Create Split Tail Soft Plastics with 3 Techniques
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Core Shot Method
- Mixing the First Color
- Injecting the First Color
- Cutting the Tails
- Injecting the Second Color
- Final Product
- Jerk Bait Method
- Mixing the Tail Color
- Injecting the Tail Color
- Cutting the Tails
- Injecting the Body Color
- Final Product
- Tail Mold Method
- Injecting the Tail
- Injecting the Body Color
- Final Product
- Conclusion
How to Make Split Tail Soft Plastics
Welcome back to the Channel, guys! Today, we're going to Show You how to make some split tail soft plastics where you have a different tail color than the body. We're going to go over three different techniques on how you can achieve this. Hopefully, this helps you guys out. Let's get into it!
Core Shot Method
The first technique we're going to use is actually one of the core shot molds. We've got our rods all oiled up, and inside the mold, we've got our plastic cooking in the microwave, and we're going to start building this first color.
Mixing the First Color
For this first color, we're just going to use black, and then we're going to add some of the .04 Blue flake. We're going to make this color pretty thick because we're not going for the core shot effect on this; we're just doing the split tail. So we're going to add a little more pigment than we normally would.
Injecting the First Color
We've got our black all stirred in, and this is the Navy hex cut flake. We're going to use an eighth teaspoon of this. We'll get that all mixed in. We're going to add a little bit more blue flake. We're going to add another eighth of a teaspoon, so we're going to do a quarter teaspoon total.
So this is going to be our first body color on this core shot mold. We're going to get this up to temperature, inject the first run, and then I'll show you what we're going to do.
Cutting the Tails
The plastic is hot, and we're going to inject this first run real quick, purging the area out of the injector. The plastic has cooled off, and what we're going to do on these is we're going to take these out. We're going to take these out, cut the tails off, and then I'll explain why we do that in just a second.
We've got all of our shells off, and what we're going to do is cut all of them off right where the ribbed body stops, and then you have this little butt portion. We're going to take our scissors and cut all of them off right there. You're going to take this little shell and lay them right back into the mold. We're going to do that to the rest of them, get them all back in the mold, and then we'll mix up our tail color.
Injecting the Second Color
We've got all the tails cut off. We've got our shells laying back into the mold machine. We'll get all this closed back up, make sure the mold sits nice and flush, everything's closed, and you're not pinching any of those shells in the mold.
For our tail color, we're just going to use blue, and then we're going to add some blue flake. Just another good variation of black and blue. We'll get this all stirred up real good.
Final Product
Let's check these out. I have a really good feeling about these. I haven't made this exact color before, but I have a feeling it's going to be pretty good. Oh yeah, I like that one a lot. That cutthroat trout color kind of has that highlight in it, and then with that gold flake matching up with that tail, I thought when I started to make this video that that black and blue color was going to be my favorite, but I think this one definitely tops that.
Jerk Bait Method
For our second tail color, we're going to make a chartreuse tail, which is probably one of the most common split tail colors that you're going to see.
Mixing the Tail Color
We're going to put a decent amount of that in there. Chartreuse by itself is a pretty translucent color, kind of see-through, so what I like to do when I'm making these is I'll add just a little bit of gold pearl powder. We're going to be using a 1/32nd teaspoon, so it's not very much at all. We're going to add just that little bit. It just helps thicken up the chartreuse a little bit without affecting the actual color too much.
Injecting the Tail Color
We've got it back up to temperature. We're going to get this open. This is the five-inch jerk bait mold. This is a bait that is very commonly used. What a lot of guys will do is buy a green pumpkin jerk bait, and then they'll dip the tail of it in the like the Spike It dip.
Cutting the Tails
One thing I want to make sure I emphasize is when you're doing this technique, so what we did, we injected the what's going to be the tail color first, and then we're going to take our scissors and we're going to cut the tail off, and then inject your body color. The one thing that I always try to keep in mind is if you see these lines on the molds, that's your air vent. So if you were to cut this tail right here in the middle of these two air vents, you do run the risk of this last little bit of the tail filling in because your air is going to get trapped, and it doesn't have a way to escape.
Injecting the Body Color
We're going to get these into our other molds and mix up our body color, and then we'll inject this one.
Final Product
Oh yeah, I like that one a lot. So those cutthroat trout color kind of has that highlight in it, and then with that gold flake matching up with that tail, I thought when I started to make this video that that black and blue color was going to be my favorite, but I think this one definitely tops that.
Tail Mold Method
For this last tail color, we're just going to use some straight red. Just give this a nice bright red, and then we're just going to add a little bit of the medium-sized black flake, the .040 again.
Injecting the Tail
The tail mold is cooled off, and I'll show you how these tail molds work. These tail molds literally just inject the tail. We're going to try to get this up here so you can see it. So you can see up here towards the top, there's those little rectangle cutouts. What that does is when you lay this back into your normal mold and inject the body color, it will actually fill that in and go through the tail. So your body color going through the tail gives you a lot stronger bond because a lot of times, if you're fishing and fish just come up and bite the tails, especially if you're doing split tails like this and you have a bright colored tail on a just like a regular colored body, they'll come up and bite the tail. If you just cut it like what we did on the jerk bait, you do run the risk of those tails popping off. With these tail molds like this and having those little cutouts for the body to fill in, you have a lot stronger bond, and the chances of the tails getting ripped off are a lot less. It can still happen, but like I said, the chances of it staying together are a lot higher.
Injecting the Body Color
We're going to get these into our other molds and mix up our body color, and then we'll inject this one.
Final Product
Let's get these open and see what they look like. Oh yeah, that black Watermelon color might be my new favorite way to make watermelon red. That's a really, really cool color because it's still nice and dark, but it's not super opaque. You can still kind of see through it really nicely. Definitely like that color. I'm glad I picked that one up. I do have a bunch of new colors we will go over a lot of those probably in the next video or so.
Conclusion
All three of these are really good options. They all work really well. Like I said, my preferred method is probably with the tail mold. The other thing about the tail molds is you use a lot less plastic, so if you just want to make a tail color, you don't have to mix up a full cup of plastic. You can mix up just a tiny amount, inject your tails, and then run everything else.