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My cat and I just made up a really nice cat hair deep diver....I'm hoping it will catch....(do I dare say it???) catfish! New Rule: The cat is not allowed in by den while finishing baits! Anybody know how to get Devcon off a black cat??? Actually I'm lucky I saw him rub against it. Imagine if he went upstairs and laid down in his bed. He'd be running around with a cat pillow stuck to his side!!!!

Commenting on the crystalling of epoxy.. This is a normal thing. Put your epoxy into warm water and let sit for a while. All the crystals will disappear.

So I've been making lures for about a year now and finally got arou to making a Muskie lure. It's based off of the large bulldawg and medusa style baits just with a slimmer profile. This is literally the first pour of my mold so it's still missing fins and I didn't put a harness in it. Let me know what you guys think!

I posted a while back about some crankbait blanks I bought that had zero action to them...The company sent me 10 more without asking, and no charge. I think customer service is a rarity and would like to say thank you lure parts online.com That's how you do business. ....

But Bustin Bass and unpaintedcrankbaits.com have had hardly any inventory.. Im noticing a lot of these guys can't keep inventory. Thats why i buy mostly from www.dingerbaits.com

Looking at the pics - it seems like you're trapping air away from the vents. I think there are many suggestions above to try - I'd also recommend one easy one..... shoot the mold on a slight angle instead of straight up and down (say 20 or 30 degree tilt).... I have a few molds that seem to fill better when clamped in my vice on a slight angle... theory being the plastic fills "down" in the mold first then pushes the air up/out as it fills..... on a mold held perfectly vertical there is no "up" for the air to seek as it fills and trap in the ribs areas. Hope this makes sense. J.

Here's a suggestion, Mark. Pick the bait up, then drop it on the other side. Now you have symmetrical carpet fuzzies. It even adds texture to the finish!

Bubble are common when the plastic is heated quickly in a microwave. Different power levels on ovens can produce the result worse than others. Not the only reason for bubbles, but I struggled with it myself. I turned down the power and heated in increments. Some brands of plastic are worse for this than others.

The problem with hinged swimbaits is space for all the ballast and hardware. Also, there is nothing to make the lure dive down as the lure is lipless, so unless you get close to neutral buoyancy or a slow sinker, your lure is going to cruise the surface. This demands a lot of ballast. The more buoyant the wood, the more ballast you need. So for a wood choice, something with a density of 0.5g/cm3 (0.40 - 0.65). You don't want to go too heavy, as ballast is important in the lure design, for stability. I can't name woods for you as I am in Indonesia and don't know the English names for half the stuff I use. There was a recent discussion on this subject. Here's a wood discussion. Dave

Foiled a few 110's today for the same pattern a smallmouth guide requested. They turned out good. These are unpainted, should have his two painted up to match the others soon.

maybe send the mold back to the maker and see what they can do with it to get it to shoot better for you...call them first before you try to work on it yourself..once you work on it they wont touch it......

I do this when one part of my epoxy starts looking "milky". Another optiion, if the container is water tight, is to run a pan of hot water to set the bottle in for a few minutes.

Be forewarned! If coffee had been created on the first day, it would have only take four days to create the world. If bass fishing and lure making had been created on the first day, the rest of the world would never have been finished.

Outstanding

At Rowhunter's suggestion, I'm starting a PVC thread. I use it for all my lure building, for the following reasons: It is totally waterproof, so I can shape a lure, and then test float and ballast it without any sealing. I have a 3 gallon bucket of water in my driveway that I use for test floating. It is buoyant. The Azek PVC decking is as buoyant as poplar, a hardwood I used to build my jointed swimbaits from. The Azek trimboard is even more buoyant, like medium density balsa. I can make really active shallow cranks with it. It is strong. The decking is as strong as any wood, for lure building, and the trimboard, although not as dense, is still plenty strong enough for any crank. And I use it for my smaller two piece jointed lures, too. I caught a 7lb largemouth with a PVC trimboard spybait I made that was 4" long, but only 7/16" thick, and I had drilled several 3/16" holes up from the belly for my ballast. She ate the rear hook, and the bait held up fine. Both are strong enough to hold screw eyes with just a small pilot hole. No need for any reinforcement, or setting into holes filled with epoxy. I usually use the gap filling/brush on super glue alone to set my hardware, and a lot times my bills, too. I use the accelerant (thank you Ben) dripped onto the glue to help it set quickly, once things are positioned. It machines and carves well. Although the sanding dust is nasty, because it sticks to everything, including my sinuses, PVC is easily machined and shaped with the same tools I used for wood. As with any work, sharp tools work best. I cut out my bait profile, and lip slot, with a bandsaw, and try to drill any ballast hole while the bait has the flat sides, so I can drill straight holes with my drill press. I use an oscillating belt sander with an 80 grit belt to do my major shaping, working from a centerline I put on the bait after I've sanded the bandsaw marks off. I "carve" details with a dremel sanding drum, and drill out my eyes with a multi-spur bit on a drill press. I typically sand down from 80 grit to 120 grit with a vibrator sander, and finish up with a small piece of sandpaper to get edges and details softened. Because it has no direction-oriented grain, it carves really well with sharp tool. It can be laminated into bigger lure blanks using the same PVC glue plumbers use for PVC pipe, or you can use super glue. If you use both the PVC primer and the glue, the two pieces actually melt into one solid piece. As long as the two surfaces are flat and mate, you're good to go. It paints well. I can shoot Wicked White as a base coat onto a raw PVC bait, heat set it, and never have any separation problems with my paint schemes. When I've had occasion to remove some paint to modify a bait, I've had to sand down to the PVC to get the paint off. It never peels. Occasionally, heat setting too hot can cause trapped air to bubble up under the seal coat, so I generally seal baits by rubbing crazy glue, or thinned epoxy, over them before I paint, if I want a super smooth bait. But any bubbles that do appear can be popped by the sharp tip of an exacto knife, and they lay right back down when I press them with my exacto knife handle. I've never had any baits with popped bubbles fail. And, because it is totally waterproof, I don't have to worry about nicks and scuffs from rocks and hooks. Any top coat works. I've used epoxies, urethanes, and concrete sealers, with no problems. In short, it make lure building faster and easier, and that make it even more fun, so why I use it.

At first I'd advice you to take some time to browse through the topics in here , you'll already find a good share of info . And if you are after a certain type of action , you should probably try and duplicate a lure , that provides that certain desired swimming action , .....it's just very , very elaborate to tell about crankbait dynamics , entire books chapters have been filled on that topic , ...still after almost 25 years of luremaking I can just roughly predict about the action , that a homemade crankbait lure would come up with , .........and , ....info in here as well , but one's gotta find it . If your a newbie to lure carving , you might as well check out YouTube , ....there are countless lurebuilding videos around , just use the search function filling in approbiate terms like "lurebuilding " , "luremaking" , "luretesting" , "lurecarving" , "Kunstköder" , " Wobblerbau" , "Kunstaas", ....etc. ! For example , ...regarding lure foiling , .......here is a good video put out by a friend of mine : Welcome to the TackleUnderground , .......greetz , diemai

carve the tail out of pvc too.