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Never heard back from Jerry with a thumbs up or down on this, so let's just jump in and hope we don't cause too much trouble. 1) "Norman/Thundershad Rootbeer (yellow/green)" -prep bait and spray white basecoat -Belly color...Createx Flo Sunburst (lightly sprayed and with extender and water added for transparency) -Sides...Mix Golden Acrylic Titan Buff, C-tex Tinting White, and Golden airbrush medium to produce a very light (in terms of "yellow-ness") opaque bone color...shoot sides and blend with the belly as needed -Back color Rootbeer (yellow/green type)...Mix C-tex Leaf Green 10:C-tex Lt Brown 2: C-tex Golden Yellow 2 (10:2:2)...thin and extend with water and C-tex airbrush medium -Splatter color...whether shot at low PSI & high viscosity or done with Hughesy's toothbrush method...C-tex Dark Brown, possibly with a little Tinting Black to darken the color. -Clearcoat and add green or red flake (fine or ultra fine) at this point. -Eyes...C-tex Red, Opaque Red, Scarlet, or mixes of similar 2) Some other mix ratios: -Green Pumpkin...C-tex Leaf Green 3: Lt Brown 1 -Flo Red Craw...C-tex Flo Red 3: Opaque Red 1 -Pearltreuse...C-tex Flo Chart (yellow by name?) 4: Pearl White 1 + water and extender or medium...a neat color to shoot lightly over a pearl or hi-lite body. -Pearl Green Craw (38 Craw)...C-tex Pthalo Green 2: Pearl Copper 3: Pearl White 1: Leaf Green 3...may have to adjust slightly if using Auto Air pearlescents... *** If this is useful or interesting to you please add your own recipes as time allows.

Not sure exactly what you have in mind, but car windshield wiper motors are very powerful, already geared down and work off 12 volts. It shouldn't be too dificult or expensive to check out what they can do for you. Dave

You can learn a lot about crankbaits just by looking at commercial examples. Probably 90% of wood crankbaits use a ballast that consists of a small cylinder of lead that has the belly hook hanger molded into it as a single unit. See where the belly hanger is and that's also where the ballast is. You can buy integrated ballast/hangers or you can position your ballast in the same general area on your crankbait, just in front of or behind (or both) the hanger. How much ballast? Depends on how you want your crankbait to perform. Again, look at a good commercial crankbait. If you are building yours from the same type of wood, weigh the original crank and you can estimate how much ballast you will need in your bait. Or you can do a float test when the bait is waterproof by temporarily installing all the hardware then hanging lead on the front treble hook until you get the buoyancy you want. Then just drill a hole and install an equal amount of ballast in the bait.