With all the stuff you can put on your traps, What are people usding and why.

I've used sumack and home made logwood from old rotted barn beams for years with excellent results. Followed by parafin and bees wax on top of the water. And did so as much due to cost and budget.

This last year I decided to splurge and spent about $15 on 2 pounds of logwood dye and 5 pounds of wax (figuring I would wax traps the right way).

I must say I was very impressed. I started with a 40quart container and one pound of dye and just did things the same way I had with my old home brew.

Clean lightly rusted traps, boiled for about an hour. Then left to sit overnight and brought to a hot enough boild so they would dry almost immediately when removed. I then dipped and rolled them in the pot with the wax for about 15 to 30 seconds until the wax stopped sizzling. Then took them out and hung up to dry,

I don't wax conibears. And that first pound of brown logwood dye did an excellent job on almost 100 traps from #1 jumps to #4 DLS and #3/4 coils, conis, etc. I was very peasently syrprised as the package estimated about half that much.

I have bought so many used traps with various dips. Some are more like paint in that they need to be almost ground off even after soaking in gas or thinner. Other have been so messy I thought they had been dipped in roofing tar.

The big problem is when rust starts. It's near impossible to dye these dipped traps as the dye and wax process seems to cause the remaining dip to flake. Leaving more bare metal to rust. And we all know that rust is a land trappers enemy.

I personally have no use for dips. Some people talk about them for water traps like conibears. Everyone of my conibears I've bought used that were dipped, still needed to be scraped at the trigger spots. So you might as well just dye them. It's still cheaper in the long run and you get a better job.

Some people are going to say they don't have time or a way to boil traps. And they are going to keep the dip companies in business a little longer. I will share this from some of the guys I've trapped with, we will not use a dipped trap on land. When some of us did we were experimenting with not waxing the logwood dyed traps and they out caught dipped traps better than 4 to 1.

Maybe we were doing something wrong with the dip or it may have been the gasoline dip at the time.

Share your thoughts and experiences on this. Also any ideas for getting the spead dip off traps easy (muriatic or sulfuric acid/water mix don't work) other than soaking in gas for days and then wire brushing them. Summer time is almost here and that's the time to tackle chores like this.

I use speed dip on the bodygrips and it works great, I don't dip them every year unless they need it and usually a few do, same with footholds only the little bit of canine trapping I do I use staghorn sumac tops to boil them and then wax. Never had a problem with the triggers on bodygrips like you mentioned. As far as the 4 to 1 catch ratio, I assume your talking canines or I would strongly disagree with you there.

I'm a strictly brown logwood dye guy these days. I've used summack berries as well in the past.

I deal with well over 500 traps each year and people are always coming to me to buy what they are not using.

My traps that I have properly (in my view) prepared have a good solid black dyed color and thin coat of wax (except body grips). The dye job if done right should be almost like bluing and will protect the trap from rusting to a certain extent.

When it comes time to get these ready the next year, many are just redyed and waxed. A few new a more thorough cleaning/boiling in lye.

he many that I obtain from others tend to need several steps. I first boil in lye solution to remove oils, dirt, some rust, old wax. If I'm lucky, that's it and they go in the pile to be dyed and waxed later. These are generally the ones that have been cared for and don't have layers of crusted rust along with a couple different dyes, dips, and others.

Then I wash and scrub the ones that need more work. That generally means soaking in acid mix to loosten and remove rust. Then they are boiled again. Then if they were dipped, I need to soak in gasoline and then scub and boil in lye again. These often need another soak in the acid mix because when gasoline dip is used over rust, the rust generally keeps working. Just lik if you were to use it to repair your car.

It's my personal preference, but the only time I approve of dip is when it's being used on new unrusty bodygrips or water traps and you have a metheod to keep them separate from others. In this case, dip can work very well.

Then there's the part of me that like logwood dye because I can get 50 to 75 traps done and the time spent boiling is not wasted. I'm adjusting traps, putting on chains and stakes, checking baits and lures, etc. :p

I always heard that Dye does not prevent rust it,s the wax that does that.....Am I mistaken?....Like I said I'm very new... and I'm in no way saying your wrong. Just tryin to get the straight scoop
Jim

Logwood dye offers approximately the same degree of protection to a trap, as bluing does to a gun barrel. Lay your gun underwater for a few days, or bury it in the dirt for a few days, and you can determine just how effective this rust protection is.

Wax those traps.

-- Hal

I agree with you Hal 100%. Logwood dye is a treatment of the metal rather than a coat like a dip does and to protect that treatment you must wax. Thanks I wasn't clear on that.

A lot of problems concerning dipping, is from the use of gasoline .Coleman fuel(white gas)is what dip should be mixed with.Our gasoline , has to many additives.If you want sticky,stinky traps--use gasoline.
I am basically a water trapper, I quit dye and wax , years ago.
I single dip my traps, and never have to scrape 330 dogs or triggers.The key here is to dilute your dip correctly.If you do not use enough coleman fuel, you will end up scraping.
Like anything else, experience helps. The more you dip, the better you get. And the better your dipped traps, turn out and perform.
Tom Olson

Tom hit it on the head...I use KBL now but have used Blackies, Speed Dip, Seymours and a few others with good results. I use 5 parts Coleman Fuel to one can of KBL. It works good, dries fast and with little or no extra work on my part.

I switched to dip years ago because of the durability. The sticky long cure time improves greatly w/camp fuel as mentioned above. I triple dip traps and clean triggers, nite latches, etc. and use no wax. I usually catch all the critters I can deal with. A can of flat black spray paint will handle mid season touchups. I still have my dye pot for treating wall hangers and flee market traps. The dye just doesn't hold up to my style of trapping.I still recommend cleaning and rusting new traps even though the dip may be petrol based, the rust is an important catalyst in the process in most "dips".

Sorry, rust has no catalytic effect whatsoever on either a petroleum or water based dip. In using logwood dye, the rust (iron oxide) combines with the tannin to give a black color, but that is not a catalytic reaction either.

Rust can give a trap "tooth" which may result in a better mechanical bond, but I won't rust traps on purpose if I'm going to dip them.

-- Hal