April 8, 2022

Dropshot/NED Worm

STL’s for this lure are available for purchase from Cults3d.com

This is a combination Dropshot/NED worm that I am working on which was inspired by a bait that someone sent me as part of a bait trade so I’m sure it looks like one of the other many dozens of dropshots that are out there. It has the typical open pour dropshot flat top body type but I also tried to make the nose of the bait more round so it can take a NED head also.

This is what the design looks like in CAD.

While the top of the bait is flat the bottom of the design looks like this.

I am making this design with a few options in mind.  Option 1 is my typical 3D printed open pour mold. The corner holes in the mold are to screw this to a piece of wood to see if that will keep the mold from warping over time.

Option 2 is to 3D printed a master mold box and then make a silicone mold from that.

Option 3 is a full round worm design…

…which will then be printed into an injection type mold.

Here is the printed mold of Option 1.

The first batch of baits out of the mold.

Overall they came out pretty well…

They were a bit under poured though but should still work fine.

The second batch came out great.

The detail on the tails didn’t translate to much so I might have to fix that.

Now I just have to work up some better colors and practice my pouring a little.

Rigged up with a NED head for testing… I still need to get some hardware to do dropshots though.

I was going to try a silicone mold next and I only had about 4 oz of silicone left so I made up a smaller 3 cavity master mold box to try… unfortunately right as I was about to start mixing the silicone I found out the activator had gone bad so now I have to order new stuff before I can continue.

I ordered some Smooth-On OOMOO 30 Silicone from Amazon to try because I could get it fast…

… but unfortunately even though I used Smooth on universal mold release on the printed mold I could not get the poured mold out of the mold box.

I gave up on the silicone mold for now but did pour some other colors to send out to a few people for testing.

First fish on a NED rigged one.

To be continued…

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