SWIMBAIT COLORS?

[Les Young]

Those who have te essential series xl ripper mold at what temp do you shoot it to do laminates? I tried right around 350 & got quite a bit of mixing. Do i need to let it cool to around 320 or so? Other than the mixing I never had any flashing & it shot great.

[anyfish]

Les for me, I shoot it around 320-330.  I haven't had too many issues (every once in a while but I figure that is me).  Overall I like the mold and the ability to shoot from the top. 

[ctom]

Trying to get the same temp on both plastics can be a bear sometimes if one has a mess more of colorant or heavy glitter load than the other.

[Les Young]

Thanks guys. I’ll try it at a cooler temp to see if that helps. I usually don’t have this problem so I figured it was heat related.

[ctom]

I did colors sort of like the link provided here makes and it's not a bad match for clearer water. I'll carry it and try it the next time we hit the back waters where the water hasn't seen a lot of silt load yet from run off.

With snow depths very low in the northern part of the state the Mississippi's water levels likely won't get so wild this spring and water color might stay half decent without runoff as a factor.

[Les Young]

Man those are clear Tom.

[Muskygary]

Hey Tom, can you give us the recipe for that color in the above picture?

[ctom]

The belly is 4 ounces of Essential plastic with three drops of Essential pearl and just a bit of black.008 glitter. The back is 4 ounces of Essential plastic with two drops of Essential Watermelon green and then toned with X2 brown. The brown is added slowly using a toothpick dipped maybe 1/16" into the colorant and stirring in. I just wanted enough brown to tone it so it wasn't watermelon and wasn't watermelon brown. When I was happy with the plastic color I added green hi lite, about a paper match head and bronze hi lite, about a stick matchhead size dollop. The Essential watermelon is a potent color and very little gets a decent watermelon in 4 ounces. The hi lites work with each other nicely to add some shifting sheen to the back. The Essential pearl is another strong one from the bottle and in this case makes a really nice transparent silver belly. Of course the phone's camera's filter won't allow the real "pretty" to show well in a picture. These are real close to some of the minnows we encounter in places we fish that seem pretty transparent.

[Muskygary]

Thanks Tom, I'll mix some up and see what I come out with!