RiverMan

You can buy Oomoo for half that price. RM

I have taken many pics of my lures and what works best for me is to take the photos outside in indirect light. Sometimes I have to move a half dozen times before the lure will look ok, glare can be a problem. Just yesterday I took three photos of a lure and none looked good so today I will try again. Photos inside always look dull to me and the color is often off just a bit. If you have a large rock or piece of wood lay the lure on it to take the photos, the dull background seems to work well. Here is an example. RM

I like the action of the spoon, very good. Spoons are an often overlooked lure that can be very effective. We use large spoons here in the northwest (USA) in the fall for chinook....they love em! Jed

I have had swimbaits do the same thing and corrected in one of two ways. Make the material you are building the lure out of heavier............or, Change how you are weighting the lure.

There are no shortcuts to making a good glidebait, making an "ok" glidebait is easy, making a "good" glide bait takes time. The smaller baits are harder for several reasons. One is they don't weigh nearly as much as a large bait so it's harder for them to have any momentum. Don't expect too much from a small glider, most will only dart left and right with very little glide. If you want a huge glide, build a big glider of put a lexan tail on the back of the lure. Small baits don't have much surface area on the front of them so they are harder to turn so keep that in mind. Finally, make sure the lure you are working with is at least 3/4" thick. I have gotten some 1/2" thick gliders to work but they are tricky. Try several different woods, several different shapes, and experiment with the weighting. Some gliders work best with two weights, others four or more. Some like to put one weight at the balance point. Take notes and keep trying. Eventually you will find a good combination. good luck, Jed

Some great ideas, thanks!

I'm working on a new dryer and wondered if anyone has found a good way to connect the electric motor drive shaft to a piece of all thread? In the past I have welded them together but I just wondered if someone had a better way. thx. Jed

Silver Streak, I have used lacquer with good luck on spoons. Go down to the local hardware store and buy a rattle can of clear laquer. Spray on a LIGHT coat, wait 15 minutes and repeat. Put on 3 coats and you will be fine, works great on spoons and super easy to apply. Jed

Your point concerning the thinner clear coat on some lures is a good one. I have built some lures in the past, swimbaits being one of them, that simply will not run with a thick coating of epoxy. In this case I have used the original DN but I know others are using auto clears. Jed

Lure-prof, I have no alliance to any manufacturer of clear coats including DN, just sharing my personal experience with others here on TU. Over the years I have tried Devcon, Envirotex in several formulas, DN original, Seal Coat, Lure dip, Lacquers, Fasco, UV cures, several auto clears, and most recently an environmentally safe epoxy. I am always looking for a better clear coat and in the process have learned a thing or two about them. Since you mentioned Tim Hughes, I will relate that I have sold about 3000 musky lures over the last six years and during that time I can think of only two that have come back to me with a clear coat failure. All of them were coated with either Devcon or etex. Given these lures are being used for one of the largest, toothiest, and toughest critters in fresh water I think these results speak for themselves. Had I been using a water-based clear, I would have been replacing 90% of them. I have not tried the DN water clear because I know from Bob's experiment that there is no way it will live up to what I and my customers expect in regard to durability. I have tried the original DN and I like it although it too has some shortcomings, odor being one of them, and problems with storage being another. I have tried two other water clears and both failed miserably. Even if the DN water clear was twice as good as the other water clears I have tested it wouldn't cut the mustard with my customers, I can guarantee you that. I would agree that most guys are not going to soak a lure for 24 hours straight. However, if the lure fails on a 24 soak that tells me it is not as durable as other commonly available clear coats (etex, devcon, etc.) that can easily tolerate a week or a month of soaking………..so why use it? I don’t intend to use my fishing reel for 24 hours straight but I expect it to hold up if I decide to do so. At this point we will have to agree to disagree and I will let others here decide if they consider a clear coat that pimples and scrapes off after 24 hours to be an acceptable clear coat for them. I enjoyed the lively debate with you, maybe something was learned in the process. Kind regards, Jed

Lure-prof, What more could have happened? The clear was pimpled and was coming off, that's failure. Are we going to check the lure every few casts and once we see it failing set it aside until next week? Pick any top line bass or musky lure, they can all withstand a 24 hour soak with no ill effects. I have found luhr Jensen Kwikfish that had been in the water for months, covered in algae, wash them up and they look good as new. You and I have both been building lures a long time but some others on here may be just getting started. I see no reason to suggest to a novice builder that he use a clear coat that I know is significantly inferior to many others. Jed

Lure-prof, With all due respect to your opinion, we have had discussions here on TU about clearcoats for years and everyone has their own opinion. Back in the day it was Etex vs Devcon and each had their own favorite. BTW, I agree with you on the Devcon, the 30 minute stuff cures way too fast now. The test Bob did pretty much told me everything I needed to know about the DN water clear. These findings are very consistent with what I have found testing two other water based clears. I pasted his findings below. bobv, on 28 November 2010 - 06:15 PM, said: However after 24 hrs under water the entire bait was covered with pimples and the clear and white could be scraped off with your fingernail. Assuming it was ruined I set aside and watched football all day and that evening went in to see about stripping the lure. I was amazed to find all the pimples gone and the finish had rehardened to a point I couldn't scrap it up even where I had cut the finish. It also appears to have bonded with the paint better. Not sure what to think at this point. Any ideas out there. Again, you can coat a lure with Devcon or etex, Wasco (I like it too) and sink it for weeks with no ill effects. Your typical rapala, lucky craft, or storm lure can be left in the water for a month and it would still be fine and I expect the same from my lures. The DN water clear couldn't hold up to a 24 hour test. Maybe some here are satisified with a clear coat that fails after a 24 hour soak..............I am definitely not one of them. Jed

Guys, I build and sell musky and pike lures. If I could use a water based clear like Seal Coat or DN water based clear I most certainly would. I would love to use a water base clear and get away from using a respirator and a lure dryer but the fact is they don't work! I have tried water-based clear coats and if the lure gets too wet everything comes unraveled and the lure is destroyed. It takes a long time to cut a lure, sand it, shape it, weight it, seal it, prime it, and paint it and after all this work I want to be sure that my investment is protected with a proven product. The first time I tried Seal Coat I really liked it, went on milky white, dried clear, odor wasn't bad. I applied three or four coats by dipping the lure, everything was great. I then took the lure to the river and sat on anchor with the lure fishing (for salmon) an hour underwater at a time. At the end of the day I set the rod down in the front of the boat and the deck was really wet from rain. It sat on the wet deck another couple hours. Got back to the launch at the end of the day, picked up the rod and guess what, part of the paint was sitting on the deck of my boat! After being underwater just one day the clearcoat failed. My guess is the lure was probably underwater a total of about 8-10 hours. I have epoxy coated lures I have fished in this same way for 5 years and dozens of trips that are totally fine. For now, proven clearcoats include Devcon Epoxy, Etex Epoxy, and DN original formula. I am hoping that some time soon we will also discover a UV cure epoxy. RM

Yep..........

Seal Coat is not an acceptable coating for lures...........try some original Dick Nite or etex. Jed

The Water Reducable DN and Seal Coat are not acceptable as clear coats...............they won't hold up to the water test. Stick with the original DN, etex, devcon, or various auto clear coats. If the clearcoat smells really bad and is so toxic that it drives your dog and wife out of the house, it's probably good! If the smell is something you don't really mind, it's probably not going to work! Jed