Messing with colors

Although I have a new worm design, and a new 2 piece mold design in the works, I have not been able to get anything done on it this week. My real job got in the way this weekend, and while priorities are priorities I hope to get some work done on that next week.

As far as the new design goes, I added "runner" or a way to better fill the cavity with plastic. I also have incorporated some venting from the cavity to the outside of the mold to allow air to escape during the filling of the cavity. Some other processes that I plan to test out with be pee heating the mold to allow for better flow of the plastic during pouring, but thus will only benefit if the mold is made from aluminum, so this will have to wait since the next testing will be done with acrylic mold material.

So, I decided to try and do some testing today with the existing molds that I have and tried to figure the best temperature to keep the plastisol at for the best pouring results possible. I used a digital thermometer to monitor the temperature and continued to raise the temp. until the plastic was at it's optimum viscosity. This turns out to be around 325 degrees F. I also decided to start out on the lighter side with the colors. I used only a few drops of brown and a few drops of green along with gold and black flake.

Overall I am pleased with the results for today. The plastisol stay very liquid the whole time I was pouring, the colors turned out more realistic than before. I learned to be a little more patient when pouring, before u was a little rushed because I was concerned that it would cool to quickly, but this was not the case.

I learned a few things today and can't wait to get a new mold completed, and get some Bass Magnet Baits "Delta Hog" worms into the waters of the California Delta.

New Design

Working on a new design today, this is a pretty popular worm in the California delta called the "Brush Hog" made by Zoom baits. I personally have never fished it before but I hear a lot of chatter about it from fisherman I talk to at the launch ramp.

This type of bait is "flipped" into to the weeds or tullies during slack tide situations when the fish are not very active. Or fished "Texas rigged", with a small bullet weight or even no weight, depending on the wind conditions, on the rip-rap banks.

This will be my first 2-piece mold, I will try to incorporate some of my knowledge of thermo-plastic injection mold design that I learned while building ceramic and thermo-plastic molds for Wunder-Mold Inc.

Here is an image of the CAD/CAM design that I will use to generate the CNC code to machine the acrylic.

Wish  me luck.....

First attempt....

For as long as I can remember I have been a fisherman, and some of my fondest memories growing up in Norther California are of fishing with my Dad. We fished as much as possible when I was a kid, whether it was in my dads boat out on Lake Berryessa, the "rip-rap" banks in Rio Vista, to the "Red Barn" on grizzly island in Suisun City. It was a huge part of my life when I was younger, and still is one of my favorite leisure activities to this day.

My very best friend, Dave Hettick and I, purchased a small aluminum bass boat, re-upholstered the interior, and got the boat "tournament" ready, and proceeded to fish every possible moment that would could back then. We fished Berryessa probably more than anyone ever could during this time, and I enjoyed every moment spent on the boat with Dave, some of the best times of my young life. We joined up with a local fishing club based out of Fairfield, Ca. "The Bass Reapers" that introduced us to true tournament bass fishing. These were a great bunch a guys, that taught me a lot about fishing for bass, tournaments, camping, and of course drinking. To this day I am friends with a few of these old timers.

Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County. This reservoir is formed by the Monticello Dam, which provided water and hydroelectricity to the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay area. It is a deep, clear water lake, with steep, rocky banks, perfect for "worming" bass. Carolina rigged 4" inch platic worms was how we fished for bass on this lake. We would take day trips to Manteca, Ca. to shop at Delta bait & tackle, because they had the best selection of plastics anywhere around. This is where we discovered the "Binky Bug".

The "Binky Bug" was a custom made worm that someone local was hand pouring and selling at this store. This turned out to be the worm of choice for us on lake Berryessa. We fished the hell out of this worm, I mean we basically would not fish with anything else. However, at some point the person making these things just stopped. So, we decide we would make out own. After purchasing a molds, plastic, colors, melting pots, glitter, and a litany of other items, we attempted to reproduce this worm. If I remember  correctly, we were pretty good at it.

The only thing I regret about this part of my life was what exactly happened to the relationship that I had with my good friend, Dave. Somehow we grew apart, or I probably did something stupid to drive him away, I really cant remember but, this has always been a mystery to me.

There are many, many other stories and adventures that I will share in this blog, but the intention for this is to keep a record of my attempt to duplicate the "Binky Bug", and possibly produce some custom plastic worms that I can bring to market.

I have produced a couple test molds, purchased some basic supplies to get started creating "recipes". This is my first attempt after a very long hiatus so be kind with your comments.

Recipe #1

4oz. M-F 502 Plastic
5 drops brown
20 drops motor oil
2 drops green
black, silver, red, green, .035 glitter



Result:

Overall, I am not pleased with the result. The color is not realistic looking. There is nothing in nature that would ever be this color. The size and shape is good I think, from my recollection this looks about right. The actual pouring of the plastic was harder than I remember, trying to get the plastic to fill the mold without over filling was quite difficult.



Observations:

1. I think I need a thermometer to control the temp of the plastic better, the plastic needs to stay more "pour-able" when it got to hot it started to actually become thicker.
2. I need to rethink the mold, I produced the first molds out of aluminum with an open cavity, I think for my next attempt, I will use a 2 piece acrylic mold with the cavity split between the 2 halves so that I can close the mold and pour the plastic in without having to be so precise on filling the cavity, and making it out of clear acrylic I will be able to see how the cavity fills.
3. The colors are gonna be key, I think I need to start out lighter and go darker, 20 drops of motor oil was way to much.