BobP

With a moisture filter, a pressure regulator and fittings, think you'll be set with a small tool compressor. Good airbrush compressors start at around $150, so you might as well use what you have. The only reservation is if you paint inside the house where a tool compressor would be too noisy. However most of the airbrush compressors are far from quiet.

If I built for sale and had a catalog of paint schemes, it would behoove me to develop very specific paint recipes. I don't and I haven't, and most hobby builders on TU haven't either. If you follow the "normal rules" of painting from the bottom up and layering darker paint over lighter, you'll usually be on the right track. I guess there are 2 schools of thought about paint - the doofuses and the "engineers". Some guys just wanna hit it with paint and see what happens. Some want to perfect it via wavelength analysis and use numerically controlled robotic airbrushes to produce colors "within tolerance". Most of us fall somewhere in between. There, I've taken my annual shot at engineers before the New Year! Doctor, I feel so much better! Merry Christmas, guys.

Heavy spinnerbaits: FLW mag this month has a short article on them. Here are some: 2.5 oz Blade Runner Guppy - bladerunnertackle.com $7.35 1 oz Booyah Double Willow - booyahbaits.com $5.74 1.5 oz StrikeZone Ledgebuster - no site $7.19 1 oz Stanley Big Shot - fishstanley.com price TBA 1 oz Cumberland Pro - cumberlandpro.com $5.49 I've thrown 1 and a 1.5 oz SB's, not sure I'd want to be heaving 2.5 oz very long. The Cumberland Pro gets the nod as the best quality for the price. I'm sure there are others, and you can roll your own with components from staminainc.com. There are probably other sources if you look at musky lure sites.

I do alot of flat sided baits and favor them over fat baits most of the year. Most of mine in the gallery are flat. My avatar is a flat sided bait with the edges rounded off. Flat sides and a somewhat narrow lip with the line tie a bit closer to the nose than average will usually give you a tight vibration. Think of commercial baits that have those attributes, like the Rapala Shadrap

I wasn't trying to jerk anyone around, I just don't use "formulas". From your list, firetiger's the only one that I know is a fairly standard pattern using straight non-mixed paints. Spray a white basecoat. Spray the sides and belly chartreuse, then spray the shoulders and about 1/3 down the sides bright green. Spray an orange stripe along the belly. Make a cutout template for the black splotches and spray black splotches over the green and chartreuse sides. Finish with black over the back. Red eyes are traditional, I use 3D stick on eyes set in drilled recesses. A dark brown can be substituted for the black for "Brown Tiger". For Gold Shiner, I foil the bait with heat duct tape, then shoot transparent yellow over the foil to get a nice gold tone effect. Medium brown shoulders and head shading and it's done.

Some guys have proprietary schemes developed after many hours of trial and error. Everyone experiments to some extent. I try to keep a basic array of white, chartreuse, greens, blues and browns on hand, plus some pearls. For intermediate hues, I mix as needed. Any "formulas" I've seen pertain to specific brands and colors, of which there are thousands. It's a long shot that I'd have the brands/colors on hand that another guy uses anyway. In the end, you'll only be happy with your unique interpretation of a color scheme. My advice is get a basic array of colors and then check out some of the companies that sell "wildlife colors" for taxidermists if you want pre-mixed natural fish hues. Many of the "classic" patterns have nothing to do with "natural". The only real arbiter of color is the fish who's eyeing your bait. All else is vanity.

Yes, you can connect to any 12V boat power, no worry. I have an Aqua View and can buy an accessory cable with clips for hooking it up to the boat but use the 7ah battery since it fits in my camera's base and can run several hours. 12VDC 70 amps is a measure of the battery's charge capacity and tells you how long it will run and how long it will take to recharge. If your 70ah battery is 50% discharged, it will take a 10 amp charger 3 1/2 hours to replace those 35 amp hours. Your camera probably has a 1-3 amp fuse in it's display head. They don't use much power. Hope you enjoy it. Most times, I find it takes 2 guys to use it - one to control the boat and one to control the line and camera, unless you're viewing while at anchor. It's interesting to use. With the camera and my Humminbird sidescan sonar, I can easily fiddle with them all day and never do any serious fishing

Luhr Jensen Hot Lips Express 3/4 oz = 19.5 ft on 70 ft cast with 10 lb line, 22 ft if you can cast 100 ft. 20.5 ft on a 70 ft cast with 8 lb line, 23 ft if you can cast 100 ft. It's the deepest stock crankbait in Precision Casting. I like 10 lb Izor Line XXX. I'd also try Power Pro 15 lb or Fireline 14 lb - both are about 6 lb diameter, will get down a couple of extra ft and add sensitivity. 10 lb fluorocarbon also has very thin diameter and better sensitivity.

Yes there is. Go to the top of this page, hit "search" and type in duplicator. You'll get a number of threads on the subject and input from several builders who use them.

http://www.walleyecentral.com/romanack.shtml Here's the website for Mark Romanack's book "Precision Casting". The data is getting old now since publication in 2000 but it's very interesting. I emailed to find out if there would be an update edition and he said "doubtful" but they might try adding dive tables for newer crankbaits to the website. Guess they sell alot more copies of Precision Trolling. Anyway, a couple of valuable data sets: First, how fast you reel doesn't change how deep it goes. If anything, there's a slight tendency for crankbaits to swim deeper on a slow steady retrieve than any other. Second, deep divers run alot shallower than most guys think and they get to their max depth alot closer to the boat, for a much shorter time than most think they do. A Mann's +30 runs 19 ft deep on a fairly long 70 ft cast on 10 lb mono. You can cast 100 ft and you use 8 lb line? OK, now it's 22.5 ft max. And those max depths only happen from 30 ft to 12 ft away from the boat. The +30 is not an aberration. All tested deep divers had very similar dive curve shapes. If you want deeper, the best thing I know to do is use a long rod, a slick casting reel and 4-6 lb diameter (10-14 lb test) superline. Adding an inline weight in front of the bait can also work, as can using a crankbait on a Carolina rig. Whatever you do, it takes time and experimentation on the water to get it dialed in and most guys won't put in the effort. Most times, I'll just go to a spoon or heavy jig

Storing Dick Nite Lurecoat. I decant a quart of DN into glass salsa bottles with the narrowed neck and flared top. Dick Nite says wine bottles work great if you spray or brush DN but I like to dip bass baits and 16 oz salsa bottles are just right for that. Tall enough for jerkbaits and just wide enough for other baits. Fill the salsa bottle to the neck where it gets smallest, about 2" diameter. Hold the bait with locking forceps while you dip. Screw the top on tight afterwards and cover it with tin foil. The idea is to minimize the surface area of the polyurethane exposed to air in the bottle. Thick & Chunky Medium Hot is my favorite

It's an old truism but in crankbaits, everything affects everything else. If you're looking for a tight fast wobble, flat sides promote that. But the effect is in proportion to the total side area of the bait. The tail, being a small part of the area, will affect it less than the rest of the body. Besides, you do want the crankbait to look like a fish.

JMHO but stories about shaving the lip on a 24 ft diver to get it to go to 30 ft don't ring true. An extra 6" to 12" I'll believe. An extra 6 ft just from shaving the lip? No way.

Some here on TU shoot DN, others brush, others dip. I dip and think it's perfect for that since it is very thin. I dip a bait and take care not to drip DN back into the container (it will start the whole container curing). I dip just past the start of the lip. It's unobtrusive so no problem, IMO. Hold it over a newspaper until the rapid drips stop then put it on a drying wheel for about an hour until the solvent evaporates. I let mine dry for 24 hrs, then dip a second time for a thicker coating. It takes several days for DN to get really hard - DN says about a week. If thrown before that, it will develop hook rash more easily. When fully cured, it's very hard, slick and clear. I don't see any gotchas with shooting it, just don't pour any unused DN back in the storage container. Great Avatar! Paint: whatever looks real to you is the deal.

Balsa suppliers sell soft balsa thinking that's what most hobbiests want for RC planes, etc. But if you ask, they may be able to provide "hard balsa" that will be more dense but also more durable. Whatever you get, do everything you can to toughen it up including generous undercoating and through wire construction to reinforce the wood.

Dean, I haven't brushed DN. I tried that with Famowood Dura Tuff and it was not a good experience. The DT was thicker and flashed faster than DN and it was very hard to get around the lure before the first edge had already tacked up. Big mess. DN is more forgiving and thinner so should work OK, obviously it does for you - but frankly I'm enjoying dipping for a change.

Water based acrylic latex airbrush paint is the easiest to start with and probably to stick with because it's nontoxic and easy to clean up. Createx is popular and widely available but any of the brands work well. Most base their choice on the colors available. The color palette from taxidermy companies is more tailored to animals including fish, if that's your interest. Createx has a more generalized palette with fewer natural shades, but still has many useful colors for lure painting. Like most guys, I pick and choose from various sources. and/or mix colors to get intermediate hues.

Topcoat and then paint again? Por Que, hombre? Some things I just don't enjoy - taping lips is one and I don't want to do it more than once per bait. I shoot all the colors, remove the tape and dip mine.

I put the lips in after I paint so I don't have to tape them. Use some scrap circuitboard or Lexan to make a "false lip" to have something to hold onto with hemostats while painting, and stop undercoating and paint from getting in the lip slot. Drill a hole in the false lip to hang the bait up during painting.