Alright guys, if you’re watching from my last video where I designed this fluke we’re going to print this mold, pour it and go fish with it to see how it works. I’m doing two because if it sucks it might as well suck twice, right? Here’s my latest settings for Sculpt and you can take a screenshot so it’ll last longer. Looks like two of these molds are going to cost me $2.05 and it’s going to take about 12 hours to print so we’re going to print it overnight and we’ll get back to you in the morning. We’ll wake up, and we’ll have a mold.
Pour #1
Alright, now it’s time to pour the flukes today. We’re going to mix it up a little bit, I’ve decided that I’m going to go with a crawfish color and go with a red. I’m going to start with the base of Dead On Plastics red (linked HERE), I have this red mica off of Amazon which you can find HERE. I actually got two, they were supposedly separate colors from the same company but they look almost identical so who knows. So red, Dead On red, base color red mica and then we’re going to hit it with some Hobby Lobby gunmetal flake just to break it up a little bit. We’re going red today which sounds like a good time so we’ll see how it turns out. Let’s go.
First Demold Fluke and Redesign in Fusion 360
So the first set of molds I made I poured and noticed right away that tail section was too shallow and too narrow, at least for my limited open course skill set. When I pulled the baits out, you know, it felt really flimsy, so I jumped back into Fusion 360 and adjusted the tail width and the depth to make it a little deeper and wider which gives it more of a bulk and make the top more open and easier to pour. How you want to do this is completely up to you. This is an open pore mold, if it was an injection mold, we probably wouldn’t have this problem because we’d have some both on the top of that tail section as well. But being an open core mold, you really need to pay attention to how much width you have in that section to make sure you can accurately pour your plastisol in there.
New Mold Overview
We’re back at the pouring table the next day after I printed a new version after that first pouring disaster. Let’s see what we got this time. We’re just going to remount this stuff that we used yesterday. So what I did between version one and version two is I made the tail section a lot wider because it was impossible to pour and quite a bit deeper as well which I think will help in the pour. I thinned down the mid-section just a bit, I wasn’t terribly upset about how fat it was but I don’t think I needed it to be that fat. I then added on a nose in front just to make rigging it a bit easier like every other fluke out there. If you look at this bait I poured yesterday, this tail section is way too thin. You’ll get a ton of great action there but the first little tail bite you get it’s going to be totally gone. So if it’s fat, that’s fine as long as it’s not too fat. It's probably still a bit too hot to pour but I’m going to go ahead and rock it out. I think it’s kind of bad when you have to redesign a bait because you don’t have the skills to do it but, oh well. I’m going to let these cool and get right back to you.
Demold Fluke #2
Alright, here we go with the mold of version two. It’s not getting quite enough in there, more maybe I poured it a little too hot which is probably the reason. That looks pretty good, little fish for sure and has a cool little arrow tail on there which is still pretty warm. The body cavity here is looking good, not too hard to demold. Getting the other one here should be basically the same, but maybe I’ll try it from the front this time and push back trying to grab that nose. That’s a big undercut there, but since the Plastisol is flexible it’s not too bad. This is Dead On Plastics craw tube blend so it’s relatively tough plastic. I like the way that tail looks, I don’t know how it’s going to act but we will let these cool off a bit and maybe I’ll go throw them today.
New vs. Old Fluke
So, here’s a little comparison between the two that we did. Version one the tail is not as well formed, and the tail section is just a disaster. Version two, obviously, is a little but stiffer but I think it’s plenty flexible and the tail is just a little deeper and a little wider. I hope that provides a lot more action then on the front, I basically just took a 10-millimeter circle and extruded it out to give us a nicer spot to rig compared to version one.
Gone Fishin'
Let’s see if this fluke works. I’m at the local pond, it’s about 8 o’clock in the morning. This pond is very small as you can see but it does hold a few bass so I’m hoping I can convince them to eat the fluke. That’s really all I got with me, flukes, and bigger flukes. Hey, it catches turtles I guess, I’ve made the world’s ultimate turtle lure. Alright, fish do suck at biting my lures, I don’t suck at fishing the fish suck. I’m not really good at fluke fishing either. I have a tendency to loose my patience when it’s super slow fishing but the fluke works as designed and it’s pretty killer. I released a bunch of different fluke lures to my Patreon group that is linked HERE. Every month in there, I release new molds and new hard baits as they come out.
A twitch bait has been born! This is the twitch bait I've been making throughout the series and it's looking really good! If you'd like to see the twitch bait process tutorial, click HERE.
First thing you’re going to want to choose is a resin and this isn’t a lifelong commitment, but it helps you get a general idea of what resin you like. I break resins into three main categories- water washable, standard resins and engineering resins. I use a lot of engineering resins but depending on what you’re printing you might want to use one of the other two and that’s really going to drive a lot of the decisions you’re going to make going forward.
Washing Solution
Number two is a washing solution. Once you print a resin 3D print, you need to get all the excess resin off of it. Again, this is really contingent on what kind of resin you’re using. If you’re using a water washable resin, you’re going to wash it in water and that’s going to have a different kind of washing solution than an engineering resin that only wants to be in isopropyl alcohol or denatured alcohol for 30 seconds. So if we’re using a water washable resin, you might be able to use something like an ultrasonic cleaner. It’s super easy and super convenient. Quick note about water washable resins, DO NOT do them in the sink. DO NOT wash uncured resin down the sink, that’s not what water washing means. You need to have it in a container and you need to dispose of it properly which usually means setting out your container in the sun, curing all that resin, filtering it out and throwing it in the trash.
If you’re using a standard resin that likes to be cleaned in 90 to 95 IPA then you can probably use a wash and cure station. These have a combination of a big bucket that goes in that has a magnetic stirrer on it and stirs it up and cleans the resin off that way. It also cures but we’ll get to that in a second. If you’re using an engineering resin, you probably was a large, airtight container. I use Siraya Tech Sculpt, Siraya Tech Build and Siraya Tech Fast. All of these are indicated by Siraya Tech to not want to be in your cleaning solution for longer than 30 seconds. Most of the washing machines I’ve seen have a minimum of 30 seconds on the timer. You could throw them in there and pull them out early but it’s just too much of a hassle in my book. You might as well dunk them in there, rinse them off, dry them and do it over and over again.
A Curing Solution
That leads us to the curing solution. Now, you can get a wash and cure station. I have a couple and I only really use them for curing like I mentioned. I use engineering resin but you can also go dirt cheap. You can even go basically free with the sun depending on the resin you use and on where you live. If you like in a place that doesn’t get a lot of sun, it’s probably not a good choice but at the beginning you can just pop this thing out in the sun, maybe put it on a mirror or something with a reflective surface. It’ll take a long time but it’ll cure eventually.
You can also cobble together your own curing box. I cobbled one together with UV LED lights and a CFL UV bulb. I put those inside of a box, mounted with some reflective tape and got a cheap little UV powered carousel rotator and it works great. You know the only reason I moved away from that to a normal curing station is that I would just walk away and forget things were curing and I would cure them for 24 hours and it was a total mess. You can easily put it on a timer if you wanted to and it cures just fine, you just want to make sure your UVs are in the 395 to 405 nanometer range. That’s what’s going to cure your resin and away you go. Curing stations are pretty cheap now, the curing stations are also very nice too. Some have rotating trays and have a timer. They generally work really well and generally have high quality UV lights and they’re not terribly expensive. You can get them for around $200-$295. The one I have is around $300 and it’s great.
Gloves
Now we get into the safety zone- gloves. You do not, under any circumstances, want to handle uncured resin or get it on your skins or eyes. The first defense of that is gloves and I actually have two different kinds of gloves. I have some very large, long sleeve nitro-chemical resistant gloves that I use for, what I call, bulk operations. Those are things that don’t require a ton of dexterity like when I’m getting things off the build plate, or pulling the build plate out of the printer when I’m done. You can usually use these big, bulky gloves when you’re doing those sorts of things and they’re going to be okay. They’ll also last forever, you can dunk them in your cleaning solution, rub your hands together to wash them off and they last a long time. I’ve had mine for like eight months now and they’re still going strong. The second type of glove you want to get is what you see a lot of people using which are the nitrile gloves. These are the exam gloves that you see at a doctor’s office. These are great but the cost really adds up so I only use them when I’m doing something that requires a little bit more dexterity, a little bit more fine control. Generally, if I have a screwdriver in my hand and I’m unscrewing the build plate to level it, I’ll have these gloves on. It really just depends on what you’re doing and how much dexterity you need and how much cost you want to incur over the life of your printer. I usually pick them up at Harbor Freight, they have the best deals but of course you can also order them on Amazon or wherever you typically shop.
Eye and Respiratory Support
Next up is eye protection. So I really can’t see up close so I’m generally rocking my glasses which aren’t the greatest eye protection but still decent. You don’t want to get uncured resin on your skin, you definitely don’t want to get it in your eyes. That’s going to be a trip to the ER which is not good. So goggles glasses, general eye protection is something you definitely wear. Resin tends to splash sometimes, removing things from the build plate, things pop up or pop off. I’ve dropped entire bottles of open resin on the floor, it’s easy to make a mess with resin, trust me.
Another thing you’ll need is some sort of respiratory support. You can use a respirator in this case, you want to use one that’s rated for organic chemicals. I have a link HERE to one that I just picked up. It needs to have vapors and activated carbon to get out all of the chemicals coming in. You can also use a variety of venting solutions, I have a 1600 CFM vent fan in the ceiling up here. When I’m moving around a lot of prints, when I’m printing a ton, I have that thing running. It’s very loud which is why it isn’t running right now. So that fan will evacuate the air in my space oncer every two minutes. One of the things that I use, specifically if I’m dealing with bulk resin (especially my soft plastic lures) is I take out these bad boys for proper eyewear and ventilation. I know some of you are thinking that’s total overkill. But, we’re doing this for fun, the last thing you want is to feel like crap afterwards because your eyes or nose is burning or you’ve sucked in some cancer-causing chemical. It’s not cool, stay protected.
Silicone Mats
Next up, I really love these silicone mats. Now, there’s companies that make 3D printer silicone mats but at the end of the day, it’s still a silicone mat. I ordered these either triple or double XL pet food silicone mats that are fantastic. They have a lip around the edge and this is great to contain any resin spills you have. They’re much easier to clean up than most tables, since I have stainless steel prep tables it doesn’t have a lip so it makes a mess if it spills. With the mats having a lip, the spilled resin is contained inside the mat and makes it super easy to clean up.
Space
Last, if it wasn’t already clear you don’t want to have a resin 3D printer in your house or anywhere you’re going to be hanging out a bunch. You need to have that printer outside in an unconditioned space. Most resins like to be a little warmer when you print them, some of them have very specific ranges. Again, engineering resins that I use (Sculpt Build Fast from Siraya Tech) like to be at least above or at 25 degrees Celsius. To get optimum print results, that probably means that you need some sort of heating solution.
Everyone enjoy your resin 3D printer and make some awesome stuff.
A question I often get is “what printer should I choose if I want to get into making my own 3D printed lures and molds?” That’s an easy question and a complicated question at the same time so today I’m doing to dive into some things you should consider before you choose the right 3D printer for you.
Two Main Types of Printers
First up, there’s two main types of printers in the home consumer market which is the FBM printer and resin 3D printer. The FBM printer takes plastic, shoots it through a nozzle that’s been heated and builds layers over time. That’s probably the one you’ve seen the most and it’s been in the consumer market the longest. The resin 3D printer is relatively new to the consumer market. Although they’re built on older technology that was used at the beginning of 3D printing uses resin and light to cure. Now both of these printing styles have their pluses and minuses
The Pros and Cons of FDM Printers
The FDM printer is easier to post-process. There’s really not much post-processing, you can print a part and pull it right off the build plate and use if for the most part. In a fishing lure, we know we’re going to paint it and we want to have the best finish so we’re probably going to sand it and there could be some other things we need to do.
The material you’re primarily going to use are PLA PETG which has some higher heat resistance, the have ABS plastic and all of these are a little more difficult to print and they take a different kind of environments. So with ABS, you generally have to have an enclosed space that's heated and I will say that by and large none of the materials are really great for molds. I would go so far as say you just don’t want to do a mold in an FDM printer unless you already own an FDM printer. It can’t really handle the heat of the plastic and when you inject it, it will deform over time or worst case it would just melt as soon as you inject it.
FDM printers are also a little more difficult to set up. Initially, they have a larger build plate that usually has four kinds of screws on the outside and you have to level each of the four concerns and it takes quite some time and the results at the end of the day are not as detailed as resin printers. That’s why I tossed FDM out of consideration from the beginning unless you have a very specific use or you already own one. Just don’t get one.
The Pros and Cons of Resin 3D Printers
Now resin 3D printers have a lot of advantages over FDM printers in terms of resolution and ease of setup. However, they do have one fairly major con and that is the post-processing. After a resin 3D print finishes, I have to clean it usually in some sort of solvent (isopropyl alcohol, denatured alcohol, etc.) and then I have to cure it either outside in the sun or in a UV chamber that I’ve made or purchased. However, you get some amazing result, we’re talking about layer lines that are .04 millimeters which is 40 nanometers. This is what most fishing lure makers want, whether you’re making molds or lures themselves.
Benefit of Print Time
So another big difference between FDM and resin is print time. It’s really print time with multiple objects on your printer. On a resin 3D printer the only thing that dictates how long a print is going to take is the distance between the build plate and the very bottom of the model that I’m printing. So, I can print a solid build plate that’s let’s say 50 millimeters in depth and that’s going to take exactly as much time to print as if I was printing a 1 millimeter diameter cylinder. That’s 50 millimeters long vertically and it makes no difference. That’s a giant advantage when you’re talking about printing molds and printing lure bodies
Discussion of Resins
Let’s talk about resin real quick. You’re going to be printing in a UV cured resin and they have a wide variety of these resins available. One of the things that drew me to resin 3D printing specifically for mold making is a resin called Siraya Tech Sculpt. This resin has a heat deflection temperature of 320 degrees Fahrenheit which is right around what you would shoot normal plastics at right around 350. Now I can go on a rant about heat deflection temperature but I’ll link a video at the end of this that discusses it in detail. Just know it’s not an absolute number, it’s a number derived from a test of the material at a certain thickness and under a certain amount of pressure or load. My finding is that when I make these lure molds, I’m printing at a much thicker material than they test. I’ve shot molds on accident at 420 degrees Fahrenheit with no damage whatsoever so just know it’s not an exact temperature that turns your resin into a big pile of goo. So resin 3D printers are really the only 3D printers I would recommend if you want to make molds. There’s no other choice in my book.
Lures and Lure Blanks
Now let’s talk about lures and lure blanks. With these we’re going to paint them and resin 3D printers are fantastic at producing amazing details and, again, we have a wide variety of resins to choose from which have different properties. So far, I’ve been printing all of my lure bodies in a combination of resin and Siraya Tech build mixed with a little Tenacious. Which, by the way, this is something you can’t do on an FDM printer. You can’t custom formalizations, you get one material. I know some guys will say they have RDX printers with two build heads and that’s just two different materials layers on top of each other, not a combination. So Tenacious is a very flexible resin and build is a very accurate resin that was designed to be drilled and tapped, combining the two together. So far, this has given me the best results for my lures but there’s more experimentation coming up
So Which Resin 3D Printer to Get?
Now that I’ve convinced you to get a resin printer, which one should you get. There are two things that are must have’s in my book is high resolution and mono LCD screens. For resolution, you should be able to find 4k in a midsized printer and 2k in a smaller printer. Mono LCD screens give you much faster print times. There’s no reason to get a resin 3D printer today that doesn’t have these two things unless you want to save $20 which just isn’t worth it. So then what it comes down to is size. The guys of these printers are all made by one company (C2 Systems) and they make the main controller boards and the LCD screens. So manufactures have a little bit of variability but you’re really not going to see any difference between the print quality from one 4k mono C2 system printer and another.
So think about what you want to print the most of. If you’re here because you want to print molds for soft plastics, I would largely throw out the smaller printers. You’re going to want to print larger molds if not for larger baits, at least for multi-cavity molds. This is just because it’s more efficient and it’s difficult to do that on a smaller printer unless you’re only printing super tiny crafty little things. So molds, larger printers, end of story. If you’re here because you largely want to print lure blanks then you can consider the smaller printers. On thing to keep in mind though is that you’re going to be limited on how big of a lure blank you can print and the number that you can print at one time. On a smaller printer, you might only be able to get three lure bodies at time. On a midsize printer, I can often get five to eight at one time and the print time between one lure and five lures is exactly the same.
Specific 3D Printer Models
So let’s take a look at some of the specific printer models that I use. In my kind of day-to-day printing now, I only currently have mid-sized printers. In the past, I’ve had smaller resin printers, particularly the Creality ID 002h printer. Again, all of these are pretty much the same when it comes to the quality of the print you’re going to get off. I know a lot of people use the Elegoo Mars line which is their smaller 3D printer. There's a link to the Mars 3 HERE and the Mars 2 HERE. Both of those are good, the Epax has something (the E1 I think) which is a solid choice as well. AnyCubic Mono X MidSize Printer, all of these are good choices.
I tend to avoid the off-brand printers and that’s not because they’re any less quality than the name brand printers, it’s just because the brand name companies tend to have better support. One of the things in resin printing that a lot of people don’t realize is the LCD screen is a consumable part. It will eventually run out and fail and you will need to replace it. Being able to contact the manufacturer and make sure you’re getting the right LCD screen is pretty important for me. That’s why I go with the Epax printers, they’re US based and always seen to have parts in stock. I kind of run my 3D printing as a business for this YouTube channel and I do lure design for folks, I don’t want a lot of downtime. For you, that might be different but generally you’re going to want to go with a name brand.
So if you choose from any of those name brand printers, it’s really pretty simple. Pick it based on size and of course the budget is key as well. When people contact me and say “hey, what 3D printer do you recommend?” the first thing I ask them is how much money can you reasonably spend. I can get a mid-sized printer that costs $15k if I want to go with some specialty dental printer. Or, I can get one on the low end as little as $399. The Voxelab 8.9 is approximately $149 and linked HERE. The main difference is that the one that doesn’t cost as much is going to have some quirks and the high-end one I can probably get someone to fly out to my house and install it for me.
Budget
If you’re just getting started and you’re not sure if you’re going to be into it or not, I would recommend a smaller printer to start. You can print some single cavities molds, you can print lure bodies and you can generally get into that for under $200 for the printer. If you have a bit more money to spend (between $400-$700 range) I would highly recommend getting a mid-sized printer. You will never be wondering why you got a bigger printer, you always end up wanting to get bigger stuff. You saw in some of my wake bait videos and my lure videos that you can print or five and you might as well print five since it takes the same amount of time. It’s going to cost you a few more dollars in resin but you’ll have five lures instead of one which is just better.
Links
Hey guys, I hope you found this helpful. There’s links for a lot of the printers that I mentioned above that I would recommend. I’ve either used them myself or I have friends that have used them with great results. I have a deal with Epax where you get 5% off any of their printers. All of the videos that I’ve mentioned are in this playlist linked HERE.
