My Son is interested in trying his hand at making his own soft plastics. For those of you that already do this or have so in the past...what things are necessary to have an efficiant workspace? Aside from just the materials. What does/did your workspace contain. Show some pics of your setup if you have any.

If he's just looking to do some hobby crafting, you can made your own molds for custom baits with simple tools and supplies and use recycle baits melted down for starters to try it out and see how he likes it, or just buy a single cheap simple mold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQgptiqU3aA

Like that, only instead of mixing the plastic you can just cut up old plastics into small bits, nuke them in the microwave and pour away. Be extremely careful with the molten plastic and use a respirator to avoid fumes!

A ventilator or ventilation and lots of it!!! Adequate table top space for equipment(molds,coloring,glitter etc)....you can never have enough table top space, as this will allow you to move equipment around and keeps you from spilling plastisol or glitter or coloring....extra ventilation...i use newspaper on top of my table so i can easily just crumble it all up and throw it away and keep my table clean...extra ventilation! BTW use M-F manufacturing for all your plastisol needs! Local and Texan!

Thanks Mulholland. But I'm more interested in the "workspace." How much space do you need to spread things out. How much table space do you need? What kind of things do you need to have at your fingertips, etc... Does certain kind of lighting matter?

I sensing ventilation is not something to overlook

Okie dokie....depending on your microwave size your table needs to be atleast a 3'x6' area with the microwave at the back left corner of the table so when the microwave door opens it is not opening into molds or knocking things down. Have glasses/mask/gloves on at all times and your mixer(butter knife) coloring and glitter infront of you. That way when you pull your plastisol out you can mix your coloring etc immediately and pop it back in to the mwave...florescent shop lightning is best and make sure u have one overhead and plenty of it as this will allow u to see any anomalies in your product after injection...have a tray of cool water handy to dump your plastic baits into after removing from molds as this will allow to cool asap(this is what i do). Thanks

If injecting make sure your molds are clamped and ready to be used...clamps can be purchased cheap at harbor freight...use the trigger style clamps that are 6" clamps.....

Carlos, I sincerely appreciate the tips! No telling how many hours of frustration you may have saved us.

www.tackleunderground.com is worth its weight in gold. So much knowledge and tips there all for free. I highly urge you to sign up and start researching that site.

+1000, best lure making site there is!!