BobP

I'm waiting for Wednesday, forecast for cloudy, 57 degrees with a rain front arriving towards evening! Break out the jigging spoons! Of course the weatherman has lied to me more than once

Guys, I've tried several schemes for storing DN and the only thing that has worked for me to keep it from curing in storage is Bloxygen aerosol finish preserver. Maybe guys who brush or spray DN have an easier time of it, but I dip. The Bloxygen is an added expense but gives me peace of mind that I won't end up wasting half my DN.

I've never used Parma so don't know if that's the problem but I use a mix of brands. I'm a little suspicious of what's UNDER the acrylic paint - did you "prime" or undercoat the bait with a solvent based product before shooting the acrylics? I undercoat with epoxy or propionate dissolved in acetone, followed by a basecoat white acrylic and colors. I dip baits in the DN, take them out slowly, then hang them. DN is already pretty thin. I don't think you want to add solvent and do multiple dips. Extra dips are when bad things tend to happen with DN in my experience. I've tried 2nd dips after 24 hrs. They usually result in a few blemishes in the finish.

Don't know until you try it but if it runs as deep as a DD22, it only gets down to a maximum of 17 ft on a very long 100 ft cast with 10 lb copolymer line. Like some other commercial cranks, the DD-22's name is just hyperbole to sell baits. I got the data from "Precision Casting", by Holt and Romanack . It contains reliable depth test data for most domestic crankbaits sold as of its 2000 publication date.

Sure, DN works fine on bills.

I press the flat end of a Dremel cylinder cutting bit into the wood to make eye recesses. Don't usually carve gills but have a set of woodcarving knives if the mood hits. You can also carve with various Dremel (and other brand) high speed steel or tungsten bits. I just can't see giving a power tool to my monkey to play with.

I usually dip to cover the nose of the bait. If you are dipping a repaint with a scuffed lip, dipping the lip too makes it transparent again.

I shoot at 20-40 psi and use all varieties of Createx straight, no thinning. I use templates for details like gills and craw legs but don't like tape because it makes for a very abrupt color change that doesn't look "natural" to me. If your paint splatters, you either have an airbrush problem (unlikely) or you are shooting at too high a pressure with too little control on the trigger. Paint wants to bounce off the side of the lure and settle downward. So when you paint the shoulders, rotate the top of the bait away from you somewhat so the paint bounces over the top of the lure and not down the side of the bait. Fine lines are shot at lower pressure, with fine trigger control and the airbrush held very close to the bait (closer than you think!). If you use the same setup with the brush held farther away, you get fine shading. Because different paint has different viscosity and shoots differently, I always test shoot on a piece of paper just before the crankbait so I know my finger is applying the right trigger control. Airbrushing takes learning a particular hand/eye coordination and experience to get the results you want. Don't be frustrated, you will continually get better!

Pikeman, IMO the strategy behind hitting cover is to get the crankbait to deflect in a different directions, which triggers strikes. That's different from roll or shimmy, which are other good attributes. Guys build crankbaits to best fit the cover scenarios they fish most often. Your sinking crankbait may be just right for the cover scenarios you fish. In my area, laydown trees are the dominant cover so I try to build for that scenario. I think a sinking crankbait would be Snag City if fished through a blown down maple or pine tree. It's cover thick enough that most guys would only fish a worm or maybe a spinnerbait if they were feeling lucky. Bass don't see crankbaits chugging through laydowns very often and that's one reason it's effective. On the other hand, if I were fishing a floating dock, a sinking crankbait would be just the ticket to get under the corners and into the strike zone of bass suspended beneath them. I agree with you about flat sided crankbaits - I will almost always try a flat side first, any time of year, before other options. That includes in heavy wood cover, with a flat sided bait built to aid the way I like to fish that type cover. There's no "wrong" design for crankbaits, just designs that are suited to different styles and places guys throw them.

Don't we all design for how we think it best to fish particular cover? Craig, it sounds like you prefer to carefully "snake" a crank through cover. I prefer to move it as fast as is reasonable, and a light, buoyant crankbait designed to avoid snagging helps do that. I'm not saying close your eyes and reel like hell, or "chunk and wind". Anyone who does that into a laydown tree ain't gonna get their bait back. I'm saying keep it moving as quickly as the cover and your concentration allows, hitting stuff as often as possible. I don't fish that way because I lack the skill to snake a crank. I do it because it produces more bites for me where I fish.

My orders have arrived in reasonable time but there have been occasional delays reported. Some were the result of product supply problems, now apparently resolved, and some might arise from the fact that TU orders are handled as a consideration to TU members outside of DN's normal order process. If a couple of weeks have passed without notification, I'd send Dick an email reminding him of your order. To me, a little patience seems fair in return for the generous discount but orders do occasionally fall through the crack.

Haz, Interesting lip shapes. Thanks! Yep, if you troll it, a bait can get much deeper - often twice as deep. Bass anglers here in the U.S. are forbidden from trolling in tournaments so it's not something that a lot of bass anglers are familiar with. And bass boats are certainly not set up for trolling either. The deep diver with the upturned tip on the lip is a recurring design. The deepest diving commercial bass crankbait here is the Luhr Jensen Hot Lips Express 3/4 oz, which dives to a true 22 ft on 10 lb line with a 75 ft cast. Its lip has an upturned tip, plus a couple of "wings" on the sides. Most other "deep diver" bass cranks dive 16-18 ft max.

Don't just "go to the site". Click on the banner ad you see at the top of a TU page and it takes you to a special page on his site. Read the instructions and you can get some DN at a good discount available only to TU members.

Ben, I understand the only chrome paint that actually looks like chrome costs ridiculous amounts of money (>$100). You ought to try foil! I use Venture Brite-bak adhesive backed tape and it couldn't be easier. lay the lure on the tape, outline it with a pencil, cut it out, peel and stick. I scale texture it after application by rolling a knurled knob from a pair of Vise Grips over the tape. There are lots of ways to foil a bait, this one IMO is the easiest that yields a very good and durable result.

I wrap the joints with rubber bands to immobilize them. BTW, if you use epoxy as a topcoat, it will not last on the bait's sharp edges because it tends to draw away from an edge as it cures.

Epoxy is used most often. It also levels out over the foil margins to make them less visible. I don't like the extra work/time involved so usually just paint directly onto the foil. I have to be careful not to rub off the paint afterward, but the topcoat holds everything down securely.

Hmm - $33. Are batteries included? A company may eventually come up with electronic circuitry that does something positive in a crankbait. Whether this is the one is an open question IMO. As far as the scent goes, I don't see much advantage to having it metered out by a crankbait - if you think scent on a crankbait actually helps (I'm not convinced). Laser red flashing lights? Maybe, in certain limited circumstances. When will I believe? When an independent fishery biologist does valid scientific testing that has a strong positive outcome. Didn't see that in the 10 ad points so I gotta withhold judgement - and my $$$. JMHO

Ben, I don't know the answer for this particular witch's brew of solvent and water based paint but if you sand the chrome, I'm pretty sure you'll get dull silver. I'd be inclined to get a can of candy red duplicolor and mist it over the chrome immediately after spraying it - or do what Vanndalizer said and use foil. I don't like using solvent paints so would go with the foil, but that's just me.

It's awfully easy to thin Devcon with a few drops of lacquer thinner or denatured alcohol. I think someone on the board said they mixed Devcon and Etex and it worked fine. Will your stuff? Maybe... maybe even probably. Only one way to find out. I'd mix the epoxies separately with their hardeners and then combine them.

I'm not a spoon painting expert, just do a batch or two per year. IMO, no, it's not a "must" to sand the metal before painting if you topcoat with DN. I've done spoons with Witch Tape overpainted with acryic airbrush paint (all unsanded) and topcoated with DN. I also do jigging spoons with extremely thick multiple coats of Glow paint, topcoated twice with DN. I've had zero problems with durability. Epoxy IS a problem since it flakes off any sharp edge very easily. On spoons at least, I don't think there's any doubt that DN looks better and lasts longer than epoxy. An added benefit on casting/trolling spoons that don't have wire hook hangers, the DN coating is much thinner and allows you to mount the split rings and treble hook much easier than on a spoon with a thick epoxy coating. Try the DN on spoons and you'll never go back. Dip'em & hang'em - done.

Hey, wait a minute! Maybe I'm missing something but how would you use a linked double syringe if you're drawing resin and hardener separately from 2 bottles of Devcon? I say buy a pair of separate syringes like those sold for rod finish. When I used to wrap rods, they warned against using medical syringes because they may contain silicone that could cause fish eyes in the cured epoxy. Hmm - I wonder about that - does that mean Doc is injecting patients with silicone every time they give a shot? Doesn't seem likely. I use the 9 oz bottle set Devcon and just squeeze the bottles into the mix container at the same time to yield two equal size pools of resin and hardener. So far, no failures. I believe the main problems with Devcon arise from inadequate mixing.