October, 26 2019

Soft Plastic Swimbait from Scratch

This is my attempt at creating a soft plastic paddle tail swimbait from scratch.  I haven’t messed with making my of soft plastic lures in over 25 years but after watching Worlds Worst Fishing on Youtube I got the itch to try it again.

Here is the full build video

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Below is the “To Long Didn’t, Watch” version.

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The process started with using some Sculpey clay to form a master blank. This clay is probably about 20 years old too but it’s still workable.

The basic swimbait shape is first sculpted out.

Then details like gills were then added.

Next a made a simple tool from a piece of brass tubing to add the scales.

The tool is just pressed into the clay to form a scale pattern. (Keep in mind this is my first time trying this.)

After all of the finished details like the fins are added the finished blank is almost ready to be molded.

It is first baked in the oven for 15 minutes at 275° to make the clay harden so it can then be sanded.

Next the master blank is glued to a piece of cardboard to start the mold box.

The mold box is then formed by hot gluing more cardboard around the blank. The box and mold are then sprayed with mold release and I used some craft store Amazing Mold Rubber to make the actual mold.

After thoroughly mixing the catalyst into the mold material the rubber is slowly pored into the box.

Here is the finished mold ready to make some baits.

I will be using Dead On Plastix plastisol in worm blend to test out the mold. I bought the worm blend first to test out some worm molds I made but will eventually get some swimbait blend too.

I didn’t have a spare microwave to heat the plastisol up so I tried doing it on the grill. (25 years ago when I use to hand pour bait from plaster molds we use to heat this stuff up on the stove in a sauce pan so I figured this should work.)

I added some black and silver hobby store glitter to the plastisol but had some heat issues so I had to reheat it a few times to get it to work.

Then it was just a matter of hand pouring the plastisol into the mold.

First pour…. this was suppose to be clear but I think the craft glitter bled because it’s not heat resistant.

The first few tries were poured in a worm blend but they came out pretty good.

After getting a microwave the next ones were all done in a swimbait blend and while the colors are still not great the a bait looks like it came out pretty well and the action isn’t to bad so I’m going to consider this a success. It won’t be until next season that I will be able to fish it though so I’ll update this as soon as I catch something on them.

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