RiverMan

I make some money at it but not much. Most of the money I make goes right back into the business working on new ideas. I have had lures manufactured for me overseas several times, made thousands myself, and also by others here in the USA. I have found it is very difficult to get a high quality product unless you make it yourself. The problem with making it yourself is there is only so many hours in the day. I had one lure made overseas that would break if you looked at it wrong and I threw out all of them, a very expensive mistake. I have had other lures that I invested thousands into only to find out they didn't sell very well.......it's a business and there is certainly risk. So............how do you avoid risk? One way is to build all the lures yourself and build the business slowly. The problem with this approach is you never make much money at it, you can make some, but not enough to make it worth quiting the day job. IMHO, the best way to make money at it is to be really good at developing new ideas and then finding someone who is very skilled to produce them for you. Again, you can make a little money building them yourself but to make good money you have to let others do the work for you.........there is not enough hours in the day to do everything yourself. The other bad thing about lure building is all the chemicals you must use. There is the lead, the paints, the wood dust, all the plastics, and worst of all, the clearcoat. I don't care how good your ventilation system and mask is your are being exposed and long-term I don't think it's worth it. Hack, hack, wheeez, wheez. Jed.

Good idea Joe.

Yep.

It has to do with the mixture of your microballoons to resin................how do I know this? Because I have had the exact same problem lots of times. Keep experimenting. Take notes. RM

Cool..............probably only need one of them! lol

Hi Niki. Welcome to tackleunderground. Jed V.

Yes...........and it is not nearly tough enough for fishing lures. I have a gallon of it in the back room and you can have it if you drive by to get it.........I'm in Oregon. RM

I have had this stuff in this syringe for a week now and so far as I can tell there has been no noticable difference in viscosity. I make sure all the air is out and then tape the end. A side benefit is it's really easy to get more of it out when I need it.. I bought the syringe for $1.30 at my local farm supply store. I was worried the DN would interact with the plastic or the rubber/plastic plunger but so far it's ok. I clean the end of the syringe really well each time with a paper towel and then apply the tape. Hoping it holds up! Jed

The only thing I have not tried is acetone............I have used denatured alcohol and lacquer thinner and neither of them work.They kind of work but not really and after several uses the bristles slowly stiffen up. The other problem I have run into is that many quality bristle brushes are held together with glue and after you place the brush in a solvent the glues begin to break down and the bristles start coming out. I have probably gone through 10 quality soft bristle brushes trying to figure this out................if anyone has a way of doing this please let me know. Jed

I'm using the same thing Ben and what I have found is I rinse the brush once then get some new alcohol and do it again and it works pretty well. I'm using a natural hair brush that I stole from my wife's makeup stuff, lol. jed

Found very little searching on this topic and wondered if anyone is spraying Dick Nite...........................anyone? thx. Jed

I have always had a strong interest in knowing why things work and because of this I enjoy your comments regarding the physics and math of lure-building. Nevertheless, my experience over the years is that much of lure building is not a paper exercise but instead a process of trail and error. Swimbaits in particular have so many variables, friction at the joints, weight of the body material, lure height, width, shape of the head, number of joints, joint design, hook placement, size of hooks, etc., that predicting what they will do on paper is very difficult. Most lures I can get "close" at the first attempt but almost always I have to do some tweeking and repeated testing to really get them working good and often the necessary changes are something I would never have expected. I really enjoy your comments though Dave and I find many of them useful and applicable to lure building. I particularly liked your comment on this thread concerning neutral buoyancy..........this makes alot of sense. Jed

That's good stuff Dave and your neutral buoyacy discussion makes alot of sense. Oddly enough though, I have some swimbaits that swim by far the best when no weight is added to the back two sections. I have always thought this was because the additional weight slowed the back end of the lure thus reducing action.............but that's just my "non-engineer" brain thinking. I weighted the lure I am working on now in all sections but the tail and it works great at medium to fast but won't do anything at a slow speed. I have found it difficult to get a lure that sinks good but also swims at slow speeds. Jed

I have one right now that I am working on that does the same thing. I will figure it out but it takes experimentation..............I would start with your joints, bevel the edges on all the pieces to make sure they move very smoothly. Next change where the weights are at...........try weight in all sections or in just the front two sections. If it still doesn't work, you might have to change woods, sometimes a weight change in the material will make a big difference. Finally, you can change the size of the sections...............you just have to experiment and pay attention, eventually you will find the sweet spot. It takes time.......... Jed