Custom Baits - Forum
Soft Plastic Bait Making => Color Cook Book => Topic started by: ctom on 03/07/13 11:34 UTC
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One of my best all-time, tried and true, baits has been the venerable old Rapala with the black back over gold belly. I have the Raps in every size from 0 to size 13, both floating and sinking. The clear blades I like to paint hot orange. The smallest two or three sizes of this color is a hot bait for trout in a local lake, some days the floater gets it, others the sinker gets it. Just a darned good bait.
Well boredom got me yesterday so I started the annual run thru the tackle closet and began going thru the various kinds of tackle I use and I came across the trout box loaded with , what else. I sat the box aside and finished up with my re-organizing and then came back to the trout box. And my small fry box. What had me was the gold belly on those Raps. One thing led to another and here is what I came up with.
(http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss184/crappietomtackle/087c88b3-8564-4da8-8843-ddd96302d1c4_zps35a48694.jpg)
I've taken 11 pics of this arrangement in various lights and shadows trying to get the gold belly to fire up and this is as good as it gets. You can see in the bottom fry that the gold comes out not too bad, but in the hand these guys look gold plated...just one of the miseries of clearer plastic.
The hot orange throat patch gets dabbed in the front of the bottom [has the tail] cavities using a bamboo skewer. I run the temp up on the orange to keep it fluid and I use scrap plastic. If it singes I don't mind and just heat up another ounce or two of clean scrap. I only do an ounce, two ounces tops, at a time to do the throats.
The gold belly....again a smaller batch since I hand pour the belly section using my infamous spoon.
I mix up 2 ounces of clear plastic with a good dose of stabilizer. Starting with gold hi lite, I add maybe 1/4 tsp to the plastic and just a shot of orange hi lite. About 1/4 tsp of fine gold glitter goes in the plastic along with a couple dashes of fine copper glitter. The copper glitter and orange hi lite helps to add some depth to the gold so not a lot of either are needed and can probably be omitted. I cook the plastic to a temp of 360, stiir it three times after the initial gelling takes place. I put a small puddle of the plastic on the back of a mold to see how the gold hi lite looks. If its not strong enough, I add a dab more and stir it in. It should look like the the plastic is gold plated. When I get the gold plastic to this point, I re-heat only enough to spoon it into the mold cavities being sure to run it up to the back edge of the orange and to be certain the cavities are not too full and hamper injecting the top color.
The top color here is simply a loose black, definely not a solid black but not smoke either. I've added the gold and copper glitter to the black [to taste] as well as a tiny bit of gold hi lite. The gold hi lite does not stand out real strong and does not show up in the pic, but in the hand it offers the slightest accent to the finished bait.
I've got a couple dozen of these put together now and they'll go in a zip lock along with some small jigs and ride out to the trout lake with their old age cousins to see if those wiley old troutskis like one better than the other. As soon as the couple feet of while goes away and the couple feet of ice on that particular lake goes to pot, I'll be making the trip. Be a couple days at least. But I'm ready to see how my handi-work works.
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Really good looking bait. Looks just like the Rapala. A true classic fish catcher.
I still am amazed at how you gifted folks can pour the plastic into the small molds.
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Tom , that bait is just AMAZING !!!!!!
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Using the same gold plastic but using the orange as a top coat, this pair of plastics do a good job of replicating another great Rapala color pattern.
(http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss184/crappietomtackle/84256b77-bab4-4522-92cd-1a6a7123e017_zpse95fff36.jpg)
This is the same gold, same orange that's found in the throat patch of the first pic. The gold really stands out in this pic.
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Very nice work Tom and the old Raps' are as good as it gets. It's never bad to imitate a legend.
Jerry
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Ctom that's beautiful man. Just for grins how long does it take you to make these?
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These all look great Tom! You definitely have great skill not to mention great patience as well. Nice job!
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Mo....I guess that it might take me about 15 minutes to make a dozen of the small fry if I hand pour and have all the colors handy and ready to heat. I use bamboo kabob skewers to put the dot of orange at the throat of the bottom cavity and that takes some time. Then I hand pour the bottoms using a spoon. Paying attention at this point saves a lot of bad baits....if the bottom cavity is given too much plastic and slips forward it partially blocks the injection port for that bait and can mess it up. If the hand pour slips to the rear of the cavity it can block the tail from filling. Its a bunch of guesswork at first but then you get a feel for it and things move along well. The eyes and cover dipping take more time that the making of the bait.
I'm not making these for sale. I make a few for myself and a couple friends I fish with. If I didn't make them a few they'd just fish out of my pail anyway so....lol
I like the creating part of this stuff and I like, insist on, quality. I don't push the envelope, no hurry here. I love working with my hands and I like working with the colors and all of the tuff I can jocky around to get a different twist out of something simple.
If I could tell anyone one thing that would make them a better plastics maker, it would be to slow down and really pay attention to what you do. I'll get going a color that keeps popping up in my mind at times and just set it aside for a couple hours. When I come back to it quite often I'll see why I set it down in the first place. Creating...and that's what every one of us is doing,...should be as fullfilling as it is adventuresome. When I sit down to dink with the plastic I don't really factor in my time so much, its what I get out of it in the end that matters the most.
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Using the same gold plastic but using the orange as a top coat, this pair of plastics do a good job of replicating another great Rapala color pattern.
(http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss184/crappietomtackle/84256b77-bab4-4522-92cd-1a6a7123e017_zpse95fff36.jpg)
This is the same gold, same orange that's found in the throat patch of the first pic. The gold really stands out in this pic.
what molds are these? I like the bigger of the 2, looks like a 3 inch fluke type split tail
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Really good looking goldfish / shiner as well. You are on a roll; must be the cold and snow.
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I liked the goldfish and then I seen the black back over gold belly.. you are making me use plastic in a way I thought I never would, Thank u sir for you dedication to this fourm and advancing me in the future...
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Crappie fisherman over in Onalaska, WI would go crazy for those gold fish color baits. One of my vendors is a big time crappie fisherman over there and I made up a bunch of small fries in orange for him. I believe they call them Rosy Red Crappie Minnows:
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/rosies.htm
Andy
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ctom, bump on that bigger minnow bait...what mold is that??
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The mold is a Jacobs 3" silver fish. There are two or three different body shapes in his sliver fish line and you want the minnow tail.
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Thanks, didn't realize that mold looked that good!! G
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I think I will buy that silver fish mold for drop shotting!!!!!!
Nice work Tom!!!
Jim