iShrimp help

[Fishermanbt]

I’m having trouble shooting the ishrimp. I either get a dent on one side of the body in both cavities or I end up with an air pocket in the front half of both cavities. I’ve tried temps from 320°-350° and different speeds of shooting/hold times. Any suggestions please.

[ctom]

Are you certain the vents are open?

[Fishermanbt]

I’ll double check the vents this evening. I had the mold warm from shooting it but I will try using the hot plate too. Just trying to rule out as many variables as I can. As for the injector it was doing a fine job on other molds as I was trying to use up the plastic before it was heated to much.

[Apdriver]

Might want to try shooting it cooler. I’ve shot some molds down to 280 before. If it keeps giving you trouble, i have had some success opening up the restriction in between the cavity and the sprue. If this freezes quickly, it stops all plastic from being drawn down into the cavity as the plastic cools and will cause dents. Dremel and right sized round stone will do a real nice job here. I like the looks of that bait. Good luck with it.

[ctom]

A little play time with this mold today. I saw some body denting too. More later after some trial and error stuff..

[Fishermanbt]

Did you run into any hollow bodies?  Mine were consistently hollow from about feet nubs to about the eyes. They sure are some tasty looking baits

[ctom]

Twice the bodies were somewhat hollow in two baits, different injections. Same cavity, nearest the hinge.

I'm thinking the mold will want to be injected while the mold itself is pretty warm. That cavity nearest the hinge is likely not getting as warm as the other because of all the extra metal with the hinge.

I tried plastic at a bunch of different temps, 280 all the way up to 430.

If time allows, I'm going to heat the hinge end of the mold up to where its pretty hot to touch and try that. Also, on the cavity furthest from the hinge, the eye on one side [facing down] does not fill completely. That doesn't bother me much as I'll use other colors to make eyes if I want them.  And in studying the baits I've shot and looking at the mold and sprue area, I think the sprue needs to be larger in diameter to allow more plastic in the cavity during the injection.

[Fishermanbt]

I too was looking that sprue over. I’m thinking if it keeps causing trouble I will widen the sprue to omit the antenna.