mold questions for redman

[LedHed]

If you still have any photos that fatman posted for you - we can till repost them. Haven't seen Doug posting in awhile....

 

[redear]

I'm pretty sure they are gone. I haven't made a mold in a long time but I still have everything I need, plenty of aluminum and brass rod for pins. It would be harder for me now due to my nerve disease weakening my hands further but am sure I could get it done. I was taking those pics with a cell phone and sending rhem to my email then emailing them to a couple people here that would post them. I know fatman emailed me some pics but I am sure they were from photobucket, I will have to look and see if they are gone or I deleted them. at any rate we will get some pics back up, I do struggle with my motivation due to low energy levels though so it may take a while.

 

[redear]

Well, ya'll know I'm computer stupid right? But as luck would have it I found the email fatman sent to me in may of 2016 with a file of 66 photos on it. I don't think this is all of the missing pics by any means but it is something. he mentions in his email that he could only retrieve page one and two of about 13 pages. I am not smart enough with a computer to repost pics trust me but I may be able to email this file to someone here who could post them maybe six or eight at a time and I could post explanations between the pic posts so they make sense. I think they are mixed up but heck as long as I explain them it could work. the file size says 160 kb, so whoever wants to take it on just pm me your email address and I will try to email it to you. Kip

 

[AtticaFish]

Send them to me. [email protected] I will see what I can do. May be tough to figure out where they go in the thread, but at least will take a look.

 

[redear]

I will try to send them shortly tonite, you could just add them to the end of the thread too.

 

[redear]

Attica, I emailed those pics to you, they sent so quickly I'm wondering if the pics actually went with it.

 

[AtticaFish]

Got the email.  All the pictures were combined into a single collage layout file like a proof page so i left it the full resolution that it came to me.  Here it is........

View attachment 8

 

[redear]

thank you Atticafish for posting these pics! I'll go through and briefly wxplain what is going on with all the pics 1-66. pics 1-6 where of the very first mold I ever made, it was for a tiny 1/48 or so flat sided head , the blank was made from a cross section cut off from an allen wrench, I did shave the top and bottom down some to give it an elongated appearance. this mold was very hardtop press because my aluminum was too hard, it was 6061 t6, and the head being flat made it even harder to press but finally I prevailed and the mold was finished.

 

[redear]

pics 7 and 8 are of my press frame, showing the bottle jack positioned for pressing a mold. I like to lay the mold on the bottom cross member with the blank head sandwiched between the mold halves, and then sit the jack on top of the mold, sometimes I sit a steel plate on top of the mold first to protect the cast iron base of the jack since the mold is smaller than the jacks base. when pressing a mold the brass alignment pins are extra long allowing the mold to be opened up far enough to get the blank head in there. you need a copy of the head you want to replicate, we call it a blank, and it is best made from steel, a lot of mine have been made from the butt end of a drill bit and I make the blank by chucking the bit in my lathe with the butt end sticking out and as it turns I hold a cutting wheel 1 inch in diam. mounted to a dremel tool against the drill bit and cut it down to the shape I want, after that I use varying grits of emery cloth to polish it,

 

[redear]

pic 9 is of two tiny hair and chenille jigs made from heads that came from that first mold. pic 10 is a blank mold ready to be pressed, notice the extra long brass pins.

 

[redear]

pic 11 is my press frame with no jack or mold inserted, this thing is heavy and the cross members top and bottom are made of iron box tubing 3 1/2 inch wide and 3/8 inch thick wall thickness, the four corner supports are 1 inch angle iron maybe 1/8 inch thick. nowadays this press is rusty because my son put it outside for a few weeks not realizing it was important to me.

 

[redear]

pics 170.1 and 170.2 is a mold I made for a 1/64 size roundhead, I used the hard aluminum for this mold too but it was a lot easier because of the tiny size of the head and the fact it was round, I used a tiny ball bearing for the blank.when I say blank I could be talking about a blank head or a blank mold, in this case it's a blank head I'm talking about.

 

[redear]

the next 4 pics are of a blank mold I was working on, notice the long alignment pins. to me the most tedious part of making a mold is making the brass pins, it isn't easy to do, they have to fit tightly into one half of the mold but be able to slide into the other half with practically no slop. I hate making the pins and their holes that they go in, it is a journey of drilling the pin holes through both blocks while they are in a vice unmoving, and yeas you need a drill press to do it right. I reduce the diam. of a pin by spinning it in a drill press while holding emery cloth around it till I get it right. I also enlarge pin holes if need be by taping a pieve of emery cloth to a drill bit and wrapping it around the bit, I trim the sandpaper till the drill bit with the sandpaper will insert firmly into the pin hole, then I spin the bit with a drill till the hole is enlarged enough to accept the pin.

 

[redear]

most of the pics on line 3 of the pics are of me cutting up an aluminum plate for mold blocks, this was a softer aluminum but it came in a 4 inch wide plate and I cut it up with my bandsaw, then I cleaned them up on my belt sander, the edges that is, and I then started drilling the holes for the alignment pins. I use 1/4 inch brass rod for the pin material. I am trying to remember the aluminum alloy number for this soft aluminum but I will have to look for it, I want to say 6063 or something like that, I have since ordered it again in 2 inch wide stock from another supplier so all I have to do now is cut it to length. Redman says I don't need to go as thick on the aluminum as I have been doing. I have been using 3/4 inch thick I think, he likes to use 3/8 or so I think.

 

[redear]

the first 4 pics in row 4 are of a 2 cavity mold that I tried to make a 1/24 redman head, well the hard aluminum was used being 6061 t6 and the pressure was so great with that hard alum. that it squashed the blank head which was made from a drill bit, in other words it flattened the blank head when pressing, but hey I kept going till the mold was made and you know what? those little flattened heads that look like a corn kernel have caught untold crappies and panfish tied with kiptail hair, we put them under a float with a crappie nibble on the hook and they will catch anything in the pond, notice how I moved the hooks eyelet back a little bit so the head hangs horizontally, this head is especially for using under a float.

 

[redear]

pics 4-8 on line 4 are of a mold I haven't used yet , it was to closely resemble the tiny 1/80 head that grizzly jigs made their famous feather jigs on, this head used a size 10 fly hook, I also put handles on that mold and for the trouble it was to put handles on it I don't think it was worth it, I would rather hold the two halves together with a pair of channel locks.

 

[redear]

I am a big fan of the old school style pinkie jig, these jigs were tied with kip or rather calfs tail in various colors, they were the in thing years ago before plastics became available, and most people would put a piece of worm or a minnow on the hook, they are deadly but today you can't hardly find them, most of the mom and pop shops that made them are long gone with just a few exceptions so I make my own. A roundhead from a barlows mold will work fine but the old pinkie jigs had an oval shaped head, plus making my own molds allows me to move the eyelet back some to horizontally balance the jig. this is the reason I wanted to make my own molds, I wanted something in a mold that I couldn't buy.

 

[redear]

so almost all my molds are for these 1/64 to 1/16 kiptail jigs, I think one may be 3/32 but I made them without collars because kiptail ties on the hook easier without a collar and less hair can be used which seems to catch more fish tied a little sparse. the hair moves more that way. you can see in a couple of the remaining pics there are a couple pics of blanks of the heads I wanted, these were made on my lathe with a dremel tool and the 1 inch wheel and then polished and then separated from the drill bit. like I said I make them grom the back end of a drill bit not the spiral end.

 

[redear]

I am sorry these pics are quite small but they are clear enough to see the process anyway. the steps I use for making a mold go like this. first I make a blank head from the butt end of an old drill bit of the appropriate diameter. then I make the blank mold from soft aluminum, this is the pain in the butt part, making those brass pins to fit tightly in one half of the mold and to be able to slide into the opposing half of the mold. these pins are extra long and they are temporary, they allow me to pull the mold apart far enough to insert the head blank without the mold coming completely apart. these long pins allow the mold halves to stay aligned during pressing. when I get ready to press the blank head in the blank mold I tape the blank head in the spot I want it to be with cellophane tape, this cellophane tape in no way interferes with the pressing procedure. when making your first press of many, don't press it much maybe 1/16 inch before taking it apart and checking on your progress. each time you press the blank a little more the cavity will become deeper and the aluminum will be bulged up around the cavity. these bulges need to be removed very carefully between pressings, in other words you don't press the mold in one fell swoop, you would never get the whole head pressed before the bulges from both mold halves came in contact with each other and the mold halves wouldn't be flat against each other.

 

[redear]

so it's gonna take about 4-5 pressings to get the head pressed and between pressings you have to remove the brass pins and sand the bulges down flat before proceeding with the next pressing. once I get the head pressed and the bulges sanded flat I press the hook slot by taping a jighook over the head cavity on one mold block and pressing the mold halves together with the pins reinstalled. I sand the bulges down flat using 180 grit black wet dry sandpaper laid on my table saw which is flat and heavy iron, I remove the pins from the mold half and I hold the face of the mold down against the sandpaper while holding the sandpaper in place I pull the mold half towards me trying to apply pressure and trying to keep even level pressure on the mold half. only pull the mold towards you, don't pull and then push, trust me on this if you do that the face of the mold won't stay flat, so just pull it one way, then repeat till the bulge is gone and then pick up your other mold half and do the same with that half till both mold halfs are flat without bulges.