Thread: Split color

Just shoot the tail color, cut the tails put back in to mold shot body color. Hope this helps.

the way I do it depending on what mold you have is I shoot the mold before I do this I put a light coating of Pam on half of the mold on the half of the mold that does not have the alignment pins make sure that you wipe it off put it back together and should the coder that you want to tale carefully opened the mold backup in I use a little razor knife and I come across the body and pulled the body off put it back together and shoot your body color.

If you decide to shoot baits in your tail color ahead of time or in bulk numbers to store, be sure that you either leave the baits whole or trim the tails longer than you want. When you are ready to make your baits with those tail colors just trim them to the length you want so the cuts are fresh and none of the oils that like to come out of these baits in storage mess with the welds.

If you are shooting a mold or two just for yourself and want to do the tail color, then go right to the body color you can do as Bob suggests but be careful not to score the mold with the razor blade. If you do the repeatedly you can create a rut in the mold that will leave flash on your baits down the road. I find it easier to just pop the string of tail stock out, cut to length and lay the tails back in the cavities.

Some tails can be a terror to re-lay in the mold so I keep a small cup with just a few drops of worm oil handy along with a small, pointed artist type paint brush. Pick up just a wee bit of oil with the brush and use it to lube the tail cavities a bit, but stop before you get to where the cut is on the tail pieces. If you get a little too much oil in the cavities just wipe the cavities with some paper towel to get rid of the excess.

Spike-It soft plastic dye.

If you want to make lure colors involving more steps, follow the above great suggestions. But for convenience resulting in adding two or more colors, dying plastic is easy and a bottle lasts years.
Here's one:



Here's another using different colors to give a laminate effect (top and bottom lures):



Clear plastic below was dipped in dye colors:



The other method requires a candle flame and a sharp blade.
1. cut off the parts of plastic lures you want to fuse together
2. hold each over a flame briefly so they don't catch fire
3. hold the two parts together for 10 seconds

You now have a new lure color and/or color combo.

The one thing with dyes is certain colors take the dye well others don't like it. All the work then u dip it and it's ugly!! Just my .02

I've never run into that problem and I've dyed hundreds of plastic lures for quite a few years. Sure beats mixing a color and not having to use it again for who knows how long. Been there, done that.

The one thing I've notices with any color plastic is how it gets pale if left in the sun for too long after which it's time to bring the dye out.

The other thing to make sure of is to keep certain bait colors separate just in case one might run or stain another. The cone shaped lures in the photo started out as clear plastic lures which I cut after removing them from mold cavities and then dipped with Spike-It dye.

The only dye I have any exp. with is Spike It and that in chartreuse. I have thrown away so many plastics because the chart tails had gone pale from age. Now a quick dunk in the juice and they're just like new. Now I have enough plastics for years to come. Going to p/u a jar of red for the firetail that works good locally.

Thing about my most recent purchase of Spike-It was that a few colors have to dunked far more times than the dye I bought years ago: lime-green, blue/green and pumpkin produce pale colors at first; chartreuse, black and pink are okay. (Pink and chartreuse dipped or wiped one at a time over each other produce a light fire orange over clear or white plastic. see photo of tailless grub)

For lure contrast I use a pipe cleaner to wipe green, brown or smoke Spike-It along the backs of the light colored minnow shapes.