speaking of making jigs…

I make a few of my own jigs and most all of my own weights, and I have a question on paint. There are different ways to paint your lead, and the one I use a lot is the powder paint. Seems to work ok once you get the method down of heating the lead and dipping it in the powder. But I got to wondering…what about just plain old spray paint? I bought a can last night and I’m going to try it just to see what happens. I figure if you spray your jigs/weights right after they cool from coming out of the mold, maybe there would be a better chance of it really bonding to the jig/weight and looking ok. I don’t remember what I picked up, if it was Krylon or Rustoleum or what, but I got metallic gold. I really hope it sticks.

I’d really like to hear from anyone out there who has thought about this or even better yet, tried it. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say, and how well it holds up, if it does at all. Thanks in advance…

I have done alot of testing with spray paints and my results are as the following…

Spray painted jigs dont keep there finish well at all. If doing alot of dragging or pitching to rocks and if the jig has too much contact with the bottom the finish wears right off, resulting in a ugly jig that needs to be thrown away. JMHO

When using spray paint as an overlay on another powder paint color it will blend in and become a durable finish.

Other results may vary………….

Spray painting works, you will get a LOT of wasted paint from over-spray though. In-fact you will get more over-spray than what hits your jig.
Talk to Scenic, Jeff might know a thing or two about it

Good Luck,
Ron

I have done this and even after baking them powder paint is sooooo much better.

When Powder painting I use a heat gun and this has made teh process so easy it is not even worth trying other ways. I can do multi colors and they take a beating I even tested one by throwing it on the concrete and just dented the jig no chips.

Me? Paint a jig? Ok maybe I have painted a few in my life!

Ok seriously now….the most important thing to making a quality paint job is the primer coat. That paint has to adhere to the product you are painting. Not all primers will do a good job adhering to lead. If you want your color to come out your primer needs to be white. Depending on what kind of paint you are using you may be able to start with a white powder paint. Not all paints are compatible so be sure to test their compatibilities prior to doing a large run.

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…what about just plain old spray paint?

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I have recommended to a few people to use an epoxy based spray paint. It is available in many paint and box stores. It comes in several colors but be sure to give it a coat of white first. They also make a clear coat that can go over your finished jig to make it even harder. This paint even smells better then the vinyl paints too. Using an aerosol can you are going to have a fair amount of waste. Try to get your jigs tight together when you rack them but not so close that the paint will not get to all sides of your product.

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Spray painted jigs dont keep there finish well at all.

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Sorry but I disagree. We spray thousands of jigs every year with very very little complaints of paint issues. If you use cheap paint and top coats you will have a poor quality product.

Powder paint is easy to use for many people who only want to do a few jigs and even some manufactures use it as well. It don’t take much to get set up for doing them and it can give you a fairly good end product. We have 3 powder paint fluid bed stations that get used about 2 times a year for projects that are marketed as a powder coated product. Other then that it is not something that we use.

Ok back out to painting…..jigs.

I do all of my own jigs on an “as ordered” basis and use powder coats on them. The heads that get another color laminated over the base color see laquer-based paints, as these products will bind to the powder coat. If I did jigs on the scale that Scenic does, no way.

I’ve been to Jeff’s workshop and I’ve been in his painting booth and racking areas….incredible system. Scenic is noted for their paint-coats.

Thanks very much guys for your input. I do use the powder paint and it seems to be ok, but I was just real curious about plain spray paint. I doubt I’ll try it on more than a couple jigs, so we’ll see what happens. Thanks again–