life.
Some of the very first soft lures were actually made from rubber, a little later others were produced from latex which made them damn near indestructible, I know because I used them.
But of course no producer wishes to make a lure that lasts forever, but latex is what I would be looking at if I was thinking of making soft lures for myself.

Allunimium from scrap car engines is ideal for making moulds, as is some moulds available for home production of fishing weights, all they need is a little work with a file or desoutter.

.
'No Man Ever Fishes The Same River Twice, .... For It Is Not The Same River, .... And He Is Not The Same Man' Heraclitus of Ephesus
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Steve Dennington
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Re: Home made soft plastics

Post by Steve Dennington »

Mike J wrote: Thu Nov 09 2023 14:18 -
Good luck with the project. Lots of moulds available online and also companies who will make them to your own custom design.

But its worth bearing in mind that plastisol used not because it produces an angler friendly lure but because it is cheap, easy to work with and does not have a long working life.
Some of the very first soft lures were actually made from rubber, a little later others were produced from latex which made them damn near indestructible, I know because I used them.
But of course no producer wishes to make a lure that lasts forever, but latex is what I would be looking at if I was thinking of making soft lures for myself.

Allunimium from scrap car engines is ideal for making moulds, as is some moulds available for home production of fishing weights, all they need is a little work with a file or desoutter.

.
Latex may be durable, but surely there's not much you can do with it as goes finishes, is there?

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing you could use to paint it and the colour options would be very limited. As standard, the RTV I've used tends to be grey or pink, so even if you could add dyes they wouldn't work very well.
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Mike J
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Re: Home made soft plastics

Post by Mike J »

Steve Dennington wrote: Thu Nov 09 2023 14:27 -
Mike J wrote: Thu Nov 09 2023 14:18 -
Good luck with the project. Lots of moulds available online and also companies who will make them to your own custom design.

But its worth bearing in mind that plastisol used not because it produces an angler friendly lure but because it is cheap, easy to work with and does not have a long working life.
Some of the very first soft lures were actually made from rubber, a little later others were produced from latex which made them damn near indestructible, I know because I used them.
But of course no producer wishes to make a lure that lasts forever, but latex is what I would be looking at if I was thinking of making soft lures for myself.

Allunimium from scrap car engines is ideal for making moulds, as is some moulds available for home production of fishing weights, all they need is a little work with a file or desoutter.

.
Latex may be durable, but surely there's not much you can do with it as goes finishes, is there?

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing you could use to paint it and the colour options would be very limited. As standard, the RTV I've used tends to be grey or pink, so even if you could add dyes they wouldn't work very well.

Ive got some that have a white belly and blackish back, others I used and lost I marked up with waterproof pens, used mainly for wrecking back in the day.
I still colour up the majority of my lures be they soft or hard, I simply cannot accept a non angler knows what a fish wants. Perhaps why the few who are home producers sell out so quickly, one I use in Ireland opens for online sales 19.00 on a Saturday and his entire production run is gone before midnight!

.
'No Man Ever Fishes The Same River Twice, .... For It Is Not The Same River, .... And He Is Not The Same Man' Heraclitus of Ephesus
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