DIY bucktail wrapping

[jurelometer]

Not sure about those fluid dippers.  They aerialize a lot of powder in an uncontrolled way and are pretty messy.  For something like a soft lead jig head, getting an even, exact coating thickness  is not that important.  It is the curing that makes or breaks the job.

You can just warm up the lead with a heat gun or torch and use various dusting techniques (like bumping a paintbrush full of powder over a hot jig).  This works ok, and even allows for two tone finishes. The smaller the jig, the better dusting works.  It is hard to keep a big jig hot.

A short bake (try an old toaster oven -don't use for food) is the key to getting a full cure.  And if you want to keep the paint on the jig even longer, consider first applying  an epoxy powder primer.  I just started using primer on powder coated jigs, and it has been working well so for.

And you can buy a full pound of powder from a paint supplier for little more than the price of those tiny jars that they sell to fishermen.  The regular poly/urethane powders work fine for dipping and dusting.  It's probably the same stuff.

If you are taking kids fishing, it might be worth putting a powder coat on any bare lead that they might handle - sinkers, jigs, etc.  Lead does not get absorbed through skin-it has to be inhaled or ingested. Hand to mouth is the usual route.  Grab a sinker, then grab a drink or sammich...  Maybe a neutral grey color if you don't want it to stand out more than bare lead.

-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

This isnt a bucktail but it also isn't worth its own thread. I added an assist hook to a spoon. I used an inline hook so it wouldn't snag on every bit of vegetation that it passes. But i realized that the assist hook could be completely covered by the spoon, defeating the purpose. So I took my grinder and thinned down the "neck" of the spoon to expose the hook.

And of course I replaced the treble out the back with a single hook because i like my fingers. But I didn't need to use an expensive inline for it, it flaps around enough that it doesnt really matter where it's pointed.

Gotta give it a test to see if I wasted my time.

[Wolfram M]

Jurelometer, if your fluidized bed is spraying powder you've got too much air in it or the cup is too full.

Jason-They've called school off again so I spent some time in the shop today. I Put together a handful of stuff to send south for your spring season!

[jurelometer]

Jurelometer, if your fluidized bed is spraying powder you've got too much air in it or the cup is too full.

Powder is quite fine/light, so once it starts getting blown into the air, there is no magic shield that stops the powder at the top of the cup, even a well tuned one. You need a bit of negative air pressure to guide the powder, like a bit of vacuum at the back of a cardboard box on its side, or a blower/filter, or a blower that vents to the outside.  This is what we do with an electrostatic powder coating system. Come to think of it you can do the same thing for one of those fluidizer/dippers. 

Note that the powder is flammable, and powdersuspended in air can be explosive in larger concentrations,  so if going through a bunch of powder, you need a filter to keep the powder away from anything electrical like vacuums and fans to a

Agree that you can make them less messy with some care, but I am still personally  ant-fluidizer. I have seen loose aerialized

Agree that you should minimize by controlling air low , but

[jurelometer]

Jurelometer, if your fluidized bed is spraying powder you've got too much air in it or the cup is too full.

Powder paint is quite fine, so once it starts getting suspended in air, there is no magic barrier that stops all of the powder at the top of the cup, even a well-tuned one.

Agree that proper tuning makes a difference. Some of those "expert" videos look more like an elementary school volcano science project exhibit than a painting device!

Even with a well-behaved open-air fluidizer, I expect that you will eventually find powder building up on flat surfaces a remarkable distance away, and probably in your lungs as well.

I just don't see fluid dippers as worth it.  It is basically an open-air hot flocking device, which does not give you that accurate a coat. 

A dipping jar gets you by for a few small jig heads.  If you want to go fancier multi-color, or coat medium sized objects that can still be heated evenly but are too big to dip, go to drop dusting, Once you get into anything bigger, just get a cheap electrostatic gun, a homemade box-filter-fan booth(read up on powder dust explosion risk), a toaster oven, and a regulator with particulate cartridges. 

Just my opinion from playing with powder coating at home and in a shop with a real booth and oven setup.  Not an expert.

-J