Several questions

[Do Re Mi]

Enjoying my new hobby, for the most part my pours have been successful, some minor issues with "dents", bubbles, etc: usual stuff, I've been able to find answers to most of my issues by looking thru the forums, but do have a couple of questions.

I've seen mention of peoples procedures for keeping their X2 colorant stirred up, besides shaking every other day or so, any suggestions or tips on properly storing the colorants?

Beakers, pyrex cups, etc:  I noticed some people discussing using beakers, I ordered one, and noticed it is much thinner than the pyrex cups,  I'm guessing they are safe to use, but want to double check before I cause a serious issue with hot molten plastic, the beakers I've seen advertised to 515 degrees, safe, yes, no?

Colors, any suggestions on what 6 or so colors are most useful for beginners, can't buy them all right off the bat, same with glitters, any suggestions on which colors are the most useful?

Thanks for all the help in the forum and from Do-It
John

 

 

[Mike J]

I can't help you with your 1st 2 questions because I'm not to good at keeping my colors mixed up and don't know about beakers. 
What I can tell you are my most used X2 colors.  They are purple black green chartreuse yellow chartreuse and ide suggest getting a pearl powder to make pearl white baits and at least the blue hi-lite powder.
As far as glitter I use black and blue most and silver and gold  go good with a lot of colors as well.
To me that would be a good start. I suggest just buying a new color of colorant or glitter each time you make an order and before you know it you will have them all.

[ctom]

If a beaker says its safe to 525 degrees one has to assume it is, or will be, but for the sake of handling I suggest just using the pyrex cups.

Mike has you covered well in the other questions. Personally I store my X2 colors on their flat sides with the Yorker caps on in a Tupperware tote. I rotate the bottles every three or four days 180 degrees and give them a good shaking at least once a week. Some colors don't come with packing problems, those that do you'll soon enough discover and those are the ones you want to stay on top of. I clean both the inside of the red cap and the nozzle after every use of every color so seeping doesn't occur. I also add two 1/4" stainless steel nuts to each color to act as agitators while shaking the colors.

[efishnc]

Personally I store my X2 colors on their flat sides...

Yup, me too; it makes mixing SOOO much easier.

[MT204]

[Thump Huntin]

I, like many others, use Pyrex/Anchor cups. I prefer the Pyrex as they have a wider mouth.  Have been reports of the blue Pyrex cups shattering but mine never have.  Don't know if this was a quality control issue on a batch of older Pyrex's.

As far as colorants guess that depends on what fish you'll be targeting and water clarity.  I only fish for crappie and in stained/muddy water.  I mainly use chartreuse, fluorescent green chartreuse, pumpkin seed, black, orange, white, pink, blue and junebug.  I rarely stray away from these colorants as they are what work for me.  Out of these colorants the chartreuse, fluorescent green chartreuse, white and pink hard packed. I have replaced these with Spike-It colorants and the rest are X2.  I have a good 10 other X2 colorants that I don't use and never shaken and they haven't hard packed so you don't need to keep every X2 colorant shaken.  I found that the X2 orange bleeds.  This is due to how much you use and me fishing muddy/stained water I want a hot/bright orange and need a good 30 drops per 6 oz.  I replaced this colorant with Spike-It too and my bleeding went away.  I've also had X2 pink bleed on me when using with a white tail.  This would be due to the amount I'm using like my orange.  I make use a lot of hi-lights, pearls and UV.

[Do Re Mi]

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate all the tips and help.  I did discover that my Chartreuse was pretty hard packed at the bottom but manage to break everything up using a kitchen skewer, will have to watch to see if it happens again.  Will put in some 1/4" nuts to help keep things stirred up. Had fun yesterday making several hand pours with chartreuse, than injected some junebug.  Did get a little bleed over, I think I had the plastic too hot when I injected, still learning, some injected well, some I let cool down too much before starting to inject and had the plastic solidified in the injector.  As with anything, experience is the best teacher.

Do most of you use the # of drops as a way of measuring, I had read one of Ctom's posts where he said he measured his color by dipping either a kitchen skewer or toothpick into the color? 
Having fun, and learning, once again appreciate the help.

John

[ctom]

John....if I am adjusting a color and feel that a full drop will be way overboard I'll dip the tip of a small skewer maybe 1/16" in the colorant then stir it in the plastic until all the color is off the skewer...all but the stain that is. I'll repeat the process until I think I have what I want.

I'll note here that the color of raw plastic with colorant added is a far shot from what the color will be after its cooked, but watching how the raw plastic changes in color as more drops are added is just as important as the drop count can be. Actually the drops can be terribly inconsistent when it comes to drop count as one may be squeezing the bottle slightly more one time over another or perhaps the color has settled slightly and has more oil in the drops. After playing with the plastic for a while you'll learn  by watching the raw plastic as you add colorant when enough is just right or another drop will be over the line. That's where the skewer comes into play and is a handy way to adjust colors slowly.

I buy the 6" bamboo skewers in bags of 100 for a buck and go thru them quickly. They are a cheap tool.

[efishnc]

Do most of you use the # of drops as a way of measuring, I had read one of Ctom's posts where he said he measured his color by dipping either a kitchen skewer or toothpick into the color? 

I'll mention that Tom tinkers with his colors like I do my fabrications simply as a qualifier to my methods... I use a simple "rule of 4s" for the starting point of most everything I make, it consists of 4oz plastic, 4 drops x2 and 1/4tsp glitter.  Then I tweak it based on my mood(s), because it's such simple math to multiply out by 25% margins to get exactly what I'm looking for (if I even deviate from the original batch).