Do-It - Live Bait Jig Mold
Pretty sure I ordered the six cavity mold, but this one stays with me anyways.
Overall the quality of the pour gets a GOOD rating. No lead creeping up the neck of the hook. No flashing. There is a collar that I am gonna have to address, but clipping it away for now isn’t too difficult. I do not care for the sprue as it is too involved with the front of the jig. I wanted pointy, round and but the sprue separates leaving flat. It does take the hot lead very well though so there is that. Quick and easy to set in the hooks.
The mold uses the short shank Eagle Claw 571. This hook is like their 570 only shorter shank. Bronze and sharp. The mold suggests size #1 for the smaller weights and 1/0 for larger, but as you can see the mold takes either. The mold is free and clear and would do nicely with regular hook shank lengths as well should I abandon short shank hooks. Right now they are performing very well for me.
If you look you will see how the hook rides high up in the head, with the majority of the lead below. This is what attracted me to this mold. I believe these heads will swim very nicely while trolling.
I plan to use silicone gasket goo to fill in the collar. I also plan to mod the mold to accept my under spin design. Should do very well with blades, or at least I hope so.
The 1/2 ounce size is actually kind of nice for my style of trolling.
Painted them all bright white. Waiting on some new paints to try to get just the right ones. Bright White will be one of my go to colors. I have some fingernail polish that has two nice colors so I’ll paint up a few.
$36 from Barlows, and can be found elsewhere for more. This mold does have a six cavity sister but the shortages on molds being what it is I’m glad I could get it.
The weights are off. The 1/16th ounce, after collar cut off weighs 1/12th ounce. 12 of them on a scale weigh an ounce, and that should be 16 of them. The 1/8th ounce weigh 1/6 th ounce also too heavy even with collar removed. So six of them equal an ounce, not 8 as the mold should produce. On the other end the 1/2 ounce is dead on without their collar. 2 jigs equal 1 ounce. I knew as soon as the first heads came out they were gonna be heavy.
I do not utilize secret formulas for down and distance, so this is not a big deal for me. It would have been nice had they simply adjusted the mold to begin with. They really do need quality control measures in Denver, Iowa. The Herring Head mold fails when used as directed. Oh well.
I’ll get these painted up, powdered up, and pretty and take more pictures. There is a flat spot on the sides to accept eyes. My smaller plastics will fit the shank nicely. I’ll be sure to add pictures later.
Maybe they will bite this one……