BobP

Nope, there isn't because there are too many dependencies in how it's built. The only thing I can generalize depth from is comparing a bait to a very similar crankbait for which I know the depth profile. Then I know what I have to do to make it run deeper or shallower. But you still have to test, test, test. BTW, don't extrapolate from a commercial crankbait with an "advertised depth". They are notoriously misleading. And how the crankbait is fished makes as much difference as anything else: line size used, type of line, how the rod is held, or how far behind the boat a crank is trolled.

Well, there ya go! Info from the guy who knows! I've used DN S81 for a couple of years and really like the end result. Never tried airbrushing it but am glad that's an option if I want to coat segmented lures that I can't dip.

Musky lure builders make lots of subsurface jerkbaits and gliders. Perusing the building plans on http://www.lurebuilding.nl/indexeng.html it seems to me that where the bait is ballasted has the most effect on a glider's action. Many of them use tail ballast to induce the correct subsurface walking action. Every little thing you do to a bait affects its performance but I know nothing about external keels.

As I understand it (and I'm no expert), solvent resistant packing has become pretty standard in airbrushes. When they say "resistant" that doesn't mean "proof" of course, but I don't hesitate to shoot lacquer thinner or acetone to clean my brush and so far, no problems in several years. Water, soapy or otherwise, is just not going to remove all the dried deposits in an airbrush. Soaking for hours in an airbrush cleaning solution does the trick but is not something I want to do after every session (I do it several times a year). The instructions for Future say to remove it with ammonia and Armstrong cleaner in water. But running a cleaner containing ammonia through your airbrush will gradually strip the chrome plating out of the airbrush and is a no-no according to Iwata factory reps. I haven't found the perfect way to remove traces of Future from my Iwata's barrel and packing. Sometime I have a stuck needle problem, sometimes not. Wiping the needle with a little machine oil before storage seems to help.

Sam, bubbles in the cup always indicate a clog in the tip, in my experience. The correct product is labeled: Pledge Floor Care, Tile & Vinyl Floor Finish with Future shine. It used to be labeled simply Future. It's not a cleaner containing soap but an acrylic finish.

I don't think you need to switch paint. Regular acrylic airbrush paint should be fine. Auto clears contain toxic isocyanates and organic solvents and you need a mask rated for that to protect you. I've seen some in the $35 range and wearing one while shooting is the minimum I would consider. Other protection depends on how much and how often you shoot the stuff but for coating lures, it's not like you were shooting quarts of the stuff at one time on an auto body in a closed paint booth. Many guys who use it regularly shoot inside a table-top paint booth with forced air filters. I don't shoot it but if I did, I'd be looking for a "high solids" clearcoat and separate hardener. They are usually sold in sets with enough hardener to match the mix ratio of the clearcoat - typically 2:1 or 4:1 mix ratio. If your aim is a thin but very durable "factory look" clearcoat, I'd still give serious consideration to Dick Nite S81 topcoat. It has strict storage requirements but is a breeze to use if you want to dip lures in it. Dip it, hang it, done. Can't get much faster or easier than that for a great topcoat. Just read up on the storage and application requirements before you buy it.

I think the only durable thin clear that is usually sprayed is auto clearcoat and it usually requires an airbrush with a larger tip than used for painting. Cleanup is the same for any solvent based clear but you need protection against organic solvent inhalation while spraying auto clears. If a thinner but still durable clearcoat is your aim, I'd also consider dipping lures in Dick Nite S81 moisture cured urethane. Can't get much faster than that!

I fish out of a bass boat with a Humminbird 987C sonar with mapping and sidescan capability. It's an expensive sonar but worth it to me because you gotta FIND fish before you can CATCH fish - and the 987 does that very well. I think of using sonar as two different strategies. The first strategy: If you are cruising in 20 ft of water or less, you need to be looking for cover and bottom structure that should hold fish. You may see baitfish and you may see a thermocline in fresh water lakes. Baitfish and bass will typically be holding at or just above the thermocline, so it's good to note that depth. Continue towards shore until the bottom and that depth coincide. Find cover there and it's very likely you will also find bass. You may or may not see large fish like bass because your boat running over them often makes them shy away. But cover and scattered baitfish at the same depth = bass. In fresh or salt water, bass most often have a preference for hard bottom areas and you can find those with your sonar too if you pay attention. If all else fails - read the instructions! They will tell you how to differentiate soft and hard bottoms. The sidescan sonar is a recent enhancement first incorporated by Humminbird, and now also by Lowrance. Few if any pro tournament fishermen will practice nowadays without one of these in their boat. Before Lowrance came out with their own sidescan units, it was funny to look at pro boats with Lowrance sponsorships and see the humongous Humminbird sidescan transducers bracketed to their transoms. They pulled away from the dock, pulled the H'bird unit out of a compartment and used it during practice. Thank goodness those poor guys can now buy a Lowrance sidescan unit! Sidescan is a very nice capability. You can idle down the center of a creek and see all the cover and structure, out to a couple of hundred feet to the left and right of the boat. You can look under docks and other shore features. You can also mark waypoints on all that cover and return to fish it later. All without running over the fish and spooking them away. Pretty neat stuff! The second strategy for sonar is based on the dictum: find the bait and find the bass. Baitfish often live in schools for protection and with a little experience, you can take a look at shad school (they look like a cloud in the water) and tell whether it is being attacked by predators. This is like fishing for surface feeding fish but it can happen at depth and you would never find the situation without sonar. I regularly spoon jig for bass in a freshwater lake where they attack schools of shad in water as deep as 55 ft. Without sonar, I would never locate the activity and would be missing a prime opportunity for easy fish catching! I can't say that saltwater species display all the same habits of freshwater bass but it's a good bet that most species that feed on smaller species do just the same. Find cover. Find baitfish. Catch fish.

I don't see heat lamps drying acrylic paint as fast as a hair dryer, which applies heat but also moves air over the surface. When I started out, I had a tendency to shoot too much color on lures and that prolonged the time it took to dry it and also resulted in pushing wet paint around on the lure - always a bad thing. I eventually learned to start with a good white color basecoat and shoot less color to get the effects I wanted. It only takes 10-15 seconds to dry a color shot with a hair dryer. And shortening the time between paint shots is the only reason I use a hair dryer - I don't heat set or heat cure acrylic paint for prolonged times as some guys do. I just dry it so I can get on to the next color asap. It's a judgement call but as long as the topcoat remains intact, I just don't have problems with "un-cured" acrylic paint.

I think it depends on the clearcoat. When I mark epoxy coated lures with a Sharpie, I have trouble getting it off because the dye soaks into the epoxy. Also, Sharpie is a solvent based marker. If you put it on a lure and cover it with a clearcoat containing a solvent (a urethane or an epoxy modified with solvent like Etex), it will run. If you apply detail with acrylic paint, you can topcoat the lure with any topcoat. Or you can use a Sharpie and topcoat it with an epoxy like Devcon Two Ton, which contains no solvent. Or you can just finish the lure and use the Sharpie over the dried/cured clearcoat, knowing it will eventually fade.

BTW, I certainly didn't mean my comments to impugn what Dave said about epoxy topcoats! I always find his evaluation well thought out and interesting. I'm glad someone can do that, because it sure isn't me! But I assume we're not talking about epoxy in this instance because I don't know anyone who would try to spray it.

As far as how much topcoat gets on a lure, you can over-do it by spraying just as easily as by brushing. The only possibly valid point I can see is that brushing will tend to distribute a clearcoat differently than spraying it - leaving more clearcoat in the direction in which you brush it (usually toward the tail). But we're talking very very small differences in weight distribution here, so I think the effect is more theoretical than practical. It's true that ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you do to a lure, however minor, will have some effect on its performance. But we all have to put some kind of topcoat on a crankbait so that's a moot point. I usually work toward a final weight target when building lures, and figure the paint and topcoat at about .02 - .03 oz on an average size bass lure. Say we shift .005 oz toward the tail of the bait due to brushing the topcoat. Is that significant? It's not insignificant but saying that it will ruin the action of the bait is a gross exaggeration. It might even improve it!

Are you referring to soft plastics or plastic hardbaits? I bought acrylic glow paint here: http://www.glonation.com/unpigmented-glow-paint.html and brushed it onto jigging spoons which I then topcoated with Dick Nite S81 urethane. The paint is a thick gel-like acrylic with very large glow grains in it - too large to shoot with any airbrush. As I understand it, the choice is between paints with large grains that glow brighter and longer versus paint with small grains that won't glow as bright or long. I put it on in thick multiple coats and it really glows brightly - wakes those fish right up 50 ft deep. I don't think it's ideal for a crankbait because it has a grainy surface texture, though I have coated a couple of lipless cranks with it and they work fine. I've also seen glow in the dark adhesive tape that you might consider, sold on Amazon.com

Looks like it's a "Silicone Alkyd Epoxy-Ester Copolymer Coating"..... whatever the heck THAT is! Sounds promising if it is designed for full submersion on boat hulls. I haven't bought a qt of DN lately but the last I paid was $41.93. Did you use the TU discount page when you bought yours? Sounds like you paid the full retail price.

There are few if any airbrush paints with similar reflectivity at any reasonable price so I'd be thinking about foil if you want flashy sides. I use Brite-bak silver foil because it has good flash, can be textured to look like scales, is strong but thin, and is easy to use with its adhesive backing. It is manufactured for stained glass artists.

My favorite 'scale roller' for bass baits is the little knurled screw bolt on a pair of standard Vise Grips. There are only a few lines of knurling around the bolt but it gives a nice pattern on small bass baits and only takes a couple of minutes to do. You just have to try different knurled handles until you find the one you like the best.

When I first started using paint doctored with Future in my Iwata HP, it dried in the barrel (especially around the packing) after I'd rinsed out the brush and stored it. The next time I used it, bingo - the needle would not move and only needle nose pliers would get the needle out. So it's worth paying extra attention to cleaning the barrel section of your a/b if you use Future.

I would brush it on with a soft brush, then hang it up by the lip. Any extra finish will drip off the tail. If you let DN pool anywhere on a bait, it can cause the paint to bubble and peel, so getting rid of any excess finish is important. If you pour it on a bait, you are exposing the DN to atmospheric moisture, which will cause it to begin curing in the storage container.

If you are looking for a white basecoat that covers well, I can recommend Polytranspar Super Hide White airbrush paint. It has lots of pigment to hide wood grain, etc, and it dries very quickly to a hard gloss surface. I spray mine in 2 thin coats and it does the job. Dipping would probably do it in one shot. Most airbrush paint companies have a white paint with lots of pigment intended for color basecoating. It may be called Super Hide, Cover White, or whatever.

Yes, but you also shorten the brush time when you heat it - both from the heat and the seconds you delay in getting it on the lure. Epoxy's curing process is exothermic. You can't tell that from a few ML's of D2T sitting in a jar lid but if you mix up a big batch, you would feel the heat it generates. More heat = faster cure. For me, just mixing in a few drops of denatured alcohol is enough to get the bubbles out. Plus, using a fine bristle artist brush pops 99% of the bubbles as you smooth it on the lure. Everyone develops his own prep and application process for epoxy and there isn't a wrong way as long as the final results are satisfactory and reliable.

Like Mark, it sort of depends on how your lure turner is designed. I don't do big musky or swimbaits, so I hold the baits by the lip with locking forceps while I epoxy them. My turner uses alligator clips to hold the baits, so it's simple to clip them on there. I put a piece of painter's tape over the lips so they won't be damaged by the forceps or the alligator clips. Works for me but it isn't ideal for baits without lips, or baits with multiple body segments. For those, I have to jury-rig ways to hold them on the turner.

Yes, Janns Netcraft carries unfinished wood and plastic crankbaits, plus various lips. When you buy balsa bodies from any source, they are usually roto-shaped and coated with some sanding sealer. You'll need to sand them smooth, add a durable undercoating, and cut the lip slot before painting them. Cutting a straight lip slot is not hard on a flat sided bait but it can be a challenge on a fat rounded body.

I use cheap artist brushes and re-use them indefinitely, cleaning them in lacquer thinner or acetone. Once epoxy cures, soap is certainly not going to remove it. I don't know what effect, if any, soap residue would have on a coat of epoxy.

Dan - I've never seen any reports here on TU about guys having an allergic reaction to an epoxy resin or hardener (there are several different hardeners) but the MSDS literature usually mentions the possibility, so if you are concerned I would check out the MSDS sheet on a particular product. In my experience, there are minimal if any fumes when epoxies are mixed up in the small batches that bait makers use. If you were spreading a gallon of epoxy to fiberglass a boat in a closed area, it might be different. Archeryrob - I don't care for the idea of applying epoxy with a toothpick. Too slow and it may leave areas where the epoxy is not uniformly in contact with the surface, which can result in fisheyes and voids. Try smoothing it on with a cheap artist's brush 1/4" wide. You'll get more reliable results, faster. Clean the brush in lacquer thinner or acetone afterwards and you can re-use it hundreds of times.

I use water based wood filler or spackling. Exterior wood filler on hardwood baits and interior/exterior spackling on balsa baits. Both dry quickly and are easy to sand. I don't want a filler that is harder than the wood around it because it's hard to sand smooth without damaging the softer wood around it. I undercoat baits with epoxy afterwards so whether it is waterproof or not is not an issue. I install integrated belly hangers/ballast weights with epoxy putty, which you can smooth out for a neat appearance in the couple of minutes you have before the putty gets hard.