From years of being in industry, I’ve gotten to know contacts all over. I get most of mine from places in China. With the increase in popularity, many more retailers are popping up here in the states.
Companies like Rapala and a few others have proprietary rights to their blanks. Tough to find on open market or who specifically makes them. Other companies and blanks are readily available.
Because almost all blanks will be bought unseen, understand metrics. Also, pay attention to CM and MM. I made that mistake a couple times. Many of the supplies I use have “picture” catalogs with a scales along side each blank. That helps. A little research on google and you’ll be able to see some of what you think are obscure companies are actually pretty huge. Some f the biggest plastic companies make thousands of lures, auto parts, and who knows what else. If you go that route, have somewhere to go with your excess. Minimal orders can range from 100 to 1,000 or more.
Paints vary for me. Anything from Createx to auto paint. Get to know guys at a few body shops and they can tell you where to go locally. One of my daughters is an artist and I go through her sources for art stores. I rather pay 10 cents more a bottle at a place with high volume. Nothing worse than paint that has sat for 3 years.
I buy all all my hardware components wholesale/bulk. Guys choke on the quantity and price, but hard to beat. Plus it’s so convenient to have plenty of what you need. I also have all my buddies chipping in cost so they have plenty of split rings, snaps, bead, and so on. I do the same for hooks.
It’s one more addiction to have. Besides cranks, I do spoons, specialty stuff in home restoration and more.
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