# So You Want to Powder Paint Like Rembrandt Huh?



## cadman

*So you want to be a powder painting Rembrandt.​*​​
*Heres what you will need:​*​

#1) Fluid bed: This will help doing the base color. If you want to buy one I have a source, if you want to make one PM me your e-mail and I will give you step by step instructions.
#2) Powder paint: If you want to paint like Rembrandt then you are going to need lots and lots of colors, also if you use a fluid bed then they require more than 2 oz of paint.
#3) Powder Glitter w/ clear coat: If you want to put that on your jig.
#4) Heat Gun: Preferably 2 speed, hi and low so you can blend the paint.
#5) Forceps: So you can hold the hot jig by the hook shank.
#6) Toaster oven : So you can bake (cure) your jigs.
#7) Paint Rack : So you can rack your jigs after they are painted. Make sure it fits in your toaster oven.
#8) Size #4 or #3 artist paint brushes: So you can tap on the powder paint on your jigs. Do not use this brush for anything else. Buy several in case you melt a few bristles. A #4 holds more paint than a #3.
#9) Unpainted jigs, 3D eyes if needed, Devcon 2 Ton (D2T) or Etex, 
#10) A lot of patience and practice and this is putting it lightly. Rembrandt didnt paint masterpieces his first day either did I. We all have to start somewhere and practice to be good.

*Now lets start painting.​**We are going to paint the jig in the picture above.​*
Step #1: The whole jig body is going to be painted white. So get the jig hot and either you can swish the jig in your powder paint container or you can swish it in you fluid bed. Note a fluid bed will always put on a thinner coat of paint than doing it by hand. But I do it both ways and have no problems. Remember a thinner coat of paint is always better as long as you cover the jig. You can always add more but you cant take it away. Also if you put too much paint on it will drip once you put it in the oven to cure. Do all of your jigs in white at one time to avoid going back and forth between colors, especially on a base coat.

Step #2: Now we need the other colors that will go on the jig. In this case it will be silver metallic, gloss black, and yellow chartreuse glitter. Make sure all the containers are open and in the sequence as you are going to put them on. It makes it much easier to be organized.

Step #3: Turn on your heat gun to low. Since all of the colors in the jig shown above are from the top down except for the glitter coat we must paint it this way. 

Step #4: Take one of your painted jigs (base coat white) in your forceps and lightly heat the top of the jig (do not burn the paint) for maybe 2 seconds. Take your artist brush and load it with paint by dipping the brush in the powder paint, then slowly tap the paint lightly over the top of the jig moving the brush back and forth over the jig. If you want more powder on the sides then tilt your jig a little, do the same to the other side. Now take a look at the jig and see if you like the way the powder looks if you do move on. Put the jig back over the heat gun, and slowly watch as the silver paint melts into the white. What you will see is that the silver paint will get really glossy. Then take it off the heat and start the process with the black powder paint on top. Do the same thing as above until you get the desired amount of black that you like...Just a note between color changes. When you go from silver to black with your brush, blow out the silver paint with your mouth next to the brush before you dip the brush into the black paint. This is the easiest way to get rid of the powder on the brush. I do this on every different color I put on. Finally do not spit on the brush when you do this because if you do when you go to dip it in the powder the powder will stick to it and it will be junk. 

Step #5: Once you have the black on the top, you can put your powder glitter coat on. Blow out your brush, and with a hot jig (you may have to lightly heat it again) take your brush stick it in the blue glitter load up the brush and tap the glitter over your entire jig, or only on top if you want glitter only on top. Once your happy with it carefully put the jig on the rack. Now finish all the rest of the white base coated jigs. You will find short cuts as you go along that work for you.

Step #6: When you're all done painting, put your rack of painted jigs in the toaster oven and I bake at 325° for 20 minutes. If everything went well and you didnt put too much powder paint on your jigs will look perfect with no drips

Step #7: Once cool if the jigs dont need eyes they are ready for fishing. If you want eyes put them on now. Make sure that if you are going to put on eyes, that you wear latex gloves, so you dont get fingerprints and oil from your hands all over the jigs. Reason being is you must clear coat the jig so the eyes dont fall off, and clear coat has a tendency not to stick where there is oil or grease.

Step #8: Once all the eyes are on mix up your choice of clear coat, and brush it on your jigs. I do not rotate my jigs. I stand them up with the hook bend on the table. If you apply the clear coat on correctly, you will never get any runs, and if you do it will run down the shaft of the hook, and once it dries you can easily take the dried epoxy off of the hook shank.

*Just some tips:​* When youre done with your powder paint immediately cover it up with a tight lid. Powder paint attracts moisture, and it will be junk if you leave it uncovered. 
The same goes for fluid beds. Take the powder out of the fluid bed if you are not using it. I know its a P.I.T.A but you will be throwing away powder if you dont and at $6/2 ounces its not cheap.
When you tap the loaded brush with powder paint do not touch the brush to the hot body of the jig. It will ruin the jig and the brush, because the brush hairs will stick and melt on the jig.

In closing this is the way I do it. Im not saying that my way is the only way. If you find shortcuts or find something that works better for you than do it. Finally if you have any questions on this you can PM me and I will help you become the next Rembrandt, after me of course? Good Luck


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## All Eyes

Thanks CadMan! Off to work I go.


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## sonar

thanks! cadman,&eyes,You have sparked my interest in powders, and provided good''ground rules" to work with & it will be a while but I will post later on in the future with the outcome,or results., Thanks again cadman! Working 10 hr. days & Sat. too fishing when I can,Milton, 'till the ice thins out, then lure painting.? --------sonar


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## socdad

A well written tutorial, thanks for sharing. BTW I used cadmans plans to build a fluid bed, simple to build and works well. The only thing I do differently is heat the jigs with a woods lamp (alcohol burner / retired science teacher )


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## Fish Scalper

Forceps or hemostats are an absolute must for painting blades, blade baits or spoons, but on jigs, I hold the jig by the hook in my finger which gives me much more control when using a fluid bed, art brush or air brush for painting. The lead will turn liquid long before the heat transfers to the hook and your finger. Once you get used to painting lead, you can see the heat flash through them. They get real shiny just before they go liquid and you want to be dipping just as that starts to occur. I paint jigs up to 3 oz's this way and have never been burned. If you want a jig with clean hook eyes, use your hemostat to grip the hook eye when you dip the head and then you won't get paint in the eye. Slows the process down by half, but on small jigs, saves cleaning the eye. And powder paint is the best there is and does not require a clear coat, but if I were gonna clear coat it, I'd also use powder. After the 20 minute bake, just redip in clear powder if you want extra shine and cure again. Easy way to seal eyes is with fingernail polish or waterbase head cement. Just a dab il do ya! You can also just use your heat gun again for a few seconds to bond the glue a bit better on the paint.


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## cadman

socdad said:


> A well written tutorial, thanks for sharing. BTW I used cadmans plans to build a fluid bed, simple to build and works well. The only thing I do differently is heat the jigs with a woods lamp (alcohol burner / retired science teacher )


That's what's nice about being so versatile in your case the alcohol lamp works just fine.


To all. In this tutorial you can use whatever works for you. I just put down on paper what I use and works for me..........Thanks for the compliments guys


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## All Eyes

Nice tips Fish Scalper! Thanks for the info.


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## Fish Scalper

Cadman, thanks for posting the thread for all and sorry I didn't say so in the previous post. You do really nice work for sure. Took some good pointers away from your post. I paint a lot of jigs, but am more of a housepainter then a Rembrandt. I prefer the powder airbrush if I have to actually paint vs. dip and tap. PM me if you want to save some money on paint as I buy it by the pound.


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## catmanbennie

Great info cadman!!!


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## All Eyes

Well Thanks to Cadmans help I did much better on my new homemade baits. 
I really like Fire Tiger pattern so I picked up some paint and tried using the techniques shown here on some blades and jigging spoons. Pretty cool results if you ask me. Thanks again Cadman!!!


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## cadman

All Eyes said:


> Well Thanks to Cadmans help I did much better on my new homemade baits.
> I really like Fire Tiger pattern so I picked up some paint and tried using the techniques shown here on some blades and jigging spoons. Pretty cool results if you ask me. Thanks again Cadman!!!


All Eyes,
Well I'm impressed, didn't take you long to figure how to paint and blend those colors in. Based on your new pic above, I can see the subtle soft changes between all of your colors. Very nice color transitions and some good colors for some walleye. Now when you get a chance you'll have to take them on the water. Also don't be surprised once your friends see your new paint jobs, that you will be supplying them with your blade baits.


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## All Eyes

Thanks! Still a work in progress but you can see how much better they look after just one attempt with the techniques you showed me. With some more practice I should be able to get them just right. Thanks again Cadman!


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## st.slippy

how'd you do the firetiger pattern?


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## shepsi

Thank you for a clear well written tutorial on powder coating. I'm not very puter savvy, and wish this site was as easy to navigate. I definitely would like instructions on making a "fluid bed", even though I'm not too clear about the importance of it's use. I gathered it was only necessary to swish the lure into a fluffed jar of powder paint. Attempted to give you my e-mail address in this note, was advised to remove it. Please advise how it is done.
. Thanks again. shepsi


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## cadman

shepsi said:


> Thank you for a clear well written tutorial on powder coating. I'm not very puter savvy, and wish this site was as easy to navigate. I definitely would like instructions on making a "fluid bed", even though I'm not too clear about the importance of it's use. I gathered it was only necessary to swish the lure into a fluffed jar of powder paint. Attempted to give you my e-mail address in this note, was advised to remove it. Please advise how it is done.
> . Thanks again. shepsi


Well I'm glad that the tutorial will help you out.
What a fluid bed is, it's a chamber that holds powder paint via a porous membrane in which you push air through the porous membrane with the aid of an aquarium air pump. Since you are familiar with powder paint and fluffing the powder after about every two jigs, the fluid bed will eliminate the need for fluffing. Once the air is turned on, the powder in the fluid bed will rise and slowly start to boil, it will look like boiling water. This is what you want to happen. What the air and the boiling powder do is they suspend the powder so it doesn't pack down. This in turn will give you a more even finish with less powder on your jig.
I don't know if you are familiar with the PM system on this site, if you are PM me your e-mail through there and I will then e-mail the fluid bed tutorial to you. This way the whole world won't see your e-mail.


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## All Eyes

Careful Shepsi. This Cadman guy will put ya to work. Once you start it's hard to stop painting. Here is one of my blade baits I did.


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## shepsi

Wow!!! If only supplying my e-mail address in respose to to your tutorial on instructions for a liquid bed was as simple and as clear as your writings, it would make life a lot simplier for newbie puter users and new subscribers to this site a lot easier. After finally figuring out that "PM" is a "private message", and how to send one, have been advised that I don't have enough "posts" to send PMs to anyone but staff. This is only my second post, and don't have enough knowledge yet to post much else, I may just send my address to one of the staff, and pray they will forward it to you. Failing that will just waste site space with some inane posts??? 

shepsi


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## shepsi

Wow!!! If only supplying my e-mail address in respose to to your tutorial on instructions for a liquid bed was as simple and as clear as your writings, it would make life a lot simplier for newbie puter users and new subscribers to this site a lot easier. After finally figuring out that "PM" is a "private message", and how to send one, have been advised that I don't have enough "posts" to send PMs to anyone but staff. This is only my second post, and don't have enough knowledge yet to post much else, I may just send my address to one of the staff, and pray they will forward it to you. Failing that will just waste site space with some inane posts??? 

shepsi


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## cadman

I'm going to PM you my e-mail let me know if you get it.


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## cadman

All Eyes said:


> Careful Shepsi. This Cadman guy will put ya to work. Once you start it's hard to stop painting. Here is one of my blade baits I did.


Hey All Eyes, 
Look at it this way if you're married, I keep you out of the bars and keep you from chasing women, so I'm actually saving your marriage(maybe). Unless you spend way too much money on your hobby(hey you can't have everything). If you're not married, well the hell with making jigs I would rather be doing the other two. LOL


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## viper1

Very good read!!!


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## All Eyes

Thanks for looking out Cadman. If anybody needs me, I'll be in the Firetiger colored van down by the river.


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## WVGitzit

Some great info on how to paint some great looking baits. And Eyes those firetiger patters look wonderful. How did you get the stripes on the back? 

Cadman, as soon as I get my five posts in, I am going to shoot you a PM on your info for a fluid bed. I hope that is okay. Thank you for your help.


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## cadman

WVGitzit said:


> Some great info on how to paint some great looking baits. And Eyes those firetiger patters look wonderful. How did you get the stripes on the back?
> 
> Cadman, as soon as I get my five posts in, I am going to shoot you a PM on your info for a fluid bed. I hope that is okay. Thank you for your help.


WV,
I am going to send you a PM with my e-mail. Reply to my e-mail, and I will send you the fluid bed tutorial.

Take Care.................Cadman


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## papaperch

Using air gun to powder paint. Just thought I would show something different. I owe big thanks to Cadman also. I used to paint one color only jigs. Now I might have as many as 5 different colors on one jig.

Gun is NOT as fast as fluidizing bed. But since I only make for myself and a few for jig swaps speed is not important to me.










Here is some undressed for you guys that likefishing lure porn. :T


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## cadman

Papaperch,
Wow that is awesome. Those are some beautiful looking jigs. Looks like some pearls and bright highlights. I love those dressed jigs. Also like the naked ones as well. I see you got the gloss to shine out in those jigs. That is what supposed to happen if you use powder paint correctky. Most of it is high reflective gloss paint that really stands out. I'll give you two :highfive: :highfive: and two thumbs up. Job well done. I've always said that a little practice and knowledge makes for beautiful results.


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## HappySnag

papaperch

Using air gun to powder paint,
can you say the proces how you dooing that,3 diferent paint on one jig,
the jigs look good.

snag


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