What do you all use as a finish for your poppers? I thought I asked this before, but I can’t remember and I can’t find the post.
Thanks
If I did a really good job shaping it and am going to give it to a friend I might coat it with some type epoxy finish. Otherwise, it all depends on my mood and what I have on hand, rattle can spray paint, fingernail polish, felt tip pens, craft paint. Sometimes just paint or glue a couple of eyes on and I’m done. Whether it has eyes or not probably doesn’t matter, but I like for it to look me n the eyes when I talk to it at the lake.
Lastchance…
I do not put any kind of finish on my foam bugs, as I make my own bodies from glued-up layers of fun foam of various colors. Therefore, they do not need to be painted. For my balsa-bodied bugs, I put a finish coat of alcohol thinned 2-ton or 30-minute epoxy on them. I make a mix of: 1 part hardener : 1 part resin : 1 part 70% rubbing alcohol, and apply this with an artists brush, and then put the bug on a revolving drier (I use 1cc medical syringes to measure the parts. As long as you use a separate syringe for each part, you do not need to clean the syringes. Simply store them for later use.). This mix dries clear, and does not yellow with time as will the 5-minute epoxy.
Cheers.
Frank
I just tried fishing with the first poppers made from “Flip-Flop” foam. It worked pretty good with no finish. It floated high right up until the second gar ripped it off. I don’t think any finish would’ve saved it. But on the bright side, I finish all the flash on the tail before gluing on the foam … so when I got home, i just glued on a new popper head, and I’m back in business with that one. I have tied four new ones, so when the foam gets ripped off again, I’ll have back up.
I like eyes on my poppers, even though it makes no difference to the fish. I’m trying to decide what finish will hold in the eyes. I have wiggly eyes in different sizes.
I used to use epoxy but now i use the diamond hard tack free uv resin… much easier but it aint cheap…
FishingFiend reminded me of something I do with some regularity, sparkle. I like my bling, Dollar Tree has a pretty good variety of nail polish some of it has sparkles in it, the more the better. My daughter gave me a bottle that looks almost gray, it’s all glitter, you can add glitter to epoxy also, as well as colors.
I finished these with craft paint and an overcoat of epoxy…
While I have not tried it I believe that spar varnish would work pretty good and cost next to nothing per popper.
Tim
I have been experimenting with Duncan Enterprises Liquid Fusion clear urethane glue on my poppers and crease flies. So far I like the results. I thin it a bit with water to get an easy to apply consistency. So far the results have been pretty good. No need to worry about mixing as with epoxies. No need for a special light as with various UV cure coatings. Seems much more durable than clear acrylic gloss or matte coatings.
For gluing to ‘moveable doll eyes’ onto foam, balsa, and deer hair, I have found home-made flexament (Goop—any ‘flavor’—dissolved in either toluene [Toluol] or xylene [Xylol]) to be superior to everything else I have tried. For foam, any of the ‘contact’ glues run a very close second. The down side to the contact glues is that both parts have to be coated, and the glue permitted to dry for 15-20 minutes before joining the pieces; and you best be “dead-on” the first try at placement, as there are no second tries!
One of the contact glues (Barge, Weldwood, Pliobond, etc.) should work great for crease flies. You would just put a small ‘band’ around all the edges, let the body set for 15-20 minutes, and then touch the sides together. This should lend itself to doing them in an ‘assembly line’ fashion.
TailingLoop, The Liquid Fusion I used as finish looks real nice, but I’m wondering if will hold on my doll eyes. I didn’t read the hint about flattening the area where the eyes will be placed until after I glue them on with super glue.
Do you put a coat of finish over the nail polish glitter? I’m looking for something that will hold on doll eyes, too.
Varnish, shellac, lacquer, etc., would not be expected to be suitable for coating foam bugs, as these finishes dry ‘hard’; i.e., non-flexible. As a result, ‘flexing’ of the body ( a hit and take by a fish) with such a dried finish would be expected to result in a seriously cracked finish coat. The fabric paints would be expected to be ideal for this as they are designed to be applied to material that is constantly being flexed, and holding up.