I use a spru cutter, but a small pair of side cutters will work
I am using needle nose pliers to hold the ball head and another set of pliers to twist the sprue. Is there a better way? On real small jigheads the needle nose crushes the ball head a little. Thanks
I use a spru cutter, but a small pair of side cutters will work
On small jigs, I used to pour the gate and sprue of each jig all the way across the top. I would remove all the jigs in one piece. When it cools, you can hold the entire section, bend the hook back and forth twice, and then put you little lead bar back in to melt again.
I used a small verticle belt sander with a flexible belt. All of my jigs heads get cleaned with the belt. I hate seeing portions of the sprue still connected. I guess that might be one of the things that set my business apart from the competition. For personal use, I could have cared less, but when I was selling them, they had to be as round as possible!
I have OCD "Obsessive Crappie Disorder"
I use a bead tool that I modified (used Dremel tool to enlarge form to fit jig heads)
I use the same tool when dipping jigs in powder paint to keep hook eyes clean (notice silicon rubber patch attached to one jaw)
When I cast I do a few hundred at a time so pull a finished jig and put it in the pile. Let the pile cool for a hr or so and I can hold the jig with one hand while I use sprue cutter (looks like wire cutters w/flat side) to nip the extra lead.
walmart has these in the craft/jewelry section cheaper than this.
Gate Cutters, Pliers to Remove lead sprue from casting
I have a pair of sprue cutters from my model trains, it works very good, then I sand the head a bit. Fish don't seam to mind a little bump on the head of my jigs.
dave
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