Skeeter

I have done quite a few for customers. I make them out of balsa and a special hardwood that I have found. They are not any harder to do than any other round crankbait. The main thing with round cranks is keeping the bodies straight. That is the toughest part. Try some with balsa. It is the quickest. If I can help you in any way let me know. Skeeter

I use to live in Hopkinsville Ky. I fished Barkley and Ky. lakes for 6 yrs. If you have a picture of the lure, maybe I could help or know of someone that could. However, I have never seen that signature on any of the handmade lures from that region. Skeeter

Really nice lures Dean. Some beautiful color schemes you got there. Keep up the good work. Skeeter

I have never used F/C. However, I don't see why you can't. I have used Devcon over many different commercial wooden baits with good results. I had no idea what was on the original wooden lure for a clearcoat. It all worked out just fine. I would not thin the Devcon. Just apply a coat with a brush and dry the lure like you normally would. Skeeter

Mike, Like you said you have that cone shapped cap on the end of the gun. That is just there to protect the tip of the needle. But I am sure you understand that by now. Any way, what Coley has suggested is good stuff. Take that red back off of the gun and learn to shoot with it off. This will allow you to adjust the needle as you shoot if you need to. I would shoot with the #3 tip. It is a good all around tip. However, Createx should shoot fine with the #1 if you prefer. But you will probably have to clean the tip more often. Personally I don't care for Createx. It is thin and you cannot make more than a pass or two or it will run and blow across your work. I have heard good things about their auto air paint. I have not tried it yet. I am having trouble finding it locally. Good luck and let us know how it is going. Skeeter

My hat is off to you too Red. You have given us kids a great place to play. You and the rest of the staff do all of the real work. Thank you so much. Skeeter

I went out to take a look at your site. Your lures are very nice. Really good work. The only one that I know of on this site that is doing something similar is Coley. He comes up with some really wild stuff. And what really blows my mind ...... is that it all works and is very unique. Your metal plate through the center of your baits is interesting. But I don't understand why you go through the pain of the particle board concept. I know that it has to be labor intensive. Have you had trouble with a balsa bait breaking before? Seems like the metal plate should firm up the bait enough. Skeeter

http://www.eti-usa.com/indust/crys.htm Skeeter

Balsa does not absorb water. It will get wet, but it will not absorb to the core like hardwood will. Balsa is used to line welding tanks for this reason. If you have an airbrush, then I would suggest moisture cured urathane. You can cut it with acetone 3 to 1. Three parts urathane and 1 part acetone, and shoot it through the air brush. You can clean the airbrush with acetone. It is the same a shooting lacquer paint. Shoot one quick thin coat. You will know if you have the mixture right because it will look wet as you shoot it. Wait about a minute for it to tack up and then you can lay the stuff on with the gun. If you try to lay it on thick with the first coat, it will run. This is why you let the first thin coat start to tack. You will not need to spin it or anything else. I will be dry to the touch after a few hours. I would let it set up a minimum of two days before use. For a bobber I think this would work good. For you cranbait nuts out there, I would not recommend it for your baits. It really takes about 4 to 6 weeks for the stuff to really cure hard. Once it is fully cured, the stuff is tuff as nails. I gets super hard. But it does take that long to fully cure. It is completely water proof and is clear. I did a bait with this stuff and the bait is over a year old and has not yellowed. But for over 4 weeks I could scratch it with my finger nail. You can get it at www.dicknite.com Or maybe you could get the same thing at Lowes or something. Skeeter

Blackjack has got it. 18ga. is the way to go. It is not too heavy. Stainless might be a little tough to work with at that gauge, but it will definitely hold up to whatever is out there. I have used .031 spring steel wire in alot of my baits. It is hard to work with and hard to get a bait tuned using it. BUT, once the bait is in tune it takes a whole lot to knock it out. Plus it will never bend if used for a hook hanger. I caught a 31 lb. cat fish on one of my crankbaits with this wire in it. I fought the fish for over 10 minutes. The darn thing made some tremendous runs and bulldogged under the boat for much of the fight. When I got the bait back, everything was still straight and the bait was still in tune. Skeeter

You can see that the body that you have made is done with much more care and precission. I have seen TONS of handmade crankbaits made by rough shaping and sanding. Then they spread 25 coats of primer or undercoat to hide all of the problems and bad work. This bait also looks like the Little PT made by Flatshad baits. www.flatshad.com How thick is the lure? This guy went to the Tackle manufacturers show in Nevada. He got a little push in an article in Bassmaster. Now he has been clobberd so hard with requests for his baits that he is not taking any more orders untill July of 2004. The old "be carefull what you wish for" syndrome. This dude will be busting his chops for the next 9 months in the shop. Hope he doesn't have to work another day job. Really nice looking body Blackjack. Post a picture of the finished product. Skeeter

Long cure Devcon will NOT yellow. Skeeter

Completely AWSOME!!!!!!!!!! Skeeter

Coley, Coley, Coley,.... Where do you come up with this stuff? Nathan, I like the bait. Skeeter

Very nice looking lure. I really like where the rear hook hanger is located. What is it made of? Skeeter

I have to use my jigsaw. I don't have a bandsaw. It is still a very hard thing to do. I do it the same as Nathan. When I have custom work to do for a customer on one of his own personal wooden baits, then I use a dremel cutting wheel to cut the front of the lip off half way between the line tie and the nose of the lure. I shave the lip away from the front of the wire so that I can pull it straight out and get it out of the way. I grind the rest of the lip to the nose and then use a very thin file that I have to take the rest of the lip in the slot out. It is time consuming, but I guarantee myself that I won't mess up the face of the lure or the slot. If the lip is installed with Industrial hot glue (like Bagleys) or Devcon, it is the only way you can do it safely and correct. On Rapalas and Poes you can take a utility knife and make a score around the top and bottom of the lip slot. Just enough to break the clearcoat seal. Then you can pop the lip out of the slot. But be careful because Rapala has a shaft that runs from the back of the lip straight into the body. This is how they line the lip up in the body when they glue it in. Once you break it free pull the lip straight out or the body could get damaged. Skeeter

just_plugging, Most of the guys here cleacoat after the hardware is put on the bait. When the bait is cleacoated then everything gets sealed. If they don't do it that way, then they seal as they go. In other words, if they drill a hole for a screw eye, they will usually apply some epoxy to the threads of the eye before they put it in. After that dries, it is sealed. Blackjack, Yes, please let us know on the torture tests. I am interested. How did you like applying the Crystal Sheen? Skeeter

The long cure has 2.5 tons psi. The 5 min has 1.5. However, from my experience, Devcon will crack on sharp edges and corners. You don't even have to do anything to it. It will crack eventually on its own on a sharp edge. I made a crank once and it turned out real nice. 4 days later the back end of the plugs clearcoat on the edge of the tail just cracked completely through. All of the way to the paint. If you just dull the edge so that it is not sharp it will do just fine. Skeeter

Well, I clearcoated a bare wood flat balsa bait this weekend and shot the paint to it. It worked beautifully. I just got the eyes and stuff on it tonight so I haven't put the final clearcoat on it yet. The paint and finish were flawless. Lacquer shoots beautifully onto the devcon. This is the way I am going to head with this problem. I think it is the way to go on a balsa bait. Skeeter

Mix it up, spread it on with a brush, and clean your brush with acetone. Make sure that you rotate the bait slowly for at least 20 min. like Celtacav said to level out the epoxy. Then you can hang the bait to finish drying. BUT, if the temperature in your drying room is less than 75 deg. rotate the bait for 10 min extra for every 5 deg. The colder it is the slower it cures. Skeeter

Big boy, Some of the other guys suggested the same thing. But I just want a one time application. Spread it once and no more sanding. The reason is because I may have 20 or 30 baits to do and it just gets to adding alot of time with multiple applications and sanding. I clearcoated a bare balsa lure today. One thick coat. It worked out real well. No sanding. Just a good slick finish. Now to see if the lacquer just holds. I will let you all know. Skeeter

VMAXX, You are right. It was Cliff Craft. Damn, we're getting old. Seems like it was just yesterday. Well, at least our memory hasn't left us yet. Skeeter

Dave, I am now convinced that you practice voodoo!!!! That's right bud. I have NEVER had a problem with my Devcon clearcoats. But yesterday I took a prototype balsa square bill out for testing. I caught 3 fish and the smallest one was 4.11 lbs. I fished it in the wood. After the 3rd fish, I had a round crushed spot in the middle of the back of the bait near the head and my Devcon was cracked. I'll bet that if I came to your shop there is a picture of one of my baits hanging above your workbench with a couple of pins sticking in the exact same spot. GO AHEAD, ADMIT IT!!!!!!! This stuff didn't start untill you started talking about it. However, I think I have the answer to all of this problem. As I have said, balsa will flex. The baits will flex clearcoated or not regardless of what we use to clearcoat. This is what is causing the cracking. The wood has to be hardened before we paint. I have never had a problem with any type of hardwood. This is because it just plain won't flex under the strains that a bait goes through. What I am going to do is to completely clearcoat the bare wood of balsa baits before I paint them and spin them. It will be a thick coat just like the finish coat after painting. I am going to do this on the bare wood because I want all of the penetration of the epoxy into the wood that I can get. This will harden the bait as much as I can get it before painting. Water based paints will not hold on bare Devcon, so I am going to shoot a white lacquer undercoat straight onto the Devcon. My base color pearl, yellow, or whatever will be lacquer also. Latex enamel will hold onto lacquer just fine after it is completely dried. So I can do scales, eyes, and dots with the enamel. I will then clearcoat one thick application of Devcon for the finish. I will let you guys know how it turns out. I will be doing some heavy painting next week. P.S. Take the pins out of my picture before Monday. Skeeter

kvillebasser, Bass tournaments are tough if you are serious about them. The BFL is even tougher. 5000 guys nationwide that are trying for money, advancement, and fame. In the area that you and I live in there are alot of dedicated and very very good fishermen. It is a tough bunch to go after. Celticav probably gave the best input. Time on the water. Alot of the guys that do well spend alot of time working on the lake before tournaments. Some are lucky enough to have the time to do so. Many are looking for a way to seriously supplement their income. These kind of guys are the bulk of my business. It is very hard to spend maybe one day on the water practicing (if you get to) and then go out and tear them up for the tournament on the next day or weekend. The only thing that you can do is to develope your discipline and your gut instinct the best you can and "go get em." It would blow your mind if you knew the clicks that were sharing information during the tournaments. I know that the first BFL All American winner got his spot from a very close friend that was also competing in the same tournament. The guy that gave him the spot got a cash kickback from the winner. These guys are in it for the money!!!!!!! They are very good and very serious. They either have or make the time to practice. The information that is shared between these guys is tremendous and it is very exact. In the past 3 years I have increased my weight on fish by alot. The secret is that I am getting off of the banks and fishing more open and deeper water. My normal working depth is 8 to 12 ft. If I am catching alot of smaller fish then I know that the larger ones have moved out deeper. This is what is allowing all of those dinks to be in there molesting my bait. I normally do not catch a limit. But in the last tournament that I fish on High Rock I had 4 fish that went 18.2 lbs. As large as that sack was to me, it only got me 12th place. The winner had over 24 lbs. Don't worry about the number of fish in your sack. You are going to have to target larger fish. Get off of the bank and get where alot of folks are missing them. It takes time to find these spots, but it is worth your time. This is where the dicipline comes in. You have to keep at it to find them. Skeeter

Coley, I use the Paasche VL. It is a double action, easy maintenance, and very reliable gun. Get it at harborfreight for 49.00 Comes with absolutely everything that you need. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=32371 Skeeter