The Pack Rat

[ctom]

Yup. I am guilty. From the get-go 16 months ago when I started this crazy venture, I have been bagging my scraps. Many of which have gone into re-melts, but there are lots that just flat out started getting dark and ugly looking. Well, this morning when I found I couldn't find hook space to hang any more such bags in my work closet, I embarked on a house cleaning mission. Said venture ended up with me tossing 87 quart and gallon sized zip-locks of scorched and otherwise scrap plastic. plastic I know I won't use. Now I have a ton of room but will prrobably just start over again.

There is a suggestion in this though. If you make a batch of plastic and use but a small amount of it, save it to re-melt. I buy WallyWorld brand freezer zip-locks in quart and gallon sizes for this purpose. Right out of the box I pop a hole thru the top of the bag above the zip part using a paper punch, then put whatever in the bag and seal and its ready to hang. Having these bags at eye level is nice to re-locate a color you want and in fact facilitates sorting the bags by color. The clear bags make color identification a breeze if randomly placed.

[CrabbyBass]

I have a cookie sheet that I throw all of my scraps on.  This thing was so full of waste that it was stacked close to a foot tall.  Not quite as much as you had though.  I take that and melt it down to make funky color combos.  If I don't like it, I add a bunch of black colorant to it and make a bunch of stuff in black.  Recently my buddy's father in law was running low on plastic, so I gave him a big pile of my scraps.  He was happy.

[Denny Welch]

I usually don't toss my scrap unless it's burned beyond recognition.  I keep most of my colors numbered and have a corresponding recipe for each number.  I will cut  off a cross section of the scrap from the injector and bag it in a smalll bag with the color number written on the bag.  It works really well with multi-color baits.  It gives me the ability to match different colors that I've already poured with each other thereby taking out some of the guesswork.

I too have a lot of stuff in black.

[pjmcla]

Black is a good color.  Very under rated.  Laminate sprues and runners that  look "bad" when melted down are good candidates for black or a very dark color.

[superharmonix]

From a sales perspective, I remelt mine and call the resulting patterns (B.A.).  It stands for "born again" plastic. ( as in- melted again, but also I am a Christian so I love the corrolation there. )
I can not re-create most of the colors(as they are fairly random with many different glitters, hi-lites, pearl powders, etc. and I will melt many together at times in order to haev enough to inject or pour, but I sell them as one-time runs and do pretty well! (again this is for those of you who sell)  For many of my left over "normal" colors, I keep, bag up, and re-use.  Mastering Heat Stabilizer and timing of re-melts has really helped here.

..then I have ALOT of black as well. 


...just an idea for you all.

[BigHawgBaits]

here is a link to a picture on my website of what my scrap looks like when I am done we call it scrapyard. http://www.bighawgbaits.net/Pictures.php

[ctom]

Most of what I had wqs real bad as far as discoloration goes. I use little black but some buddies love the color so they think I'm the sandman of home-made tackle lol

Super....I use a lot of the stabilizer too. I've been shooting tail colors lately and now have a gallon bag full of chartreuse trim, but I have also just ordered the tail mold for said bait. When that arrives the re-melt machine will be humming. I think I have enough of the color to do 3000 tails. That should last a while.

[superharmonix]

CTom-
Dang!

Well I hope you are blessed with so many fish those 3,000 tails will be gone by June.