New Fun! Totally Tubular Tubes!!

It was a perfect night for me to play around and try to make some tubes, so I did! Used my brand new $10 OfferUp Microwave and two of my new Anchor Hocking glasses and went to work.

About 8oz of plastic, about 14 drops of colorant, maybe some Med and small silver glitter and some black and BAM!! A slightly more translucent version of a chartreuse green. Cleanup is a breeze, have a ton of extra plastic to reheat next time. Fun as all hell, be even better if I catch a fish with one.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Awesome!! Are these 3"?

Would love to help you "test" some of these out the next outing I can make it to hahaha

Most are 3", like Bob was mentioning it's hard to keep the size since the material diminishes with each dip. I had to use two containers so I could keep refilling one as the height went down. Letting them cure, then tomorrow I will attach the eyes, redip in clear, then cut the tails and hook slit.

You know I'm gonna be fishing the hell out of them this weekend! You are welcome to try them out as well.

Alakai wrote:Most are 3", like Bob was mentioning it's hard to keep the size since the material diminishes with each dip. I had to use two containers so I could keep refilling one as the height went down. Letting them cure, then tomorrow I will attach the eyes, redip in clear, then cut the tails and hook slit.

You know I'm gonna be fishing the hell out of them this weekend! You are welcome to try them out as well.

I'm sure you saw this video - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

He uses a 4-cup Pyrex to do the initial dips then when the material gets down to 2-cups he transfers it all over to a 2-cup Pyrex and continues dipping. Of course, his tube jigs/molds are small enough so they can fit both 4 and 2 cup Pyrexes... man, this is making me want to get into pouring my own now haha.

4 cups is a hefty investment in one color. I used a total of about 9oz and kept refilling an Anchor Hocking 5oz measuring cup I found at Walmart. PITA to keep refilling but it saves me from wasting too much material. That plastic is damn expensive at like $50+ a gallon.

My set up can fit in a 1 cup Pyrex but even that would require me to use upwards of 12 oz of material in my test trial. It's all mad scientist stuff since I am fully protected and even use a respirator when dipping. I want to use the least amount of material since I want to do end up with about 4 colors I like in the end and find solid recipes to stick to.

Dude great job buddy that is looking great, I really like the color as well. That color in the HUB always works well for me, keep up the great work.

jeffcpr wrote:Dude great job buddy that is looking great, I really like the color as well.  That color in the HUB always works well for me, keep up the great work.

Thanks Jeff! More to come for sure, I actually had Watermelon Red planned but somehow bought blue glitter instead of red. Gonna "wound" some of these before I clear dip them also just to play more

I look forward to reading all about your test results.
I hope that you DIY pours will slay them!

Great job buddy, they look great! Add me to the list of testers!

So the saving grace on making your own stuff is the ability to just reheat your mistakes. I redid about five of the lures, combined the material I had and went to work. Using no more material, I made up all of these.

I then affixed eyes (too small, imo. Need to get bigger ones), painted red on some as wounds (airbrush as some point) and then redipped the heads to keep the eyes on in clear.

Also had a few of the "keitech" type swim baits made up for some fun to try.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Nice! Looking really good!

NIce looking baits.

TobyB wrote:NIce looking baits.

Thank you! Looking forward to getting on the water with you at some point.