STAFF BLOG

#19 Production Stages III: Painting2012.01.20

It has been a long time since I covered the production stages and it is time to blow the dust off this series. After gluing and water testing, which we talked about in previous parts, it is time for the next step, a stage which many call the most important and in which we at DUO take great pride in, painting. 

As I have mentioned, the color quality is one of the things we really pay attention to. That is why the entire lure coloring at DUO is done by hand, making sure to provide the highest possible standard.

       

At the moment we have 24 coloring booths at our factory, where around 70 people work in three shifts. Each day about 4 000 - 5 000 lures(depending on the size, of course – it takes much shorter time to paint Tetra Works Ikakko as compared to Tide Minnow Slim 200) are painted putting our total to somewhere around 1 200 000 lures a year. With our intention to cover global market though, we plan to rapidly increase this number.
At the moment we have around 200 colors in our range. I bet many of you would like to know how much time it takes to paint one lure, but the painting is actually done in batches. Just for the sake of discussion, with all the necessary steps and changes of equipment, one lure takes between 15-25 minutes.  I said “changes” and yes, coloring goes through several stages and even with our simplest colors, it still takes at least 5 changes of color or mask. For example, Clown color(D33), as shown on the picture, requires seven steps.
Many colors also require special patterns. For those we use specially prepared mask, which needs to be done individually for each lure. On the picture you can see, how we make those cool-looking stripes on Firetiger(P59). After the color dries out, it is time for the next stages – time to insert the eyes, put the lures through coating and then it is time for printing and packing. Still a lot to go through – stay tuned.