BobP

Some use screw eyes (chromed brass or stainless steel), others use hand wound stainless screw eyes. I go the hand wound route. You can buy screw eyes from Jann's Netcraft, Stamina, and other suppliers.

Barbless - I occasionally fish in Canada when barbless trebles are required and have no problem at all with fish jumping off. Rather than cutting off the barbs, it's easier/faster to crimp them down with pliers. I also crimp down the barb on EWG worm hooks when I'm deadsticking Senkos or Super Flukes because the fish tend to swallow them before you can set the hook.

Sounds like a clogged nozzle. Remove the needle and shoot some cleaner through it. If that doesn't fix it, take off the nozzle and use the needle to GENTLY probe the nozzle to push out any paint clog.

I'd order the hose when you order the brush so you can be sure it fits. You may (probably) need some hose adapters just depending on the fittings on your compressor and air hose. You also need a moisture trap and a pressure regulator on your compressor, depending on the compressor you use. A tool compressor is fine but outputs too much pressure for an airbrush. A regulator allows you to dial down the pressure. Backwashing - put some water or Windex in the brush and squeeze the trigger to begin clearing out the paint. With the airbrush full of cleaner, press your finger over the tip and shoot, forcing any paint left in the mix chamber back out through the cup. It cleans out the chamber better than just running cleaner through the brush. Note - if you have a notched tip like in the pic, backwashing may not be an option unless you remove the nozzle and needle first.

Depends on the trebles. With standard trebles, I make the tail hanger horizontal so I can mount the tail treble with 2 hook points up and one down (more or less) for better hookups. Rapala In-Line trebles are left/right symetrical when mounted on a vertical tail hanger or a belly hanger (thus reducing/eliminating hook rash). If you want exact L/R symetry with a standard hook on the tail hanger, you need to test mount the hook and rotate the hanger until you get it symetrical, which is neither horizontal or vertical. JMHO, since the treble streams behind the bait creating drag when in motion, the left/right balance is more important to the bait's action than whether the treble is carried a couple of mm up or down. It's usually not a giant consideration, but every little bit counts sometime.

Mark, a Dremel is alot handier than a big, slow drill and it's easier to keep it on target at 20,000 rpm. I use a piece of ss straight wire shaft and snip off the very end occasionally to keep it sharp. It works great for removing finish from the line ties and wire joints. Other guys use a small drill bits. I use a Dremel for just about everything after cutting out the blank so it's just natural for this too.

Go ahead Fatfingers! Do tell! We haven't had a good donnybrook about clearcoats for months now Viewing the heavy duty but pristine clearcoats on your musky baits, I have to bow to whatever your opinion is on the subject. But I still use D2T (one coat only) on bass baits and it holds up well in that particular application without undue yellowing. It's not my FAVORITE clearcoat but it's easy to use, readily available, and fairly dependable. Maybe it's a case of "The Devil You Know".

That sounds unusual. Are you sure you grabbed the D2T and not 5 min epoxy? Since you know there's a good coat of D2T under the bad stuff, I'd sand the bad layer off with 220 grit paper, making sure you don't sand all the way down to the paint. Epoxy sands pretty easily when fully hard. When smooth, wipe it down with denatured alcohol and apply a new coat of D2T. It will fill in all the sandpaper scratches and the coating will be clear.

I don't worry about getting epoxy in interlocked screw eye hinges (different story if they are solid hinged joints of course). I can reach into the joint with a SS wire chucked in a Dremel tool and drill it out. In fact, I get epoxy in the screw eyes on purpose so the bait will hold straight while clearcoating it. Side benefit - confidence that the hinge screws have 100% epoxy coverage and there will be no leaks.

I haven't run across an acrylic airbrush glow paint but have seen a few inexpensive glow "hobby paints". The one I tried clumped up on the lure after shooting it, so was useless. I'd be thinking about using vinyl or lacquer glow paint with the correct thinner. Of course, you'll need protection against solvent vapors and will need to clean your brush with solvent afterwards.

The most direct method I know to get a suspending wooden bait is a float test. Completely finish the bait but without any ballast. Attach the treble hooks. Float the bait in water that is the same temp you will fish in. Hang lead on the trebles until you get a slow rise, then use the lead for the ballast and patch the holes. If you fish it in water that's warmer than the test water, it will sink. In water colder, it will rise. It's best to build for a very slow rise which can be corrected by adding some Suspend Strips or lead wire on the trebles. The next bait you build in the same pattern will be close if you use the same batch of wood and the same build details.

I see Sears has a Father's Day special on a compressor with a 2 gal tank for $99.

Lexan is the GE name brand for polycarbonate. You can order 1'x1' sheets of various thicknesses from mcmaster.com. They also carry G-10 and G-11 circuit board and almost any kind of wire you can think of. Decent prices, fast shipping and good service in my experience.

Go to Walmart or Dick's Sporting Goods and look through the $2 bin to find name brand crankbaits in unpopular colors. A light sanding to remove the gloss on the clearcoat and you're ready to paint a crankbait that your friends will have more confidence in than some of the "no name" blanks. I'm not putting down unpainted plastic blanks from Stamina, Janns Netcraft, etc. Some of them are undoubtedly good crankbaits. But you won't know which until you buy them, finish them and fish them. I started out with some pug ugly $2 Poes crankbaits from Walmart and am still fishing (and catching) with some of them. I know some TU members use and like the generic brand unpainted plastic crankbaits. Beauty is as beauty does. If they catch fish, that's the acid test. But if I can find a popular crankbait being sold for a price similar to the "no names", it just makes more sense to use them.

The easiest blanks to start out on are flat sided hardwood blanks, IMO. Easier to cut the lip slot straight, easy to mount hardware into, takes sanding and finish well. The performance still depends on you - especially the lip you choose to use, how it's mounted, and whether you mount it and the rest of the hardware straight.

Great looking baits are nice. Great looking baits that don't catch fish are worse than useless. They waste your time and dollars when you oughta be catching fish! Realistically, do you expect a Chinese LC knockoff to run straight out of the box and have the same quality control and action as an original? I'm disappointed with 75% of the knockoffs I've tried over the years. If I have to go through 4 knockoffs to get a crankbait that's competitive with an original, where's the saving? Am I catching any fish? OK, I spent 2 hrs painting each of the knockoffs in an eye popping pattern. But - AM I CATCHING ANY FISH? Nothing else matters. With gas at $4+ per gallon and $50k+ bassboats, $15 for the LC begins to look not so expensive. Bottom line: If you can't do it better, don't do it.

Externally they resemble some of the LC baits....but they are not the same.

I think PVC deteriorates in UV light. Since there are great alternatives that really don't cost much (polycarbonate or circuit board) I'd stick with them. Cutting out, re-slotting, regluing a cracked lip and repainting a lure is about as much trouble as building one from scratch in my experience.

Rookie, we know you! You probably squirt the paint in your mouth before you insert the straw:) I flick it on with an old toothbrush. You can also do "stippling" with an Iwata by removing the tip and venturi and using just the nozzle and needle to shoot paint.

I received an Iwata Revolution BR today and have been shooting (airbrush only) paint with it. Nice brush, the overall quality is every bit as good as my Iwata HP-B+. The only feature missing is the trigger stop control, which I never used anyway. Otherwise, the needle, nozzle, etc are identical in design to the HP but the tip is .3 mm instead of .2mm. That means shooting significantly more paint volume than the HP but it is quite controllable. IMO, it's a good deal for the modest $69 price. Mark, when I shoot Apple Barrel after using airbrush paint for awhile, the dried paint surface looks much rougher. Maybe I'm getting to be an airbrush snob, but I like the smooth look you get with airbrush paint and it seems easier to get smooth color transitions with it too. The only thing I don't like is the higher price!

I got a reconditioned scroll saw on Ebay for about $100 including shipping. A small band saw would be similar and it will cut hardwood faster. As far as patterns go, I suggest tracing the outline of a commercial bait you like and using that as a start. Flat sided cranks are easier because they require less shaping. As you gain more experience you can modify the template or try some original patterns. You can also buy ready-to-finish blanks from Jann's Netcraft, Stamina, and other online sources if you'd prefer. But if you don't want to be limited by the blanks sold online, you might as well get started shaping wood. It takes doing it to develop the skills and routines you'll need to get crankbaits like you want. I still enjoy building them, a number of years and a few hundred crankbaits later, and I'm still learning. Good luck and have fun with it.

I use a scroll saw, which offers more control than a hand held jigsaw. A band saw is even faster and just as accurate. I keep a library of body and lip templates and trace around the selected shape, then cut it out with a standard 1/4" scroll saw blade. It's important to plan out how you're going to shape the body just after you cut out the blank, when everything is still "square". My templates have the lip slot cutout so the first thing I do is cut that, also so it will be square to the blank. After that, I scribe a center line around the bait so I know where to mount all the hardware, then I measure and draw lines for tapering the head and tail, which I do with a disc sander. Lastly, I scribe lines on the top, bottom and sides to indicate the limits I want to stick to when I round over the edges. All this measuring, scribing and line drawing is a pain BUT you need to have a system to control how much and where you're going to remove wood from the blank in order to end up with a symetrical crankbait. I use only a few power tools: a scroll saw, a disc sander, and a Dremel tool. Others have more equipment that allows them to make a finished body in much less time than it takes me. But taking the time is just part of the process if you're building them as a hobby. I cut lips out with tin snips, then use a Dremel sanding drum to shape them down to the exact template line - easier, faster and more exact than trying to cut them on my scroll saw. You can do a decent job with less exacting tools but always remember to plan and mark out everything on the lure blank so you'll end up with a straight crankbait that will run right.

I used hobby paints because of their low cost and wider palette of colors vs airbrush paints. I'll mix a few airbrush colors to get a shade but am not a fan of intricate color formulas. I really prefer to just "squirt it in and shoot it" I've switched 95% to airbrush paint but there are still a few hobby colors that I'll break out the Badger 170 to shoot.