A couple of moulds, a bottle of plastisol and some colours to make my own.
My first attempt was to make a Shad, so I needed a weighted hook, this was made by heating a 2.0 Aberdeen and putting a bend in it.
The copper wire was then wrapped round the hook shank to form the weight
and then soldered.
The hook weight making method was shamelessly pinched from "The handmade fisherman" series of videos by Paul Adams.
Some Plastisol was poured into a Pyrex jug, it looks like milk, and heated in the microwave oven. As you heat it, it starts to thicken and become opaque, when it gets to 170 degrees C it becomes pourable. The best method is to keep taking it out of the Microwave and giving it a stir.
Whilst the Plastisol was heating I set up the mould, first by lubricating it, you can buy the proper mold lubricant, but I just used cooking oil,
it worked fine for me.
With the mould oiled I held the weighted hook in place with a modellers hands free clamp.
When the Plastisol was hot enough I stirred in some colour and poured it in the mould
and left it to set for a couple of minutes, before removing it.
When it had cooled enough I carefully trimmed the excess bits off and stuck on a couple of eye with superglue.
Any leftover Plastisol can be peeled off the jug and saved to be reused.
To be honest, I didn't think I'd get such decent results on my first attempt, next time I'm going to try for multi coloured Shads.
NB; for the safety concious of you out there, whilst dealing with the hot plastic I wore safety glasses and heat resistant gloves, I also kept my arms and torso covered. Having worked on Polyermer making plants I've seen what plastics burns can do.
