I have a good friend that does the artwork, painting, and finishing for a major lure manufacturer. We have messed around with using Threadmaster for durability with good results. Just like with rods, the finish actually enhanced the colors, and provided a very good level of durability over the unfinished standard product. I have applied it just like for rods, with a brush. He is interested in a larger scale test, but the need for airbrushing the finish for large volume is necessary. I have been searching with no results for the owner/designer of Threadmaster and would like to get in touch with him/her to discuss options for this application. Anyone have experience with thinnning and using in this manner?

Call Scott at Fishsticks

You'll have a difficult time thinning it enough to get it to pass through an airbrush. Epoxy is really not the right tool for this job. Some sort of urethane would be much, much better.

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Urethane is the industry standard that is used by them now. They really like the deep clear look of the epoxy, not to mention the durability. The epoxy really adds a mirror effect to the under colors. I will give Scott a call. Thanks

Epoxy isn't nearly as hard as many urethanes. Just keep that in mind.

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I would think you might want to come up with a dipping arrangement instead of air brushing. To get the effect that epoxy gives you on the lures, I don't think you could ever get that by thinning the epoxy enough to use an air brush.

You can spray the auto polyurethane clears used to clear car finishes. Check out any auto body supply in your area.

Bill - willierods.com

Another thing to consider - when using epoxy on cranks, due to the weight and thickness you can sometimes change the performance of a crankbait. Sometimes good, some bad.

I've had some crankbaits that lost some action with an epoxy coat and some that seemed to work better.

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Tony, I agree that the epoxy finishes look great on lures, I use Etex Lite on my musky and bass lures. It really makes the colors pop- especially the pearls and irridescents. The problem with epoxy is that is needs to be brushed on (to my knowledge there is no way to thin it enough to make it sprayable, but I could be wrong). Dipping is not a good solution either because all you will end up with is a drippy mess. The fast cure times and mixing issues of epoxy don't lend themselves to mass production of fishing lure topcoats. I think that's why most of the major lure manufacturers use topcoats that can be sprayed or dipped. I've been experiementing with a propionate solution much like Rapala uses. I've had great results and it cures rock hard. The issue with propionate is the fumes given off by the virgin laquer thinner. As Tom mentioned, epoxy just isn't going to be as hard as the urethanes and propionates that are used and you will experience durability issues which = unhappy fishermen!

If you are careful, it is possible to put a thin coat on very small lures so that the action is not affected. I've had great success with Etex Lite on lures as small as 2" Yo Zuri Pins Minnows. It's not easy or time efficient, but it works.

just my 2 cents,
jeremy

I have used Rod Bond on plugs and it works great, but gets expensive fast. Etex is much cheaper than "rod building epoxies." All epoxies run so they need to be spun or flipped when used on 3D things until they set up. I have also started using etex if there is a large area on a rod that needs to be epoxied and so far it seems to work great, but I feel like I am doing something wrong by not using labeled rod building epoxy. I have not used any of the etex rods for very long yet so I don't know if they will yellow faster than other epoxies.

I dont think it will be hard enough for a lure finish. I have sprayed some automotive clear coate with hardner on some lures and after several hours of fishing a crankbait the hooks wore thru the finish just swinging and after several fish were caught at the end of the day they were trashed. The only thing I found that will withstand anything is Devcon two ton epoxy. Thinned and sprayed its so hard a big cat cant scratch it. Anything that you can mark with your fingernail will not hold up. But if your finishing some lures for display it looks really nice.

Mike Thompson
Thompson's Custom Rods

It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious!

What about one of the Min Wax spar spray clears

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks for all the feedback. The finish will be applied to Great Lakes trolling spoons. There are a lot of new innovations in glow and UV stuff coming out in the near future. Hardness isn't why the epoxy is a new finish choice, there is actually much more it has shown promise in during our testing. Can't give much more information without letting out proprietary knowlege of a new product, sorry about that. I am pretty certain that this company understands all of the why nots listed above, so I'll leave that to their tech guys. Working with Scott on this, actually playing phone tag right now. Something about a large rod building show someplace out east???? LOL Thanks guys.