BobP

However you do it, yes, it's important that the lip be squared to the bait. Cutting a true perpendicular slot is best by far. But even if you have to make the slot oversize so you can adjust the lip during installation, that's better than a crooked lip. Doesn't the table on your saw have an adjustment to make the blade perpendicular to the saw blade? I use a carpenter's square on my scroll saw to check the alignment, and I cut the lip slot slowly so the blade stays true during the cut.

I think Dave is right. I use hand-twisted screw eyes built one inside the other. I drill holes, fill them with epoxy, butter the threads with epoxy, and push them in the holes. There is some epoxy squeezed out, no problem. When cured, I use a Dremel with a millimeter drill bit to get in there and clean any epoxy off the eyes.

You can learn a lot about crankbaits just by looking at commercial examples. Probably 90% of wood crankbaits use a ballast that consists of a small cylinder of lead that has the belly hook hanger molded into it as a single unit. See where the belly hanger is and that's also where the ballast is. You can buy integrated ballast/hangers or you can position your ballast in the same general area on your crankbait, just in front of or behind (or both) the hanger. How much ballast? Depends on how you want your crankbait to perform. Again, look at a good commercial crankbait. If you are building yours from the same type of wood, weigh the original crank and you can estimate how much ballast you will need in your bait. Or you can do a float test when the bait is waterproof by temporarily installing all the hardware then hanging lead on the front treble hook until you get the buoyancy you want. Then just drill a hole and install an equal amount of ballast in the bait.

Just BTW, what we refer to as "Etex" is Envirotex Lite epoxy, sold in double pint sets in many hobby stores. It comes thinned with solvent and it takes longer to cure than 30 minute epoxies like Devcon Two Ton, which is thicker and designed as an epoxy glue. Etex is a popular, quite durable, very clear - but it usually requires 2 or more coats, depending on the type of bait, and it requires extended rotation times compared to some alternatives like Devcon. I think you'll find that any 5 minute epoxy will turn brown; they use a different type of hardener than slow cure versions. I used it to install hook hangers and lips but stopped after I noticed the browning, which becomes noticeable a few months after application. There are lots of 30 minute epoxies and many of them seem to work pretty well, though you won't get feedback on a particular brand unless someone has used it and can recommend it.

Well don't know if it's optimization or just serendipity, but the site began to render faster as of today. Keep it up! If you're to blame, Jerry, THANK YOU!

Chrome plating is popular on crankbaits but usually only available on factory-built lures; few if any custom lure makers do chrome plating, relying instead on foil. If you want to sell finished lures, offering chrome plated versions would probably be a benefit, as long as the lures are otherwise first class products. If you just want to sell chrome plating, I think there might be less demand. You might find some custom builders who would welcome a cost-effective source to have wood baits chromed instead of foiling them (a rather labor intensive process). JMHO

Take a look a a bunch of commercial segmented swimbaits. Their designs are usually tested extensively before manufacture begins.

Clearcoat applied over a rough surface will usually transmit the roughness underneath unless you use epoxy, in which case there are other issues (weight, yellowing). If the old clear is rough but intact, I'd lightly sand it and wipe the surface with denatured alcohol before recoating it with a urethane. There is USUALLY no problem with incompatibility between old vs new clearcoat because the old has been on the bait long enough that its solvents are long gone. If I have a wood crankbait that catches fish much better than average, I'm very hesitant to do anything to it lest my "improvement" ruin its fish catching ability. It's amazing to me how very small changes can alter performance.

I use Firefox 6.0.2 to access the site. After the recent change, it takes me 40-45 seconds for the site to begin rendering a page after clicking on the URL in my bookmarks (my bookmark goes direct to the Hardbaits forum). Similarly, if I read a post on Hardbaits and click on the shortcut at the bottom of the post to navigate back to the forum, it takes me another 20 seconds for the site to begin rendering the page. I'm using a high speed DSL line and have no problems with other sites popping right up immediately. This problem does not seem to exist when using MS Explorer, but don't a lot of users go with Firefox? How about a little optimization?

When glue a split bait (with 5 min epoxy, not superglue), I take a scrap piece of lip material and fit it into the lip slot so I'm sure 1) it is aligned properly and 2) there is no glue squeezed out into the slot. If glue did get in the slot, running scrap lip material through the slot several times removes it.

I mount them after painting, before the clearcoat. If you have a laser level or pointer, you can shoot it down the tail and belly hangers and it should intersect the lip in the middle. Assuming you installed the hangers on the center line, that should nail it. When I have trouble aligning a lip, it's because the body was not shaped symmetrically. On a non-symmetrical body, the lip slot may be canted to one side although it was straight when cut, or deeper on one side than the other, etc.

I've used the BriteBak silver and gold foil. The silver works great. The gold looked like brass and was less malleable, plus its adhesive was spotty. I think Venture took it off the market b/c of problems. I haven't tried any other colors. I also bought mine at Sunshine Glass.

I use a pair of Wiss tin snips to rough cut both polycarbonate and circuit board lips. The snips work fast to cut a line slightly outside the lip template lines, then finish the lip with a Dremel sanding cylinder and a Dremel felt polishing cylinder to buff the edges of polycarbonate lips. Perhaps a band saw will work just as fast and some guys like to stack sheets of lip stock so they can cut multiple lips with a band saw at one time. I use a less powerful scroll saw to cut my wood bait blanks and it really isn't very good at cutting lip material, so the tin snips are a good compromise that does the job pretty quickly and neatly.

The loudest rattles I've made: drill a hole completely through the bait and cover the holes with round caps cut from the sides of a common pop can and glue them into place with super glue. Pop can aluminum cuts easily with scissors. You can recess the area around the hole slightly to hold the cap at the level of the crankbait's sides or you can just glue them on and sand down the edges of the caps to match the bait's sides. Make sure you don't superglue the rattle ball while gluing on the caps. Glue on one cap, then put in the rattle ball and glue on the other side. The impact of a single ball bearing against the side caps puts lots of vibration into the water. You need to figure out the best place for the rattle in terms of bait balance and action. Don't want the rattle to ruin the action!

Good choice!

I usually freehand it when I want a soft line. You have to turn the air pressure way down (I use around 10 psi) and make sure your paint is thinned down so it will shoot at lower pressure. If you're talking about a soft line like a neon yellow stripe on the crankbait's sides, I cheat. I know the back will be a darker, so I shoot that first, then use it's margin as a guide to shoot the neon yellow immediately under it. If you shoot the yellow at an upward angle toward the back of the lure, there will be no overspray below it and overspray onto the back will be hidden by the darker back color.

If you're painting an old plastic crankbait, prepare the surface by sanding with 400 grit paper if needed, then shoot a coat of white paint on the lure, then your colors, then brush on a coat of epoxy to make the paint job durable. Use the search feature to explore the right kinds of epoxy to use and how it needs to be mixed/brushed/rotated. The white paint covers any old paint pattern so it won't show through the new paint. Airbrushes are simple machines and most brands/models work fine. Some just work better than others for crankbait painting, though, and your choice depends on how much you want to spend. Again, use the search feature to explore your options. There's a wealth of information in earlier posts here on the Hardbaits Forum.

One coat. You want to keep it thin on a suspending jerkbait, and one is fine for bass fishing.

Ronny, use the search feature to see lots of posts about airbrush recommendations. Your exact question has been asked quite often and you'll find a wealth of info.

I got some here: http://www.tracysworkshop.com/p-4342-britebak-silver-tape.aspx but don't know whether they ship internationally. I would check stained glass artist supply houses.

Several guys use Jones Tones and recommend it though I don't know what adhesive they use to apply it. I use BriteBak silver foil tape, which is thin and quick to apply. When all is said and done, it's mostly a matter of how thin your foil is. Thicker foils like duct tape leave a noticeable margin which is hard to hide.

I dip a toothbrush in paint and bend the bristles to shoot it onto the lure.

If you transplant a DT10 lip onto a DT16 I bet you'll end up with essentially another DT10. I don't fish a DD22 much but they are popular for a good reason: They dive to 17-18 ft, catch fish, and are cheap as dirt compared to most other deep cranks. Any caution aside, I'm all for experimenting with lips/bodies/etc as long as you accept that there will almost certainly be losses along the way. Nonetheless, it's a good way to learn what works and what won't. With 500 crankbaits in the garage, I can afford to tinker but am more likely to build a new crankbait that incorporates my crackpot ideas!

I'm with CC on modifying lips - it often sounds like a better idea than it is, so I'd be conservative in doing it. Changing a deep diver into a mid diver is especially hard because you are not changing the position of the line tie, whose position is critical to the action of the bait. I've never had much luck with it but if you are going to experiment, I'd take a battery powered Dremel sander or a pair of tin snips and do it on the water, trimming the lip slowly in stages until you either get the depth/action you want or have ruined the bait beyond repair.

I dip the lip on a crankbait if the lip is scratched or rough. But only with Dick Nite S81, which is one of the few coatings that will take the abuse but has great clarity. BTW, you don't dip lures in epoxy, you mix some up and brush it on the lure. Dick Nite S81 is the thinnest, toughest topcoat I've ever used and is perfect for topcoating jerkbaits, IMO.