Corpusfishing.com

Neumie

Not that I need any more hobbies or collections........but I need a weekday after work hobby. One thing I've always wanted to do was design and pour my own soft plastics. My sister recently acquired a 3D printer so that got the gears grinding in my head. 3D printers utilizing PLA filament can withstand temps up to 350 deg F. Plastisol melts below that, so as long as you monitor your temps you can 3D print injection molds.

I started with a sketch for a shad lure.

I imported the sketch into AutoCAD Fusion and whipped up a model.

We printed it out.

After we printed it out I realized what looked good on the computer screen didn't necessarily translate well to the real world.

So I made some changes and made a second blank. It still wasn't what I wanted so I made a third version, and after printing I felt we could go ahead and make a mold. First attempt on top and the third one on bottom.

After we printed the mold I went and bought some new soft plastics from Academy and Bass Pro to re-melt for these trials; mainly H&H and Bass Pro lures.

After a successful test in the pool I went ahead an whipped up a few colors: White, Plum/Chartreuse and Strawberry/White. I'm not sure when I'm going to make it down to Rockport to test them out on fish, but I'll keep y'all updated.

After fishing with the shad, which I did manage to catch a redfish on, I went off and decided to design an eel, shrimp, and crtab lure. These 3D printed lures are rough drafts of the finished soft plastic. From here I'm going to make modest changes before printing a test injection mold. After water testing the soft plastic lure, I'm sure I'll have to make small changes to each lure design.

Anyways, it's been a fun project for weekday nights.

Rxfire · Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 5:00 am Post subject:

Reminds me of Creepy Crawlers.

way to go!

https://triviahappy.com/articles/a-brief-and-creepy-history-of-creepy-crawlers
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"In your guts you know he's nuts"

hickroots07 · Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 1:57 pm Post subject:

I had the same thought but it came from a place of "what can I do with all my messed up soft plastics". So I had buddies save all the ones that get messed up, tails bitten off, won't stay on a jig head etc. And I cut them in pieces by color. I made a clay mold, baked it, sealed it, then made a latex mold out of it. Its not the cleanest looking lure but it does catch fish and thats what I cared about. Thanks for sharing!
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Great captains, the stuff of legend, are made not by what they have caught, but by what they have given back.

ziacatcher · Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 9:01 pm Post subject:

Looks good and it looks like fun

SeanHHH · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:13 pm Post subject:

Very nice. Did you keep separate the melted H&H and BA plastic? If so were you able to replicate the durability of the H&H versus the flexibility and stretch of the BA?

P.S., your dad wants his Koozie back.

Rebecca of Sunnybrookfarm · Full Grown Flour Bluffian Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 3961

Neumie · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:08 pm Post subject:

SeanHHH · Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:11 pm Post subject:

Ah yes. There is a thing called reading comprehension. You did say Bass Pro rather than Bass Assassin in your original post.

Looking forward to seeing more of your designs! Let me know when to forward my address so that I can become an official field tester.