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Posts: 139
| Hay guys got a few more questions for some of you outstanding bait builders I just put my first coat of etec on yesterday, I warmed the bottles up with hot water for some time then mixed evenly by adding in to 2 seperate clear cups then combined the two together and mixed for 3 or so minutes very rapidly I then waited app. 5 min. to apply I did use a brissel brush this time. (the reason for waiting is to let some of the bubbles work out) After it was evenly applied I quickly ran a torch over the baits to attemp to get the rest of the bubbles. Needless to say not all of them came out. The majority of them did but there was a couple of tiny pin bubbles on some of them. I thought about using a toothpick to attempt to pop them but didnt want to screw anything else up. Where I applied it at it is very hot? I was in the loft of my shed thought it would be dust free and warm to help the drying time. Now They definately look smooth and good just not quite perfect. Does anyone see anything I could of done differently or something that would help me get them perfect. This was my firs attemp I applied a second coat today using a foam brush doing the same methods. The reason for switching to a foam brush was I did get a couple of brissles that fell out. I will be posting pics of them monday night. Thanks for the help guys!!! |
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Posts: 1529
| it happens to every baitmaker.
improper seal
dust.
we do a dozen daily here and every once in a while ya get bit.
fish dont see bubbles though. |
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Posts: 114
Location: Central Wisconsin | Put another coat on them. The first coat is always the ugliest. Plus IMO torching is overkill. Take a drinking straw and blow through that to get the bubbles out. |
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Posts: 615
Location: Madison, WI | Shamrocker,
Man e-tex can be frustrating 
after applying the e-tex coat hit it with a heat gun lightly (~ $10 at HF)...throw it on the spinner and inspect in a few minutes. When you apply the e-tex some of the fine bubbles will get trapped below the surface of the bait if it's warm then the bubbles will travel to the surface and most will pop on their own. For the ones that don't...just hit them quick again with the heat gun, not too much and let 'em spin.
Let us know how it goes.
MS |
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Posts: 360
| I pour my etex on a paper plate. This lets more bubbles pop before putting on the bait. Then I let it spin for like 10 mins before I hit with torch |
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Posts: 139
| Thanks guys thats what I was going to do next was get a heat gun dont like the idea of the torch moving around with paint and everything else. I just checked on them and they are looking good dont hardly see anything wrong. I tested on a couple smaller baits I made for my wife for bass fishing and maybe a muskie (she is afraid of them LOL) and one of the side to side baits I made. (It looks really good cant hardly see any thing on them. Im excited as hell to get them off the wheel and am dying to see a muskie smash one of my own baits. This bait building is so fun, Second coat deffinately looking good.
Edited by Shamrocker 4/12/2012 9:03 PM
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Posts: 1202
Location: Money, PA | The Porter Cable heat gun has made a world of difference for me in regards to E-texing. WAY more control.
Edited by ShutUpNFish 4/13/2012 8:33 AM
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | I would not warm the bottles. It thins it out. I like my etex cold like in 50 degrees. It goes on thicker that way. Bubbles come from heat. You heat the wood it expands and gives off gas. You cool it and it contracts. I fought the heat thing for a couple of years then listened to Bill Crane. He refrigerates his envirotex. Then he pours it not brushes. I brush for a more even coat. The torch should only be used on the 2nd coat and after. You dont want to release gas from wood. It will ruin a great paint job.
Some of you guys have an obsession with using heat. Try working cold and you will see much better results,thicker coats and very few bubble problems. My shop is 65 or less when Im coating. Ill use air conditioning in the summer if I have to just to keep temps down.
Sealing wood is so important I cant stress it enough. Poorly sealed wood will blow paint, crack top coats and even explode under water splitting and cracking. Mike |
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| I have just been using a hair dryer and it works fine---Also on small bubbles I just breath on them and many will pop. I do seal the wood as best as possible and when mixing I gho slow and steady. BUT i have to say some great tips on this thread and I will also be trying some of them---Nothing is more frustrating to me than those small air bubbles. |
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Posts: 994
Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | I have never gotten around to using heat with Etex and I do all my baits with a brush. Outside of a few baits that come out with spots where there is not full coverage once in a while, Etex has been foolproof. The bubble work their way out. I often vertically hang baits and let them drip off and not use the wheel. I prefer the wheel on baits where I am using "runnig colors" or glitter. |
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Posts: 53
Location: Mn | When e-tech gets thick heat will thin it temporarily heat is not what pulls the bubbles out its the CO2 so blowing Co2 from a tank or your mooth will work depeding on qauntity of lures. The gas that was mentioned can be helped by starting with a bait being warmer than where your dipping ,no extreme differances. also heating e-tech will shorten pot life unless thats required dont do it. Line your pot with tin foil and this will disperse heat and help with bubbles. e-tech can be sanded for blemishes between coats and will dissappear with next coat. or scuffed with 3-m pads and painted to add depth to patterns, experiment with that first. |
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| Kingfisher - 4/14/2012 3:49 PM
I would not warm the bottles. It thins it out. I like my etex cold like in 50 degrees. It goes on thicker that way. Bubbles come from heat. You heat the wood it expands and gives off gas. You cool it and it contracts. I fought the heat thing for a couple of years then listened to Bill Crane. He refrigerates his envirotex. Then he pours it not brushes. I brush for a more even coat. The torch should only be used on the 2nd coat and after. You dont want to release gas from wood. It will ruin a great paint job.
Some of you guys have an obsession with using heat. Try working cold and you will see much better results,thicker coats and very few bubble problems. My shop is 65 or less when Im coating. Ill use air conditioning in the summer if I have to just to keep temps down.
Sealing wood is so important I cant stress it enough. Poorly sealed wood will blow paint, crack top coats and even explode under water splitting and cracking. Mike
if the wood is properly sealed how he can release some gas into the etex?? |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | Guest - 4/16/2012 10:46 PM
Kingfisher - 4/14/2012 3:49 PM
I would not warm the bottles. It thins it out. I like my etex cold like in 50 degrees. It goes on thicker that way. Bubbles come from heat. You heat the wood it expands and gives off gas. You cool it and it contracts. I fought the heat thing for a couple of years then listened to Bill Crane. He refrigerates his envirotex. Then he pours it not brushes. I brush for a more even coat. The torch should only be used on the 2nd coat and after. You dont want to release gas from wood. It will ruin a great paint job.
Some of you guys have an obsession with using heat. Try working cold and you will see much better results,thicker coats and very few bubble problems. My shop is 65 or less when Im coating. Ill use air conditioning in the summer if I have to just to keep temps down.
Sealing wood is so important I cant stress it enough. Poorly sealed wood will blow paint, crack top coats and even explode under water splitting and cracking. Mike
if the wood is properly sealed how he can release some gas into the etex??
I should have said bubbles from pin holes and around screw eyes. Have any of you ever had those nasty little spots on a lure where the bubbles just keep coming back ? You keep going back over the spot with the heat gun only to have another bubble form right behind it? Those are caused by the wood giving off gas. Working cold eliminates most of this. I agree however that proper sealing also eliminates this problem but placing even a properly sealed wood lure in a heat box or bombarding it with high temps will cause even properly sealed lures to bleed gas.
Warming etex will #1 shorten working time, #2 thin out the mix resulting in thinner coats,#3 speed drying time. Works great on plastic and metal lures.
I found that ding all my top coating at under 70 degrees gave me the best results. I do my coating at around 65 degrees. I dont have to refrigerate the etex or warm it. Even pin holes dont bubble at that temp.
Try a test bait, after coating place it in front of a heat source like an electric heater. Oak is really notorious for this problem. watch the bubbles form. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | Ill elaborate a little, Adding heat to the equation adds more variables which have to be addressed. This adds time to the process. Yes I know it reduces drying time however if you have to sit there for hours tending the lures because of bubbles how does this save time? I coat upwards of a hundred lures per week sometimes 3 to 5 hundred every 10 days. I cant spend the time watching them. Oak is my biggest hurdle and I have to use it on the Little claw twitch version . This wood is very prone to pin holes and grain streaks. To counter this we have to dip in sealer and sand sometimes three times before we get the wood sealed. Summer time bring temps here into the 80's and coating then is impossible without air conditioning. The etex is thin and runny just sitting in the shop so we set our thermostat at 65. This does two things. Thickens the mix and keeps humidity down. Gas bleed around screw eyes is another problem even with cedar. Again this is countered by not allowing the wood to get over 65 degrees. Once we started doing our etex in a cool room we stopped having problems with gas bubbles. C02 bubbles are normal and just blowing on them or using a light pass with a torch takes care of those easy. |
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Posts: 531
Location: Hugo, MN | This is pretty simple to avoid. When a gas, other than inert gases such as nitrogen, is heated, it expands. Look up pressure-temperature relations and you'll see how much air expands per degree of temperature gain, and how much moisture (water) expands per degree. Moisture in your wood is usually the culprit when the bubble keeps appearing by a screw eye or along wood grain. Kiln dry your wood and seal it while the wood is warmer than the ambient temperature. As the wood cools, the air inside it contracts. This will pull the sealer into the wood, rather than push the air out...one annoying bubble at a time.
If you have bubbles in the Etex you need to quickly run heat across them to get them to expand and pop. If you have a bunch of tiny bubbles, almost a milky look, you need to go a little thinner with your coats. Often times, you will get a milky spot around eyes or hook hangers, right where the epoxy builds up. It's hard to heat the bubbles out when they aren't near the surface.
If you have a lot of bubbles in your Etex, you are probably whipping, not stirring. Try a slower pace when you stir. Etex doesn't set up very quickly, so you have plenty of time to stir thoroughly.
Hope this helps. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | knooter - 4/17/2012 5:13 PM
This is pretty simple to avoid. When a gas, other than inert gases such as nitrogen, is heated, it expands. Look up pressure-temperature relations and you'll see how much air expands per degree of temperature gain, and how much moisture (water) expands per degree. Moisture in your wood is usually the culprit when the bubble keeps appearing by a screw eye or along wood grain. Kiln dry your wood and seal it while the wood is warmer than the ambient temperature. As the wood cools, the air inside it contracts. This will pull the sealer into the wood, rather than push the air out...one annoying bubble at a time.
If you have bubbles in the Etex you need to quickly run heat across them to get them to expand and pop. If you have a bunch of tiny bubbles, almost a milky look, you need to go a little thinner with your coats. Often times, you will get a milky spot around eyes or hook hangers, right where the epoxy builds up. It's hard to heat the bubbles out when they aren't near the surface.
If you have a lot of bubbles in your Etex, you are probably whipping, not stirring. Try a slower pace when you stir. Etex doesn't set up very quickly, so you have plenty of time to stir thoroughly.
Hope this helps.
That is a pretty good explanation of why I coat in a cool room. All my wood is kiln dried but it still has moisture in it. No wood is completely bone dry. I completely eliminated bubbles around screw eyes by keeping my temp at 65 or less. This also keeps the etex thicker and it covers better. All I have to do is breathe on the first coats and any bubbles are gone. I start using a wide flame propane torch on second, third and up to 10 coats on our Titan .
Also everyone be careful wet sanding after the first coat. Unless you have perfect coverage you can hit paint. I normally dont wet sand until the second coat is cured. I apply the send coat while the first has a slight tack for real good adhesion . Then wet sand and continue to add coats. Torching those later coats really makes the stuff flow and look deep. Mike
Edited by Kingfisher 4/19/2012 11:06 AM
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Posts: 139
| Fisher if you are applying it at 65deg. (cool temps) doesnt the etec start spreading on the bait unevenly (getting sticky like), I am no longer having problems with bubbles but it seems like I will get a spot or two that leaves like a brush mark that didnt even out. |
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Posts: 615
Location: Madison, WI | Cool discussion fellas.....I personally am a fan of heating the etex and I have dealt with the bubbles around the eye especially. I have reduced that by more than 90%. I shoot my base coat of paint and then give it a few light coats of spray clear enamel , this has done a great job at sealing the more pourous areas around the eyes as well as a canvas for adding the detail work without worry as with the clear on a mistake can be easily wiped off.
Again great to see the pros discussing cool topics like this, a great way for all the builders to Lear, I really appreciate everyone's input. I also understand that hundred of plugs could not be easily sprayed....I'm doing a dozen at a time and that's a challenge for me
Best
MS |
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Posts: 139
| You are right there slayer I love hearing everybody thoughts on this I want to learn as much as possible about this. What are some other clear coat possibilitys that others are using along with the pros and cons of them? I would like to try a few baits in different clear coats to see which one I prefer and get a taste of them all. Just ordered a new belt/wheel sander and a 1" sander , and a heat gun tonight. Let the bait building expand. Hay slayer you fish mainly in the madtown area. Im excited to meet some of you bait building pros. |
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Posts: 1106
Location: Muskegon Michigan | Shamrocker - 4/19/2012 6:33 PM
Fisher if you are applying it at 65deg. (cool temps) doesnt the etec start spreading on the bait unevenly (getting sticky like), I am no longer having problems with bubbles but it seems like I will get a spot or two that leaves like a brush mark that didnt even out.
I have had that happen as well. The cool is not the trouble there. It is the etex starting to set up or you are just plain brushing too fast. What you need to do is to go over the areas more than once. I have a pattern I follow for application. After I completely cover the bait I go back and put long strokes with the brush down the entire length of the lure. This helps find spots that have excess and spots that are bare or thin. . Sometimes I even take some back off the lure with the brush . I used to look for ways to speed up the process but after fighting with bubbles and fast hardening etex I found it was better to just take my time, run the room a bit cooler and enjoy the process. Mike |
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Posts: 4266
| I coat my lures and hang unpainted blanks in an area in my basement with a dehumidifier going, this seems to help. Befor I seal them, I hang them for a day with the dehumidifier going, then after painting I'll hang them again, and after I put on Etex they hang again. I think keeping moisture out of your working area, esp. in the summer, is an overlooked problem.
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Posts: 615
Location: Madison, WI | Shamrocker
Yup...alot of my fishing done on the Madison chain, a lot and my favorite area is Hayward. Shop is by Oregon, stop in anytime. Where are you
MS |
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Posts: 139
| Slayer, thats why I asked my sister lives in oregon I am going to stay with her sometime this summer and fish wauby. Went there 2 years ago for the first time and raised a few, a couple of my buddies placed 2nd there last fall in the iron man. I live in Black River Falls just west of you, I own property on the Chip river just a couple minuets from lake Holcombe. Thats where I do alot of my fishing, we also have a small lake 20 min. away from home with muskies in it. This muskie fishing has become an ddiction to me in the last 5 years. I have hosted a small muskie tournament for 4 years now it has ben real fun usual about 10 boats great guys come there. |
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Posts: 615
Location: Madison, WI | Sweet, definitely give me a shout when you'll be in town!
MS |
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| just found that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydmht9iXWr8&feature=channel&list=UL
due to the the skill of that guy i think his method should be considered a VERY good one |
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