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Posts: 4266
| I remember back when muskie lures had a basic sprayed-on top coat. We learned that too thin wasn't very good protection and especially with wooden lures it could ruin the lure. I think back to fishing the first Reef Hawgs that came out....I caught a bunch of fish on a "new action lure" that muskies had never seen before. Months after, when they all started to crack, I started carrying nail polish and 2-ton epoxy to try and save the lures. Today the top coat is the same and many Reef Hawgers wouldn't change it for the world, citing better action as the lures became water logged. Before that, it was Suicks and Bobbie Baits and a few others, but none of them had a real durable top coat.
On the day that I kept my last muskie, I visited Bobbie up in Phelps to show him the fish, my third of the day on the same 6" Bobbie Bait. Unfortunately this 44"er swallowed the lure way down and when I set the hook it looked like a shark attack. I had ripped out her gills and she was dead before I got her to the boat. Talking to Bobbie was lots of fun and information. He told me about how he and hid friends would catch big fish every fall up in Canada by trolling Bobbie Baits and giving them a rip as they trolled along. I asked if he had secret colors that he used, but he said no, but he had one trick up his sleeve. He'd get lures ready to go and before he put the hooks on he would tie a bunch of lures to the back of his truck with braided Musky Master and he would deploy them and then drive down a forest road. He said sandy was better than rocky, but he did it "to take the shine off." This was back in the 70's. Fast forward to 2000 and Hughes Rivers made a big debut at The Chicago Muskie Show and guys were blown away by the thick epoxy top coat that protected the lures and the paint jobs, and I believe that the proper thickness helps a glider move better. We hear guys on here that use anywhere from 3-6 coats of Envirotex or 2-ton Devcon that it thinner but harder, some say too hard and that it causes cracking.. So what's your take on the whole thickness game? I use more coats on gliders than on crankbaits, but lately I've been thinking about Bobbie and "the shiny" so I've been taking some lures and after the final coat is fully cured, I'll take the finest sandpaper that I can find and lightly rub down the lure to get rid of the shine. I've noticed right away that you don't lose the feature of Envirotex that makes the paint job come to life, but on fluorescent colored lures like chartreuse and neon lime or orange, dulling the top coat down gives it a really nice, different finish. I'm going to keep doing it and see what the jury of the slimey thinks about the shiney. What are your thoughts and is anybody toning down their top coat? |
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Posts: 369
| I always put a few coats of etex on to make sure it holds up to muskie. Usually with devcon I use 1 coat but never dull either if them down |
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Posts: 141
| When you scuf up a clear coat a little with 1000+ grit you put millions of tiny little scratches in it that disturbs and bends the light hitting it. This makes the clearcoat less translucent and it now absorbs more light instead of transmiting it all straight to the paint job; it's like your putting a glow around the lure kinda.
Maybe Matt finishes will become more popular eventually with bright neon paint jobs. |
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Posts: 1530
| clearcoat in water is same as non clearcoat. this is over thought. |
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Posts: 141
| I had a project in physics where I had to explain the absorption, reflection, and transmission of light, and it's kinda weird how this's related. Light will react with differences to epoxys compaired to water because H2O is a different molecule than all of the diffent kind of epoxys out there. Espesally if you scuff up the sureface, the light will refract off of every microscopic scratch changing the lights phase of velocity. That's when the clear coat starts holding light instead of looking like "non clearcoat." It's the same physics why thay use light bulb coatings to make the whole bulb golw.
I think it's cool stuff! lol |
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Posts: 35
| So are you saying it's better to sand them or not? If it glows then it should bring more attention to it, right? |
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Posts: 141
| I think it depends on if your wanting the whole paint job to glow in a neon way, or if your wanting flash and reflection. A matt finish will give more refraction for light to travel longer under the clear coat and glow, and a perfect high gloss top coat wont refract hardly any light rays so they can bounce straight off of the stuff under it like foil or pearl paint.
Edited by Marling 3/21/2015 11:52 AM
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Location: varies | That would be interesting to see if there is a visible difference. I have seen silver plated blades that give off a glow or fog like glowing surrounding to them..pretty cool if that works on clear. |
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Posts: 36
| I talked to Smity ,legendary bait maker from Northern WI, at the Madison Fishing Expo recently and he said the same thing about florescent colors glowing more in the water without a thick clear coat. I was pretty blown away after talking with him for around 20 minutes about wood lures. He's a great guy to talk to about lures
Beaver, What kind of sealer and clear coats did older school lure builders use pre E-Tex. Cool Thread |
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Posts: 4266
| I don't know what they used back then. I started giving this lots of thought about 10 years ago when throwing an infamous "Flat Black Suick". You know the one that is dull and has no gloss to it. I checked it out side by side with a black HR Shaker, and the flat black Suick was much more visible in the water than the very thickly coated HR. A little piece of fine grit sandpaper is now tucked in a couple of my tackle boxes. Even did a couple of lures with perch stripes that are scratched into the epoxy. I'd like to read that physics paper about the subject.
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Posts: 1760
Location: new richmond, wi. & isle, mn | Great topic guys! Always wondered if flat paint wasn't at times better than clear coats. That flat black suick is dynamite at times. I spray canned baits back in the day with the hot color with success. Makes one wonder if clear coating is more for bait longevity.
Edited by jchiggins 4/10/2015 7:55 PM
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I actually wish I could buy or special order more of todays lures without the clear coats. As a very avid fisherman who doesn't care what his lure looks like, and have had too many coated lures fail after multiple fish/rock/bridge piling connections, give me Reef Hawg/Bobbie/old school Eddie finish any day. So I appreciate Beaver offering and inquiring into this subject. For those guys making lures that are ultra touchy, where any water soaked induced weight could ruin action and a coating is needed to seal the lure, couldn't you paint the outside of the coating with a flatter pattern?
Edited by Reef Hawg 4/18/2015 3:50 PM
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