Home Made Dink Floats

[nick]

Someone mentioned this subject in another area of the board. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes.

Here’s how I make dink floats. There are, of course, many other ways. First, the ingredients:

¾ in backer rod
“mini” air line tubing  (local pet store or hospital oxygen tubing)
super glue
nail polish
flour. orange spray paint

Tools:
scissors
sand paper
a paper tube
a crochet needle  (diameter of needle just a bit larger than the ID of the tubing)

The backer rod I got from   www.loghomestore.com   (same as www.aloghomestore.com) 50ft of ¾ in gray rod and 10ft of 3/8 in white rod for rags, including shipping  $12 bucks. I have enough rod to last me the rest of my life.



I make most of my dinks about three inches long. I trim a taper on one end of the dink with scissors. Maybe an inch long. I smooth it out with sand paper.



I cut a piece of tubing about half an inch longer than the dink.



I push the crochet needle through the center on the dink, top to bottom. Slide the tubing onto the needle snuggly. Pull the needle back through the dink, twisting as it goes. When the tubing is about half way though the dink, I put several drops of super glue between the outside of the tubing and the whole in the dink that the tubing is sliding through. Then pull the tubing the rest of the way through the dink.

When the super glue has dried, trim the excess tubing and paint.





I’ve not found any paint that will stick to the backer rod well. Even the stuff that is supposed to stick to plastic peels off. However, nail polish sticks to the backer rod and it stays flexible. So I put on a coat of nail polish.



When it dries, I put the dink into the paper tube (just a holder) and spray a couple quick coats of flour. orange Krylon. I estimate the whole thing at a cost of 8 cents and about 10 minutes (not counting paint drying time)





Oh, yea. That flour. orange paint is visible for nearly 100 feet.

[zonker]

Nick,

Thanks for putting up the tutorial. I wonder if some plastidip would work for painting the homemade dinks. In fact, I find myself wondering if that isn't what they use on some of the factory made floats. Maybe I'll try it.

zonker

[rvrfshr]

Zonker, Plasti dip or Rubberize it are the one's, then can be painted over with vinyl lure and jig paint. Finished my tutorial piece earlier today for the float shaping  but haven't had enough time to post yet. Hopefully tommorrow if I get these rods done! Joe (Thanks for your post Nick, what kind of backer did they send you ?)

[nick]

Hey, Joe. I'm not sure how to answer your question about "what kind of backer did they send you". Could you be more specific?

[rvrfshr]

The backer that you got from the log home place, was it the bubbley shiny kind or the denser dull finish stuff. Thanks, Joe

[nick]

OK. It is the bubbley shiny kind.