tinkering....

[ctom]

Tom, I have no clue how you get such great looking skirts on these!

I use a scissor with a very long, ultra pointed blade first. After I trim the bait for overall length, I slip the scissors blde in the hollow to where I want the tentacles to start near the head end and snip, running the cut right smack down the middle of the top color, then do the same on the bottom. I end up with two flaps, each having the top and bottom color. I lay the bait out flat on its side one flap at a time and split each into thirds using a single edged razor blade. If I get a wide tentacle I'll split it again so the number of cuts is real arbitrary.

I have discovered a trick to the dipping to get a nice, smoothly layered finish on the bait but it would be super confusing to try and describe it. The dipping is done light color first and each color gets dipped as many as 4 times to achieve the color I want. I keep the plastic hot, right up around 350 or a little higher, especially on the darker color so it flows and doesn't just stack up.

Practice definitely improves the end result. If you can find a way to rotate your wrist, turning and changing the angles and and direction of rotation after each dip, you will have just made your dipping simple. It took a while for me to figure it out. Try dipping the rod and then keep the rod moving, all the while watching which direction the plastic wants to run and move the rod in the opposite direction. Remember, never stop the movement of the rod. You should look like some wild kung-fu dude getting ready to lay hurt on a baddie.

I'll be posting another pic later this morning. I've been busy with this little venture.

[ctom]

Here are five of the tubes I have settled on for color and plan to add an Ambercracker color yet today.



I will have enough by tonight that I feel comfortable hitting the water and thinking I can give these a serious trial over the course of a couple months. Along with the yet to come Ambercracker, these are solid walleye colors at the dams on the Mississippi River which I fish religiously in late October right thru and into December. If I can slide my boat across ice to open water, I fish.

[ctom]

And now back to the baby baits. The 1,75" small fry is not a new color but a friend said he's running short of it and I have this feeling.....



The next time I am dipping the junebug and chartreuse I am going to dunk a few of the small tubes in the same fahion as the larger ones....with the colors running parallel to each other. Doing small tube like that is a challenge but around here we seem to do way better on horizontal color separation than a simple butt splice. We'll still get fish with the butt splice but we know the bite is better going length-wise.

[Billmo]

Tom,
If you dont mind me asking what size rod do you use for the little tubes? I have a bunch of guys that trout fish those here in the winter and was thinking of trying to make some for them.. They hate the ones on the market now because they dont swim straight, most tend to spin when you try to jig them.

Like your fish, for some reason the fish here in So Cal like the horizontal split colors over the head and tail split.

[ctom]

The rod diameter is just a hair over 1/8th inch. The tubes, even the large ones, are all made on the same diameter rods. The plastic is very resilient and stretches over a ball head jig up to 1/4 ounce if there is suffifient plastic, as in the case of the larger tubes. I have slipped a 1/8th head in the dinky tubes with no issue. The rod diameter I use is only because it was sitting in the garage with no apparent use. My intention when I started to fiddle with the idea of tubes was directed at small baits but was fired up a little when Keith [Microspoons] showed us a rod with a leg bent in it to do horizontal split colors. I started to get a little carried away with the dipping and some larger tubes began to evolve and I just went from there.

I'm certain larger rods will make tubes with a little more meat to them for bass fishing. I just haven't gone to that end yet. Yet. lol Never seems to be an end to what I get in my head and what I'll monkey with. Its hell getting old ya know.

Now you mention trout and tubes. A freind here in SE minnesota is a trout guy and he has done the tube route with great success. I made up some 1.75" small frys for him to try last winter. Honestly, if you want to make those Cali guys nuts, make them some small frys. Seriously. And really, one can never have too many plastic options for any kind of fish.

[Billmo]

Oh i did... The hot color for me last year in the small fry was straight black.. me and two other buddies threw that on a 1/32 jig head and slayed the trout..  we out fished the jigs 3 to 1 easily...  There are a couple of pics in the gallery of some fish i got last year on the small fry.. 

I tried adding pics to this post but cant figure out how...   

[Dave]

Tom what tube mold are you using?

[Billmo]

those are hand dipped tubes

[ctom]

Tom what tube mold are you using?

I'm using rods with a 90 degree bend about three inches long for the larger tubes. I have others that have a leg length of about two inches for the small tubes. Rod diameter is slightly over 1/8".

After thinking about my color selection I decided that I should probably be carrying these two colors as well. The are both proven combos: the black/green great on bright days and the black/orange on days when the clouds cover the sun.

[412BaitCo]

A really cheap easy way to get rods for doing this is crochet needles. They come in all different thicknesses and lengths.

[Jason]

Very cool.  You could make a rod holder out of a round piece of wood and drill holes in it the same diameter as the rods.  Then you could do quite a few at one time.

Jason 

[TheDreamer]

Here is an idea I have been playing with ever since all this talk about dipping tubes came to be. The idea allows you to dip 22 tubes and cure them all in one.



This is not exactly to scale in any way it is just a rough draft. The concept being that the legs are long enough for the rods to travel above your cups, then applying pressure to the top plate putting the legs into the springs then releasing. basically you could do 8 tubes at a time (depending on size) 4 in your interior color and 4 in your final top color. Essentially you would be able to dip your first 4 in your interior color then roll the "machine" to the side so the next set of rods would enter that cup. By having your top color next to your interior the first tubes would be entering the top color while the next set would be entering your interior color.

[ctom]

Dipping these tubes has some drawbacks that one has to see to understand.  Take some old plastic and heat it up, then use a large nail, 16 or 20 penny, to dip a few one at a time and it won't take long to see first hand the challenges involved.

[ghostbaits]

Here is an idea I have been playing with ever since all this talk about dipping tubes came to be. The idea allows you to dip 22 tubes and cure them all in one.

Not Roboworms but RoboTubes... LOL!!! Dipping tubes is more of a pain than senkos!!!!!!   

Jim

[ctom]

I created some time this morning and had a bunch of plastic that was real close to scrap so I fiddled around a bit and came up with this one I think I'll call black cherry. I'd usually toss out the recipe but the only component I ca steer anyone towards is the top color , which is just smoke to taste with CCM garnet glitter in the medium grit and some violet hi lites. You don't want to try and figure out that bottom color, trust me. There's about 5 different clear colors in there with some raw plastic to loosen things up. As near as I can tell there are five colors and shapes of glitter and maybe a hint of violet hi lites....your guess is as good as mine.



The picture does not do that top color justice at all. In the hand it is chock full of the garnet glitter and looks just about like the color of a ripe bing cherry. It is absolutely electric burgandy. The red eyes make this bait appear as though it is about as mad as anything could get. lol. I've seen that look in Ma's eyes a couple times. lol

Anyways....as long as I had to pick up yet ANOTHER box this morning just to keep up with the tubes I figure this one should go right in with the others to trick old marble eyes.