Skeeter

BEAUTIFUL !!!!! Skeeter

That's the same wood that I use. I still enjoy making some of the older designs that I did. They were all made out of that poplar from Lowes. My highest tournament finish here was done with one of those poplar baits. I still throw quite a few of them. Skeeter

Some knock a small nail into a piece of wood and bend the wire around the nail. Or you could use round needle nose pliers. Skeeter

Poplar is excellent wood. I used it for all of my baits for 2yrs. It is just time consuming to sand. Skeeter

Trouble shooting is a pain in the @$$ aint it dude? Enough to make you cry sometimes. My first thought was like VMAXX, pressure. But 30psi is more than enough. My next thought was like funnyfarm. This problem will definitely do it. Check the bottom of your pressure tank for a drain plug. If that isn't it, then we are getting into what you do to prepare the wood and the differnt types of paints that you are using. Skeeter

Acetone in a baby food jar. All ya need. Skeeter

Cody, I am having a little problem with the amount of weight that you are using in the bait. From the way I read your post you actually have a 1/32 oz. weight in your bait. That just seems awfully light to me. But, hey, if the bait sits right and the tip of the lip is under the water so that the bait starts to dig as soon as you turn the crank then you may be ok. I have posted on this site the way that I weight lures. You might want to look it up. You can glue two pieces of wood side by side with Devcon 5 min. epoxy. Put some on the wook and take a flat stick or something and spread the epoxy down the wood and get it good and thin. You don't wat a buch of epoxy oozing out of the edges. Its just messy. Then put the two pices together and either press it or clamp it together for a few minutes and it will bind them together forever. If you are using a lathe to turn perfectly round baits then you might want calipers. If you are making crankbaits like a Bagleys or Poes, then learn to use your eyes. You will never get round baits perfect the way that guys like us have to do it. It will never happen so don't beat yourself up over it. Time and practice will get you good and your lures looking consistant. Really take your time and do them as best as you can. You will learn your own tricks and shorcuts and you will find that soon enough you will be satisfied with your work. As far as ballance of crankbaits, you want to make sure that the belly weight is centered. That is the most critical. Next, you should be able to turn the bait upside down and sight down the lure from the tail to the nose. If the back hook hanger, belly hook hanger and the wire for your lip line tie are all in a straight line, then you are about as close as you are going to get for ballance. Round baits with straight bodies are hard to find. You will usually find that the tails are crooked. This is where most bait makers fail. Straight bodies are what it takes. Like I have said, you would't shoot an archery tournament with crooked arrows, so why would you try to consitantly hit a rock pile in 15 ft. of water with crooked crankbaits? It took me more than a year to learn to do it well. I still have problems, and make mistakes. It is part of the game. But now I can turn out 4 straight bodies in the time it use to take me to do 1. Take your time, be patient, and most of all THINK. : Skeeter

You don't need a real big compressor. I have a 2 gallon compressor that I got from www.harborfreight.com You will need a regulator. This is a guage that sets how much pressure goes to your airbrush. You can get them for less than $20. I like a larger compressor than the ones for airbrushes because they will hold more air in the tank and not run all of the time. They do make "quiet" small compressors for airbrushes, but they are more expensive. The Paasche VL is a good gun. I have one and I have been completely satified with it. If you are painting inside your house I would use water based paints. Lacquer paints have a strong smell and the thinners that you have to use have a strong oder also. If you have any more questions, just ask. Skeeter

If you want to use hardwood I would suggest pine, poplar, or cedar. Balsa would probably be what I would at least start with. It is very easy to work with. It is also very forgiving when learning to weight the bait. Hardwoods have a lesser + - tollerance for weighting. After you get down how to make the bait then I would try the hardwood if you want to. I made crankbaits out of poplar for years. It worked well. You can go to Lowes and they have a section where the wood is cut in 2ft. lenghts and is 1/2 inch thick that is already squared and planed. Trace your lure, cut it out and do your thing. It is cheap too. Skeeter

From my checking of the Zoom baits, I believe they are painted with lacquer and then the eyes are dotted with water based latex. This is how I do my eyes and dots on a bait. The reason that I say the eyes are done with latex is because many of their baits have raised eyes. This is due to latex paint being dried out alittle so that it won't run when dotting. This is especially true for their Poes copies. Dotting large eyes can get tricky. I don't think that they dot with lacquer because sometimes lacquer will splatter and then the bait has to be completely repainted. If you have the eyes raised then you might want to strip the bait. If not, then you can do like Hughesy said, if the clearcoat is not damaged, just shoot over the existing paint and clearcoat. If you do want the exact weight then stip them. But if you use epoxy for clearcoating then it won't be the exact weight. They do not use an epoxy coating like most of us do. I believe they dip their lures or shoot a lacquer clear. Their clearcoats are really thin. But it really won't matter because their baits are all made of balsa. Balsa is very forgiving when it comes to weight. Skeeter

Most any type of paint will stick to hardwoods. I don't care for Jelutong. I had someone give me a piece of it once. It is alot like basswood. Skeeter

I have seen topwater lures from Mississippi that were made of cypress when I use to fish the bayou ditches. Those baits held up well. I have never used it. I would like to try some though. Skeeter

The lure is finished and drying in the rack. It will be completely ready tommorrow morning. I will try to get a picture of it and post it. Skeeter

Ok yall, the bait has been built and painted. All I have left to do is put the eyes and the dots on the sides and clearcoat it. It should be ready sometime next week. Project: Break a Muskies Tooth is almost done. Skeeter

Dude, What a mouthfull!!! But I will give it a try. 1. 8 to 14 inches???? Are you after fish or Godzilla? Hardwood such as cedar is harder to do than balsa as far as weighting. Balsa is much more forgiving. But I would say starting around 1/4 to 3/8 oz worm weight to start with. I would make the bait, drill a 1/4 inch hole right where you want the hook hanger on the belly. This is where I would start as a plce to put your weight. Put the weight up in the bait point first, and just kind of wedge it in the hole untill it sticks up in there. It is OK to let the lead hang out of the bottom of the hole. Set the lip in the lure, (you don't have to glue it in... just set it in the slot) and put it in some water that will be about the same temp as the water you are going to fish it in and get it to where the water line is about 2/3 to 3/4 up the side of the bait with the tip of the lip under water so that it will start to dig as soon as you move the lure. You want the bait to rise. So push the sucker under the water and check to make sure that it will rise at a medium rate. Once you paint it, clearcoat it and put hardware on it the rise will slow up a little. Cold water is denser than hot water. Therefore, the colder the water the slower the rise. You can make a lure that rises at a medium rate in say 70 deg. water and then throw that same bait in 40 deg. water and it will slowly sink. If you have any more questions about this or I really didn't explain it enough, send me some email and I will try to help you more. 2. Lip angle will not effect how deep the lure will go. Length of the lip will. Ballpark you will get about 10ft. of depth for every inch of lip from the nose of the lure. Lip angle will affect the wiggle of the lure and how fast the lure will obtain maximum depth. A lip that comes straight out from the nose of the lure will obtain maximum depth quicker. But the wiggle will be tight. More angle will give more wiggle and the lure will take longer to obtain maximum depth because the dive plane is shallower. 3. There are some extremely expensive shapers that will cut them. I think Red's Duplicator may cut them. I would check with him. If not you keep your baits symmetrical with your eyes. If you have any questions on how to rough cut them I can help you. But for the finished body, it just takes practice. If you have some balsa, I would try a body or two with it. It will make the learning much easier untill you get the hang of it. 4. Someone else may have some tricks but I sure don't. Round bodies (as I call them) just take practice to get them right. Use your dremel to get the bodies in rough shape after you have rough cut the body out. I use fine sandpaper on the sanding drum. Take your time and work slowly. You can burn a body up real fast with the dremel. Learn to look at the body from all angles to make sure that the body is straight. The tail is usually the pain. You will learn how to eyeball them quicker the more you do. Skeeter

Beautiful paint jobs. PURE EXCELLENT WORK!!! Skeeter

You can get the lure in the ball park with a quick drag like that tank. But you cannot get a bait truely tuned that way or even on a lake with short casts. I tune baits for some of my customers. I take them out on the lake and really put the meat to them on the cast. I want that sucker running perfectly straight the entire distance. If you have a medium to deep running crank and it comes back perfectly straight and THEN goes straight back underneath the boat before it turns around and comes back to the rod tip..... then you got it right. Shallow running baits will usually come up out of the water before it has the chance to go under the boat. If you are really serious about cranking, keep tuning the bait untill it runs this way time after time. It can be time consuming..... but it is the only way to go. Bait companies will tell you anything to sell you a lure. Most guys don't have a clue as to whether they are telling the truth or not. It is not the average fishermans fault. We take the time to really learn our baits, and what makes them tick. We build them. We have the intrest. The average joe just wants that magic bait that will earn him tons of money and fame. But if you really notice..... it seems that every area has a few individuals that really win alot of money in the local tournaments each year. These guys are not average. They put the time in to make sure that their baits are right. Bait Companies won't do that for you. You have to do it. Cheeeez, why do I get on my soapbox so much here lately? Skeeter

spinnerbaits, I think that the clearcoat you are using will not hold up to the rigors of fishing. The clearcoat that you are using is used to protect a paint job from fading while the subject is hanging on the wall. That poor critter is done slamming into rocks. I am a Devcon freak. Everyone here knows it. Hughesy tried to slide out on what to use. He has stayed out of the never ending clearcoat battle. But the suggestion that he gave you was a good one. I would try the Devcon because it is easy and cheap to get from Wal Mart. Get the long drying stuff. I use a small paint brush to put it on. You can clean the brush with acetone when you are done. Mix it up, spread it on, and rotate the bait slowly for about 20 to 30 minutes so that the epoxy will even out and then hang it to dry. Wait overnight and then take it fishing. You may like to try the other clearcoats that the guys use on this site. Hughesy layed them out for you in his suggestions. But the Devcon is the easiest stuff to get your hands on for trying it out. Skeeter

The reason that it spits when you first hit the trigger is because the paint is starting to dry on or in the tip. When you take the cup out and shoot then the stuff is trying to dry once the majority of the paint is out of the gun. Since you are removing the cup there is nothing to keep the tip wet. I always try a quick shoot on something before I put the gun to the lure regardless of the type of paint I am using. I have had that happen to me quite a number of times. Really pisses ya off doesn't it. Skeeter

Your welcome Robert. I was a little lost as to where you were in painting the bait. If you are using Envirotex over the bare wood to seal it before you paint it..... Then you might be able to get away with just white spraypaint. My experience has been that anything that is water based has trouble sticking to a slick clearcoat type surface. I is like trying to paint glass. Even roughing the surface did not work well enough for me. But it looks like you got the primer...... so good painting. Skeeter

To my knowledge there is nothing much you can to for a bubble. I guess you could knock it out and then recoat. But other than that.... I don't know. For pits or holes in Devcon, you can put a little in the hole with a tooth pick and then put a piece of celophane tape over it and let it dry. The tape will peel off cleanly once the Devcon is dry. Skeeter

That bait would be a real tough one to duplicate in the way that it was made. I have several of them that belonged to my grandfather. I would love to see what you have done. Keeping everything lined up and straight would be one heck of a challenge with this bait. Skeeter

Most plastic painters here either use Createx or some type of water based acrylic for paint. I think that lacquer would be best. What is the water based clearcoat that you are using? I really can't tell you if it will hold up if I don't know what it is. Skeeter

Use .060 polycarbonate (Lexan) to make your lips. It is about 1/16 inch thick. You don't need to cut a slot in the lip for the wire. Take a look at the flat crankbaits that I have done in the gallery. This is the best way to do it. As far as cutting.... Leave the paper on the lexan and then trace out your lip. Cut the lip out and then peel off the paper. Patience and practice will teach you how to cut straight and to do curves. Dress up the edges with a fine bastard file. Remember that many of the real good bait makers on this site take their time when making their baits. It is their skill and patience that make these works of art that we all want to duplicate. Their skill has been developed through alot of trial and error. It is work and a trial in patience. But if you love it, you will do just fine. Skeeter

For those of you that want to shoot water based paints, my suggestion is that you try straight latex water based paint. Regular house paint. I shot this stuff for years and still do use it. I use One and Only from Lowes. It is cheap and really goes a long way. You can get a pint for about $3.00. You will have to learn to thin it with water. I pour it in the cup and just add enough water so that after it is mixed it will slowly drip off of the end of the tooth pick that I use to stir it. I shoot it between 18 and 20 psi. The problem with this is that I let it dry completely between colors. The really nice thing is that if you make a mistake then you can wipe it off if you catch it immediately. BUT the coat underneath the mistake must be completely dry or it will wipe off also. For lacquer, here is what I do. For now I use Pactra Lacquer that is used for RC cars. You can get it at any hobby shop. I shoot pearls without cutting it. Regular colors I thin at 2 to 1 with acetone. Don't be affraid of it. It is a really sweet way to paint. You will need a respirator though. Water based paint will eventually dissolve with water. Lacquer will NOT. IT WILL STAY IN YOUR LUNGS. You do need to spray where there is ventallation. You will use alot less paint and it dries extremely quick. When spraying scales, it is almost completely dry as soon as you shoot it. I still use water based latex to dot my eyes and side dot. It works just fine. Clean up is not bad. Shoot a cup of acetone, MEK, or lacquer thinner through the gun and you can go to the next color. Regardless of what ever type of paint that you use, cleaning the gun thoroughly afterwards is mandatory. Learn to tear down your gun and clean the parts with hot soapy water when you are done for the day. I use a pipe cleaner and run it through the gun to get the tough crap. But you will find that if you clean after each color that the gun will always perform at its best. For taxidermy paints that were mentioned in one of the posts, try this one.... www.taxidermy.com They have paints that are both water and lacquer based. They are just pour and shoot. If any of you all have any water based latex or lacquer questions... just ask. Skeeter