Cull Works is the crab gear line of Hexa Plastics, an injection molding and toolmaking shop in Baltimore. The same presses and tool room that make our hooks and rings make production parts for other companies. If you manufacture traps, pots, or the gear that goes on them, and you're buying a molded component from a catalog or a container, we can probably cut a tool and make it here.
What trap gear is molded
Every pot fishery in the country runs regulated plastic parts, and most of them are simple molded shapes:
- Blue crab: escape rings in 2-3/16", 2-5/16" and 2-3/8"; door hooks; turtle excluders in 1-3/4" x 4-3/4" and 2" x 6"; bait box lids
- Lobster: rectangular escape vents and ghost panels to state spec
- Black sea bass and fish pots: 2-1/2" circular escape vents required coastwide under the ASMFC plan
- Stone crab: escape rings and degradable-panel hardware
- Whelk and conch pots: escape vents
- Dungeness: escape rings and biodegradable-cord fittings
- Eel and minnow pots: funnel rings and throat fittings
We currently sell blue crab rings, hooks and TRDs. The rest is a tooling decision, and we cut our own tools, so the minimum is a production run, not a shipping container.
What you get from a domestic molder
- Dimension held and documented. A regulated part that measures a sixteenth under is a part your customer gets fined for. Every run here is measured against the print.
- Your material. UV-stabilized polypropylene is the default for salt and sun. Other resins, colors, and additive packages on request.
- Your part, your tool. Send a sample or a drawing. We design for molding, cut the steel in-house, and own the schedule.
- Reorders in days. The tool sits here. When you need 10,000 more, we run them.
How to start
Send the part, a drawing, or the regulation it has to meet, with an annual quantity. We'll come back with a tooling estimate and a per-part price. Contact form, or call 410-618-6013.
For general contract molding and machining outside the fishing world, see Hexa Plastics.