Here is a picture of a tiny blade bait that I did up for a buddy who ice fishes a lot and has been hammering crappies on it. He said that this one bait has taken probably in the neighborhood of 60 fish before a pike decided to wreck the hook, so he brought this one back to get a new hook put on. The paint on this is the Bait Blast Blue that was thinned out and applied directly over the chrome finish of the blade without any pre-treatment other than a quick wipe with an alcohol swab.
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The only scuffing I can find on this dude is right at the very leading edge, ahead of the eye and a wee bit around the second hole back where the snap rubs. The bait was painted, the eyes attached with a small drop of super glue, but no top or seal coat was applied. That many fish and a ruined hook later and the finish is like new yet. This goes a long way to proving the toughness and durability of the Bait Blast paints. By comparison, I did a few of these some time ago using Createx and those all have shown excessive paint wear in spite of having been sealed with CS Seal Coat and were used during open water to fish dock pilings vertically.... pretty light duty fishing really for the amount of wear on the paint. This Bait Blast stuff is a tough finish.
Incidentally, the bait shown here is barely an inch long and is 5/64 ounce. That's a size 14 hook hanging on it and a size 0 split ring. I personally fish them on 3 pound Nanofil line unless I am using a slip float and then 4 pound XL Trilene. They are a super bait jigged vertically either under the ice or from a boat or dock along side of pilings, sunken structure like trees or even hung under a slip float drifting over a school of fish....little twitches give it a nice action under a float.
