BobP

IMO, amoisture cred urethane is best. Dip it, hang it, done. The most popular is KBB Diamond coat, an automotive brand.

Up to a point, the narrower the lip the more rocking motion a bait will have, flashing its sides up and down. Wider lips have much less rock and more tail wag. If you make a lip more narrow than the width of the bait, it can cause the bait to blow out and begin to spin on a constant retrieve. That matters more on regular crankbaits and less on jerkbaits.

In my experience, a moisture cured urethane is the thinnest tough hard topcoat you can use on spoons. Dick Nite spoons used to sell the MCU he uses on his manufactured spoons to TU members at a discount. Don’t know if that’s still true but another MCU that is popular is KBS Diamond topcoat which is sold by many automotive parts companies online. kBS is a little thicker than Dick Nite but it’s easier to store without beginning to cure hard. You might also buy a custom thinner from KBS if you want to customize viscosity.

The brand of glow paint I used is out of business now. I really recommend using very coarse grain paint because it will glow much stronger. Particle size is every thing. I’ve seen commercial air brush glow painted lures and they’re pretty dim in comparison. If dim is what you’re after, fine. I’m just saying.

I built a bunch of glow jigging spoons by painting on 4 coats of acrylic glow paint. The paint had large glow grains so couldn’t be airbrushed but large grains = more glow. It leveled out pretty well and I topcoated it with moisture cured urethane. These spoons proved to be very durable and the glow is strong enough to literally read a newspaper in a dark room. They catch bass great when I go deep jigging in the winter.

Commercial screw eyes are vulnerable if you put them in balsa baits without also epoxying the hole they’re in. A hard knock can loosen the eye and cause it to rip out. If it loosens but doesn’t rip out, water will infiltrate and ruin the bait anyway. I prefer hand twisted screw eyes epoxied into pre-drilled holes. I’ve never had a failure with them. Making a durable balsa bait, or any wood bait for that matter, is mostly about stopping water infiltration.

21xdc nailed it for the parameters you set.

.041 wire is just right for all but the smallest or largest cranks. But the secret is that it needs to be SOFT TEMPER stainless wire, not the hard stuff.

Like 21xdc, I think the lip should be at a larger down angle. However, we don’t really know the size or weight of the bait. If it’s heavy, the lip surface area needs to increase to impart enough vortex to make it wiggle and rock. Also, performance might benefit by putting the nose eyelet just below the nose point instead of above it. It reminds me of a Rapala balsa floating minnow. Very nice looking! I’d take a look at a Rapala and copy that design exactly.

As a generalization, most lipped bass crankbaits are weighted near the belly hook hanger. In fact, many of them use an integrated belly weight/hook hanger. On larger baits, like for musky, the ballast is often more distributed to affect performance. If your bait design is represented by diagrams you included, I have no earthly idea where to begin.

I add a FEW drops of denatured alcohol to D2T to thin it out a bit and also to e tend the work time a couple of minutes. Maybe 4 drops into enough epoxy to coat 2 medium bass baits.

You’re using it.

I get wire from McMaster-Carr online. Lots of types, lots of sizes, pretty good prices.

Like most of the above, I’d opt for KBS. It’s clear, cures well, and yields a tough high luster coating. Big plus: you simply dip lures into it and hang them to drip and cure. Optionally, you can brush it on and hang it. I use several coats to build a very good coating.

I build various size baits and a store-bought stencil kit wouldn’t be very useful, if that’s what you’re talking about. I went to an art store and bought a roll of FRISKET, which. Is paper with a peel off plastic backing. After using it awhile, I realized it was best if I didn’t take the adhesive backing off and instead just held it against the lure. Added benefit, you can keep the template and build a library of them. Frisket is easy to cut with a razor knife.