Wanted is a good clear kote.

Started by gstours, October 11, 2021, 02:21:58 AM

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gstours

As things progress in making your own jigs it seems like a good hard protective clear Cote is needed.
Most simple epoxies yellow in time.  Dripping and rotating is another issue.   What have people out there found satisfactory to use as a product to top cote a hard lure.
   Below is a good example of what is needed.   Thanks for your reply.  🌊

RowdyW

Emoron paint is used to paint color & as a clear coat on 18 wheelers. The smallest quantity I've seen is 1 quart cans. It is a 2 part paint that has to have a hardener mixed with it when ready to use. Very toxic when sprayed. You must use proper resperators & full covering when spraying. That stuff is so tough that I have seen the metal underneath completely rot away & the paint was still there. Some epoxy paints are chip resistant.          Rudy

Maxed Out

#2
 Krylon makes a good quality clear coat in a spray can. About 10 years ago another boat put small dent on the outside of my pilothouse while my boat was tied up in a stall. I bought a couple tuna sculptures made from aircraft aluminum and stuck one on each side of the house with 5200. One side was to cover the dent. Anyways, I clear coated them with krylon and 10+ years of nasty salt spray and they still look shiny new.
We Must Never Forget Our Veterans....God Bless Them All !!

Wompus Cat

Rowdy is right on with Imron .
I have painted quite a bit with it in my time. I had three or more Friends no longer with me who succumbed to the hazards of improper ventilation using this .
It's one of the most dangerous paints ever made. It can kill you if you mix and wear improper safety equipment when spraying. You need a continuously supplied fresh air breathing system with proper fume collection just for starters.
AND it is expensive with the Hardener and cleanup stuff you would need .
Any Epoxies harden in your lungs just as they do on what you paint as well as can soak through your skin and just wreck the Hell out of your innards .

Imron is the Best for sure but any good CLEAR with a lot of coats on you lure project would do . Yo prob won't have the Jig long enough to worry bout yellowing from what I have seen ...lol
If a Grass Hopper Carried a Shotgun then the Birds wouldn't MESS with Him

jurelometer

#4
Ideally, you want something very clear and very hard- for the humans- We
all know that the fish don't  care.

A spray on finish like KRYLON is not going to make a thick enough/ hard enough coating to make a difference.

For car painting type  clear coats,  the lure guys often recommend KBS Diamond.  I haven't read the SDS, but would expect it to be as toxic as the rest of them..  Well, maybe not as bad as  Imron sounds, but clear coats are still nasty stuff. Not worth the risk IMHO.  Plus I think that the auto clear coats might also have  a limited shelf life once opened for the first time.

Ther are  two part  epoxy  coating resins that are very clear, sorta hard, and kinda UV proof.  Envirotex  Light  (etex). I think is the name of the brand that I have used before.  Liked it OK, but it did get scratched up.

Next up  are the UV curing resins.  Polyester is usually the cheapest, very hard, and good on not UV yellowing. Not crystal clear but not bad.  No catalyst required, so no mixing and not as toxic, but you stil have to respect the  stuff.  Not terrible price-wise.

Finally we get urethane UV cure,  pretty hard, very clear very good UV, not too toxic, crazy expensive for the name brands, but a little goes a long way in the thinner formulations.  No mixing required.

I have tried  a lot of the UV cures branded or recommended for fishing tackle.  I only use Solar EZ at this point.  If I was making a ton of jigs, I would try the cheap off-label import copies.

No UV flaslight needed if you paint during the day, and plenty of time to get out the drips if you paint indoors.  Take it out in the sun, and it hardens up quick.  

-J

oc1

#5
Turning it is going to be the key to get a thick and clear finish.  You can get a 1 rpm gearmotor for not much money and fabricate some sort of jig to hold the lure as it turns

I'd use something like Aluzine or Alumilite for clarity and UV resistance.

gstours

Thanks all,  I've seen some dipped lures coating clips on u-tube mostly small top to mid water lures that never clunk the bottom structure.   They might work?  Butt wanted to get more information.
   Here's one product from a craft store.  Fairly hard overnight in the finish,  drips easily,  very clear in its finish.
I'm covering water based paint usually with a clear finger nail polish first to protect the paint before clear koting.
  Another desire is to protect the. Luminous powder pigment in the last picture.
Here again maybe using an epoxy paint might be better?       Thanks for your help.

jurelometer

#7
The hobby stuff looks to me like another epoxy art resin.   I suggested one brand, Steve a couple others.  I suspect all will work OK for your purposes if you don't mind that epoxy is not the hardest option.

If you are using any of these epoxies, you need to pay attention to the thickness.  Some of the art resins are doming resins, intended to go on very thick.  Some lure guys like the thick resins, because they can just dip and hang , but you end up with a much thicker coat at the bottom.  I prefer thin.

Also look at the cure time.  Drying motors for jigs are a pain because the jigs are heavy, so you can't get away with the cheap AC gear motors that are used in microwaves.

There are nice UV and glow in the dark powders that can be added to the resins. The good stuff isn't cheap.   For glow, you can just use glow paint and clear coat over it as well, as long as the clear coat is not too thick.  Adding glow powder to the clear glows a bit better, but the  the powder makes the the clear cloudy, and you need a white undercoat to help  he glow.  So you can't do your  fancy paint jobs with a glow/clear topcoat.

With a slight bit of heat, I can get a not perfect but plenty smooth finish with thin UV cure urethane.  It sets fast enough in mid-day sunlight that I don't need to use a turner and light system to dry it.  IMHO more than good enough for non-commercial product.

-J

Cor

#8
We don't have the choice of products here like in the USA so tend to try stuff that is available in my Garage.

I have a number of times used Rod finishing epoxy, like Flex Cote.

It looks very good but in some cases does not adhere very well but doubling the cote thickness seems to improve it.

I have also used surf board polyester finishing resin.   That gives a nice finish, dries in sunlight in 3 minutes but it is fairly hard and not very durable.    The latter is not too serious, give it another dip in the pot, take outside in the sun for a few minutes and you're ready to go again.
Cornelis

gstours

Thanks for sharing your information,   Yes I've struggled with finding a good product,  and have used some Flex Cote hi build and it's getting closer to ideal,  in thickness and hardness , tufness and chip resistance.
   But it's expensive,  and needs proper temperature and dripping is wasted product.   Maybe a single lure at a time on my rod dryer of modify something for multiple jigs.   
  If anyone can be more brand specific on the uv cured epoxys it would be helpful.    Thanks for more ℹ️  .

jurelometer

#10
The urethane clear that I am using now is the stuff that I had on hand for coating foam popper flies but at 35 $USD for two fluid ounces, it would get a bit painful to coat a bunch of 16 oz jigs:

https://www.solarez.com/product/fly-tie-thin-hard-formula/

[UPDATE:  the SDS shows no vapor inhalation hazard for the urethanes, but does show problems with repeated skin exposure causing sensitivity/rashes- keep it off of your skin, don't eat the stuff, don't get it in your eyes, don't pour a bunch into a clear cup and leave  it out in the sun - it will get REAL HOT- otherwise not to bad, especially for a clear coat]


I hesitate to recommend the polyester at this point because I have not been able to get any safety information on the new stuff.  I contacted Wahoo (the SolarEZ maker) since they have pulled all of their online SDS sheets and now require you to submit a request.   After one year still no reply. I would get an SDS in advance of purchasing any new product from them.  Companies are not required to provide SDS documents to consumers, and some don't.  At a minimum, I would suggest to read ALL of the application instructions and warnings before purchase.  [UPDATE:  just sent another request today on the Urethanes and got the SDS within an hour- so maybe chalk it up to the same issues every other company was going through in 2020].

The polyester is pretty nasty stuff, even without using a catalyst, but I don't know if it is better or worse than any other polyester resin.  The problem with UV cures is that you need to restrict as much UV light exposure as you can when coating, so it is harder to apply outdoors or indoors with good air circulation without letting some daylight in.  

I will send you a PM on the polyester that I played with.

Here is the non-UV two part epoxy that I have used. With the coupon sales at craft stores- this stuff van be pretty economical, but you will probably need a turner for drying:

https://eti-usa.com/envirotex-lite/

I suspect that any of the better known UV resistant coating epoxies will work OK with some practice.  If you have a barbecue rotisserie motor lying around, you can whip up a turner.

Hopefully Thorhammer sees this thread.  He has some work related experience in UV cure clears.

-J


oc1

To me, the UV cure stuff is reserved for a quick and dirty surfboard repair just to keep the water out until a proper job can be done.  It doesn't last for long.  An epoxy resin will give you a thicker coat and hold up better..  I guess it depsnds on how long you expect the jig to last.  UV cure would be perfect for me because I leave all my terminal gear on the rocks.

Here's a comparison to read.
https://www.epodex.com/en/uv-resin/#:~:text=The%20durability%20of%20a%20surface%20coated%20with%20UV,can%20flake%20off%20or%20blister%20in%20the%20sun.

Cor

Quote from: oc1 on October 15, 2021, 05:06:15 AM
To me, the UV cure stuff is reserved for a quick and dirty surfboard repair just to keep the water out until a proper job can be done.  It doesn't last for long.  An epoxy resin will give you a thicker coat and hold up better..  I guess it depsnds on how long you expect the jig to last.  UV cure would be perfect for me because I leave all my terminal gear on the rocks.

Here's a comparison to read.
https://www.epodex.com/en/uv-resin/#:~:text=The%20durability%20of%20a%20surface%20coated%20with%20UV,can%20flake%20off%20or%20blister%20in%20the%20sun.
5 days ago I hooked the first Yellowtail of the season, I did not see it coming, just a tiny "slurp" 15 mt from my feet, lifted my rod and before I realised that it was a big Tail, I was stuck in to the bottom over a reef.   Gone some line, leader, clip, lure and fish!  :'( :'(
Lures are not made to last unless in a display cabinet, so why all these pretty lures? ???
Cornelis