BobP

I brush on acrylic based glitter after I paint and before I clearcoat the bait. It comes very thick from the bottle so I thin it with water and dab it on. The advantage is control: I can put a lot or a little glitter where I want it, and keep it off areas where I don't. You can also use large glitter that would never shoot through an airbrush. It's very cheap stuff carried by every hobby/craft store and it comes in a wide variety of colors. Most guys lay down a white color basecoat as the first step in painting any crankbait so wood grain or the old colors on a repaint won't show through. I use Polytranspar Superhide White - but any heavily pigmented white will do. If your airbrush tip is big enough to shoot thinned "hobby acrylics", Apple Barrel Flat White works well but leaves a rougher surface because its paint grains are not milled as small as in airbrush paints.

Rookie brought up his famous "straw method" with tongue in cheek - or is that straw? Anytime you see him post - take a step back, turn off your bs meter lest the needle get bent as it pegs out, and enjoy the show. If your airbrush spits at low pressure, you'll need to thin the paint or increase the pressure. Take a look at airbrush.com. It has some good recommendations and tutorials.

Fine lines are done at low pressure with the tip of the airbrush close to the work. If you don't mind a sharp line, you can do it with masking tape or a template.

dixieart.com sells a good selection of adapters for various brands of airbrush hoses. The drawback is the shipping charge on orders less than $50 but their adapters are better quality than other places I've tried. I use a Paasche hose on my Iwata airbrushes, with an adapter on the hose end.

A Dremel fiber reinforced cut off disk should be able to cut a neat straight line.

I've tried many methods and the only things that work for me are peeling and sanding. There's nothing out there that will chemically remove paint without damaging the plastic, clouding the lip, and making a giant mess in the meantime. You can also remove paint in a media blast booth but most of us don't have one. Instead of sanding all the finish off, you could fill in the chipped spots with filler or epoxy putty. It depends on the buoyancy of the bait, how much that will be changed, and whether it will affect the action of the bait significantly. One tip - if the crankbaits are wood, DO NOT sand down to raw wood. It is hard to fix a spot like that so it looks acceptable.

I use 1/16" polycarbonate and it never breaks no matter how you abuse it. I don't think CD covers are made from polycarbonate. It's nice to see so many "hybrid" baits being built. Never used to see cranks with lips and props, or lips and soft plastic tails, jigs with lips, etc. Now even the Japanese are coming out with models. Nice looking bait, JBlaze!

Some hardwoods are dense enough that no ballast is needed, depending on the size and configuration of the bait. The treble hooks on the bait act as its ballast. Whether your bait will work without ballast is a question that will be answered the first time you get it wet. Ballast stabilizes the bait as it moves and keeps it upright in the water. If you bait flops on its side or is uncontrollable, you'll need the ballast. I haven't made baits with flat solid tails like yours but I'm sure it will act as a rudder and will mute the wiggle action compared to the same bait without a tail. Good luck with it!

Frank, I work in my garage with good ventilation but I never spray solvent based paints or clearcoats, nor am I willing to start. I'm looking for an alternative to Dick Nite moisture cured polyurethane that would not be so sensitive to ambient air moisture. Something that would have a pot life of weeks or months that you can dip baits into and will harden at room temps in a reasonable amount of time when put on a lure turner or hung to dry, and which will not yellow substantially for a year or two like most epoxies. I think there's something "out there" that meets most of those requirements but have no idea what it is, what brands are available, how much it costs, or what handling/storage it may require. Maybe no such animal exists but like most bait makers, I'm always looking to improve my product and clearcoat is a biggie for most of us.

I couldn't find pertinent results when I Googled Hexalite, except a few noting that it is a thermoplastic. The lips on the baits you cite look translucent white. I use translucent white G-10 Garolite, aka circuit board for some lips. G-10 is fiberglass or other substrate covered with a thermoset polymer. It comes in different colors from black to green to white and different thicknesses down to 1/32 inch. It's durable and waterproof - excellent material for very thin crankbait lips.

My airbrush progress has always come in spurts instead of steady improvement. The spurts happen when I try a new effect or a new piece of equipment and struggle to overcome my limitations. There's a knack to any painting technique that only comes through trial and error. You reach a plateau, stay on it a while, then struggle up to the next plateau. There are some paint effects, like layering thin coats of different colors, or shading from one color to another that are only easy to obtain with an airbrush. I've also found that using stencils has greatly improved my results, and they can be used with any paint technique.

Benton, I cleared the first baits I built a few years ago with Flexcoat Lite and they yellowed badly within a year. Sort of put me off rod epoxies for crankbaits. "Beauty is as beauty does" so if the Flexcoat Hi Build is a new formulation that yellows less than Devcon, it might be a good alternative. What I'd really like to know: What is the best solvent based polyurethane that will crosslink to form a very durable non-yellowing, crystal clear top coat? One that's not super sensitive to moisture contamination like moisture cured poly. One you can use to dip crankbaits in 1 or 2 passes and get a coating as thick as a factory wood bait? Automotive or otherwise. PLEASE tell me! Please!

I have only one rule about heat. Don't clearcoat in a cold garage and take it into a warm house to dry/cure - The air in the bait wants to expand and if there is the tiniest pin hole anywhere in the undercoat, you will get a bubble. Considering the small size of the bubbles I have seen in this scenario, it's JMHO that heating the bait and/or the clearcoat is gilding the lily. I can't believe that a 1/8" dia bubble's worth of air will make a discernable difference in the action of a finished bait. Now Dave, don't assault me with a volumetric air analysis! I was a social science major

A scroll saw cuts more exactly. A bandsaw cuts lots faster. It depends on what wood you're cutting to some extent. If it's hardwood - definitely go with a bandsaw. Either will cut balsa fast enough to keep you happy. You have to be very patient to cut hardwood more than 1/4" thick with a scroll saw. Believe me, I own only a scroll saw and know!

A Paasche VL kit comes with 3 tips, 3 nozzles and 3 needles - F, M and L. There are little engraved bands on the needles and and little letters on the tips to match them up. Make sure you have the small F set in the airbrush and all the parts match. It's easy to get them mixed up! Try a lower psi, say 15-20. If you still have problems, do a thorough cleaning of the airbrush and take a close look to insure the needle isn't bent and the nozzle isn't split.

It looks to me that the ballast is too high in the body but I don't think I'd want it nearer the nose. If anything, I'd move it rearward, just in front of the neutral balance point of the lure with trebles attached.

If it's something I use a lot, like bone, I'll mix up a 2 or 4 oz bottle of it, but I still do it by eye. Createx is pretty consistent in content but I use other brands which aren't. A formula for mixing such paint is a waste of time.

I brush acrylic latex glitter (thinned with a little water) on after painting. If you use small enough glitter, putting it in the clearcoat shouldn't matter much but I just prefer to brush it on because I can control where and how much goes on the lure.

I shake the bottles, shoot colors into a shot glass and stir with a plastic swizzle stick. High Tech!

Createx Neon Yellow has no green undertones. Createx also used to make a chartreuse wit some greenish undertones (one of the ugliest colors ever formulated, IMO!). If you want to make "greentreuse" all you need is a couple of drops of green in Neon Yellow. Createx also makes a bright neon/fluorescent red. Add a few drops of orange to get the shade. Bone is a mix of mostly white with some yellow and a touch of brown and gray mixed in. That's as close as I get to "formulas". Hope it helps

I agree with Birdman. There's not enough difference between Createx pearl white and pearl silver for an effective contrast. I would try a medium or neutral gray vs the pearl silver.

If you fill the air space with something heavier than air, it will only sink faster. I think you'll have to look elsewhere. Either try smaller trebles and split rings or possibly strip the finish and go for a thinner, lighter finish. Alternatively, you can possibly drill a hole in the bait and remove some of the ballast if you can remember where the ballast chambers are.

Re "waterproof" - Baits aren't constantly immersed in water, they just swim occasionally:). Very few coatings are designed to be constantly immersed. I take Sherwin Williams' point but I'm not sure they understand the environment that crankbaits live in. I'd really like to hear about long term results of water based coatings from Husky and anyone who's tried it on a number of baits fished over a season.

The paint leaving the tip of the brush forms a cone. The closer the tip of the airbrush is to the surface, the more paint hits a given spot in a given amount of time. You'll You almost always want the brush to be moving. BW has a good point about starting spray before the brush is pointed at the bait. Most "paint spits" happen when the trigger is first pressed. You'll get the hang of it with a little experience. You can always add more paint with another pass of the brush but you can't take it off once it's been sprayed (unless you wash it all off and start from scratch). So go slow and use light coats.

If you want to catch keeper size bass I think there are too many variables to just say "I want to catch big bass so I'll only fish big baits". Big baits do appeal to big bass if they are near the "1/3 length ideal prey size" of big hungry bass, plus they are more likely to be seen by the fish. But lots of factors enter into the equation. A big one is the size of prey that is available and being targeted at the moment. If bass are eating 2" threadfin shad and you throw a 4" crankbait, all bass may ignore it and keep gorging on 2" shad. A recent Berkeley article suggested that the best strategy if you aren't getting bites is to first try upsizing your bait. If that doesn't work relatively quickly, then try downsizing. The main point being that downsizing isn't always the correct strategy. But upsizing isn't either. Don't you wish that bass were as simple as we'd all like them to be? No such luck.