BobP

I haven't been using Devcon since the Jurassic like Anglinarcher, it's more like a decade for me. Squirt out 2 pools that look equal and mix them really well and it always seems to work OK. It's been years since I had a failure. That suggests that mixing well is probably more important than measuring exactly. I'm sure that doing both is preferable, but there you go...

Either will get the job done. I started out with a good variable speed scroll saw and never changed. It cuts exactly along the layout line and does lip slots accurately. It is slow to cut thick hardwood like basswood but what the heck, I'm in no hurry. It will cut balsa as fast as you want to push it. Had I to do over again, I'd probably get a band saw for its speed. Its blade cuts continuously while a scroll saw cuts only on its down stroke - but I don't regret the scroll saw. I use standard 12 tpi 1/4" wide blades with mine.

No, you can apply epoxy over epoxy without any surface prep.

CTs - re white G10: RayburnGuy sent me a crank that had very white opaque G10 and I think he said it came from McMaster-Carr. It was whiter than the G10 lips sold by Janns, etc, which are more translucent. The problem is this: you have to call and ask G10 providers about color before you order. Most of them stock G10 for electrical board builders, rocket hobbiests, etc, and so they don't care about color. I bought white G10 from ASP Rocketry.com for years and it was the only source I could find for small sheets. I recommended the source to several builders until one told me the sheets he got from ASP were not the white stuff anymore. ASP guys use it for rocket fins and usually paint them, so they don't care. Note to crankbait component sellers: you could do worse than buy 4x8' white G10 sheets from a manufacturer and cut them into "hobby size" 12x12" sheets for resale to hobby and small scale crankbait builders. Mark me down for some in 1/32" thickness!

Yes, brass was used on some classic balsa crankbaits from the 60's and 70's. Copper is still occasionally used - I have a D-bait made with copper wire. But soft temper stainless has all the advantages of brass and copper and none of the corrosion. It is slightly stiffer than brass or copper in the same diameter, but still soft enough that it allows you to easily tune a crankbait without cracking the lip or the finish on the nose of the crank.

I use .040" dia SOFT TEMPER stainless "safety wire" instead of hard temper stainless. A pair of wire bending pliers (available at hobby shops like Michaels) helps a lot in getting round bends in your wire. But with soft temper stainless, you can just bend it around a drill bit clamped in a vise and use some Vise Grip pliers to twist the wire into a neat screw eye. The soft wire will snug up to the drill bit much better than hard temper wire - and IMO it performs better on bass crankbaits. If you prefer the barrel twist like Ben, you can hand twist #12 180lb test Malin SS Hard Wire leader with your fingers. It has a .029" diameter. I know the barrel twist is stronger but have never had either style screw eye come out of a bait, so I just go with the easier/faster/smaller diameter "twist'em together" style.

No chemical will remove cured epoxy. I use a small knife with a thin sharp blade, like a small Swiss Army knife. Get under the epoxy and pry it off in sheets. Heating the epoxy will make the process easier/faster. Someone on TU reported torching the epoxy at high temp as a fast way to remove it. Where bait buoyancy is not an issue, you can just lightly sand epoxy, paint it, and clearcoat it. It takes about 10-15 mins to pry all of the epoxy off an average size bass crankbait. If you have a big bunch to do, it will be a PITA.

JMHO, basswood is probably the easiest wood to work. It has no grain effect and it sands butter smooth. It's slightly heavier than white cedar. When I started using balsa, I found it so soft that I tended to over-work the wood and take too much material off the blank. You have to work balsa with more control and restraint but if you build many shallow crankbaits, you will eventually want to master it. White cedar is generally available in home centers in 3/4" planks. It's sometimes hard to find a piece that's really straight grained. I liked cedar OK but when sanded by hand, it tends to develop striations due to soft grain wood being interleaved with hard grain wood. Yes, Poe's and Stanford cranks are (were?) made with cedar and it's still a popular wood due to its buoyancy. But if you look at the commercial cedar baits, most of them employ a thick "build coat" on the raw wood to hide uneven grain effects - and very few garage builders know how or want to do that. As far as copying designs - you'll never make a wood RC1.5 that behaves like a plastic RC1.5. That's not a bad thing - I think a balsa 1.5 runs rings around the original plastic bait. But copying a good original is the fastest way I know to begin building baits that perform well and catch fish. A good original is a design that works: good body shape, good lip shape and angle, good ballast position, etc. Copy vs unique design just depends on your motivation for making crankbaits.

I pick wood depending on the type of lure I'm building and how I want it to perform. For fat shallow square lip baits, balsa is best because it has lots of buoyancy that helps the lure navigate through shallow cover. For most other baits, I use either basswood or paulownia. Basswood is easy to hand shape, durable, and thumps hard with the right lip. White cedar is on average slightly more buoyant than basswood, so it's a good substitute. Red cedar contains red oil that will leach through most finishes. You don't have the same problem with white cedar. JMHO, it takes time to learn to shape/sand a specific type of wood, how to finish it, and how to ballast different crankbaits made of it. I recommend choosing a wood and sticking with it for awhile until you feel confident in building with it. Jumping willy-nilly among various woods just makes it hard to build crankbaits that perform well.

You can see a sale anytime but on "new" reels, you often see big sales when a manufacturer changes a current model to a newer model and allows retailers to discount the older reels to reduce their inventory. That usually happens in early fall. Shimano did this recently on some of their baitcast reels and you may find a few left at retailers or online at Ebay. Since Shimano carefully controls retail sales prices, this is about the only time you see them on sale. Other manufacturers are less anal about retail prices, so you can see Daiwas, Abu Garcia, etc sold for "less than full retail" pretty often. Take a look at the reel you want on Ebay to get an idea of which reels are in excess supply - you usually see many listings for them when that happens.

I prefer other woods but if you're looking for something to buy at the local home center, I'd recommend white cedar. It has the lowest density of the home center woods used for structural stuff.

One problem you have with epoxy is that it will always draw away from any sharp edge, leaving the epoxy at the edge very very thin. I don't think there is any fix for that, except to avoid sharp edges on your baits or switch to another type of topcoat.

There are lots of ways to get it done and Ben's is one of the best. Eventually, you'll get down to rounding over edges by hand and that's where things can begin to get out of kilter. Baits have compound curves that are very hard to eyeball. To maintain control over the shape, I use a good compass to run limit lines down the length of the bait along the edges - along both sides of the top, the shoulders, lower sides, and belly. They tell me where to cut a facet along each of the 4 edges of the bait. I use a Dremel sanding drum to cut the facets, then blend the facet edges into the rest of the bait. Typically, I set the compass so it is 1/2 the distance from the side of the bait to the center line for the back and belly, and double that for the sides. I think you'll enjoy a wood RC1.5. JMHO, they run better than the originals if you get the ballast correct. I like to use a digital scale to weigh the blanks, hardware, and estimated finish weights (.02 oz in this case) as I build the crankbait. You then subtract the total from a target finished weight to give you the exact ballast amount you'll need.

It's mainly a question of how durable is enough for you. Two part auto clears are harder and more durable. I used Duplicolor aerosol clear when painting a reel, it chipped and scratched more easily than I liked, so I prefer to use more durable clearcoats on crankbaits. But to each his own!

Jann's Netcraft carries some balsa bodies.

Hobby paint contains larger paint grains than airbrush paint. There's no standard paint particle size in hobby paint, so you get what you get. The large particles stick and partially clog the airbrush, while the water passes through the tip as a splatter. Some hobby paints work OK, some have larger paint particles and cause more problems. Using a large tip airbrush can solve the problem somewhat but that's not the direction in which most crankbait painters want to move. Eventually, your hair will begin falling out and you'll develop a facial tic. Then you'll concede defeat and start using airbrush paint. It works so much better that you'll say "Damn the modest extra cost!". Hair will start growing again, the tic will disappear, and life will be sweet.

Sally, everything I read about measuring epoxy says BY VOLUME, and I see no reason to make it more complicated. Everyone develops specific ways of doing things as they experience good and bad results. There's more than one way to do epoxy but they all include both MEASURING and MIXING well. I have syringes but I just pour out equal size pools - it's not lab accurate but I mix a batch REALLY WELL. I think guys hurry mixing because they worry about it hardening. But inadequate mixing causes soft epoxy as often as bad measuring. I mix the heck out of D2T with a stiff plastic strip until it's milky with so many air bubbles in it. Then i mix in a FEW drops of denatured alcohol, which thins the batch enough to release bubbles and lengthen the brush time. And I don't mix up more epoxy than I can brush in 2-3 minutes, which for me usually means enough for 2, maybe 3, average size bass crankbaits.

Ditto what Bob said. As long as it hisses, there's some in there.

I'm betting you still have some paint clogged in the front of the brush, or else the trigger air valve is not working properly. Completely disassemble the brush and soak it for 24 hrs in airbrush cleaning solution. If you have a set of small airbrush cleaning brushes, use them. Shine a light through the tip, barrel, etc to see if you can see any obstruction. Put a drop of fine oil in the air valve where the hose connects to the brush to lubricate its internal rubber parts.

Gino, I do all color basecoating with an Iwata Revolution BR, which is a .3mm brush. It works just fine so I don't see a need for a .5mm tip just to shoot basecoat, as long as you stick to airbrush paint only. So I recommend getting a .3mm tip brush and using it for awhile. You may be surprised at how versatile it is once you gain experience with it (and yes, it will take awhile!). I start out with the Revolution BR and often end up using it for the entire lure. I also have an Iwata HP+ with .2mm tip. The difference in capability between the .2 and .3 mm brushes is not huge. I only use the HP when I have to do really fine shading/layering with transparent paint. Llike a lot of guys, I use stencils extensively for details because it's reliable and gives you identical results on both sides of the bait. I use 100% airbrush paint. If you plan to use any coarse hobby paints (Apple Barrel, Plaid, etc), the larger .5mm tip might be needed to minimize clogs. Also, if you intend to shoot auto clearcoat or other topcoats through an airbrush, a larger tip is usually better. Other than that, I don't see the need.

I hate rushing to glue in hangers with 5 minute epoxy so to preserve my sanity, I got some U-40 Rod Bond paste epoxy (slow cure variety) and now at least I can do it at my leisure. The Rod Bond paste stays workable for 2-3 HOURS, not 2-3 minutes. Of course, it takes longer to cure hard. It's rubbery soft after 5 hrs and takes a few hours beyond that to be hard enough to proceed with other build tasks. But I'm a patient man. I also use it for mounting lips - can't have too much time to second guess yourself about whether that lip is really straight! I poke mine in with a piece of stainless wire, butter the screw eye shank and wipe the squeeze-out off with little swabs cut from a paper towel.

As far as storage goes, MCU is MCU. The Garco and Famowood are sold as floor finishes. As far as they are concerned, you open the can, use it in one or two closely spaced sessions, and you're done. Using it up in 50 sessions spaced over a year is not in their play book. The first MCU I bought was a can of Famowood. It lasted 2 months before starting to cure in the can because I didn't know how to store it. I did learn that you cannot remove the lid from a metal can 10-20 times and tamp it back on without ruining it. And if you get cured MCU in the lid channel, well, just know that you don't want that to happen. I decant a quart can into 2 or 3 glass containers with good screw on lids. The best sealing ones IMO are Ball canning jars with the two part lids; a flat cover with a rubber gasket and a screw-on piece that tightens it down. And I never close a lid without spraying Bloxygen in the jar first. I can't comment on the "tap the can" method of storage because I dip lures and need larger volumes for that. It may work for someone who brushes or shoots MCU.