RiverMan

Thank you for the responses...... Bamabass..........some have suggested waiting 24 hours before a recoat........are you waiting this long? jed

Thanks Boone............how does it hold up to say hook rash and minor bangs and bonks? I would probably apply 2 or 3 coats with a brush. Jed

For those using Dick Nite, can you tell me how much trouble it is to make sure the product isn't exposed to air? What if you buy the DN in small containers or if you store it in several small containers? How long do you have wait before applying the second coat? thx. Jed

Trueglide? Joe? Who's that?

I think shiners would be one of the most difficult to mold. You can't hardly keep them on a hook because they are so soft and they are the first to die if held in a bucket. RM

They look really good. You might try poplar next time, it is still a very light wood but is far tougher than balsa. RM

My guess is that somehow you got something on the blades that is preventing adhesion. This might be as simple as oil from your fingers. Clean the surface of them thoroughly with a paper towel and rubbing alcohol and try spraying over the top of them. RM

I'm trying to remember who it was.........someone else was having problems with featherlite bubbles also. You might do a search on the topic, it has been discussed here before. If it doesn't bubble this time of year you might find it starts to degas when the weather warms up. jed

My experience has been that if you go from a slightly rounded edge to a radically round edge there will be a noticable difference in the action of "some lures". You just have to experiment, and experiment some more. Larger lures are less sensitive to change because of the additional mass. I will add that you need all square edges of the lure to be rounded over or you won't be able to get clearcoat on it. Jed V.

Oh hey Mike, I think Nate's trout is the finest of all trout swimbaits on the market, period. He put an incredible amount of time into that lure and it really shows. Jed

If that is what you are wanting, then more joints would be better. Jed

I agree it helped the action quite a bit Mike. Most of the hard swimbaits we build tend to over exagerate the swimming action of a fish. As part of my job, I have watched hundreds of fish swimming underwater and mostly all you see move is the tail of the fish, the body remains very steady. As a fish gets larger and closer to the surface, however, the swimming motion becomes more exagerated. The fish in this video is about 7 pounds (roughly 27 inches), if it were 7 inches the swimming motion would be far less pronounced: I have built a number of hard plastic swimbaits now and each of them had a more sinuous motion with four sections than they did with three. However, the size of each section makes a big differce too. If you intend to use the bait for bass I think 4 sections is better because many bass fisherman really like to "slow roll" their swimbaits and more sections will peform better at slow speeds. Four sections on the surface looks very realistic. However, for other species such as musky, pike, stripers, etc., I think 3 sections provides some advantage because it is one less joint to worry about and therefore lessens the liklihood of something going wrong when a huge fish grabs the bait and starts spinning on it. This video clip is my fav swimbait that I have built thus far, it has three sections (two joints) and as you can see, this bait will really dance. At 57 seconds into the video I slow roll the bait. YouTube - swimbait video by Bikini Bait Company Jed V.

I looked at that too over the years Mike. What I found is the taxidermy specimens generally have either a left or right turn which won't work for us. The other thing is their fins are really thin so you can't use them either. In the end, I still think building your own proto will be the best because you can set the species you want, the width, length, etc. Jed

I have toyed with this idea over the yrs too but never got around to it. I always thought I would freeze the critter first and then mold it. Smoothon has some info on their site about taxidermy so you might look there. Ultimately you may find that carving a prototype of your piece is more accurate altho some recent bass baits look to me like they were made from a real fish. Jed