BobP

Yes, use acetone! Companies put various solvents in a can and call it lacquer thinner. The present mix of the popular brand Klean Strip is mostly denatured alcohol which is lousy for disolving plastic or propionate. Acetone works like a charm and dries faster too.

I actually like to get epoxy on the hook hangers since it guarantees no leakage into the bait. When the finish cures, zip it out with a piece of .040" ss wire (like from an old buzz bait) or a small drill bit chucked into a Dremel tool. It's fast and does a neat job, plus no worries about pulling epoxy off of the lure body or cutting yourself with an Xacto knife.

You can cure an still soft coating of epoxy by coating it with a second coat that has been properly mixed. The lower coat has to be in contact with the new epoxy, so it won't work if there is an intervening layer of acrylic latex.

asp-rocketry.com sells .031" G-10 circuit board that is a mostly white, slightly greenish color. mcmaster.com has G-10 that is yellow and G-11 that is yellowish-green. The rocketry site is the only place I've found that sells small batches or single sheets of white circuit board. Mcmaster-Carr is cheaper if you like their colors, and they also sell various wire types that are useful for crankbaits. Both places have given me good service.

If you make hundreds of crankbaits, you'll get a statistical bell curve of crankbait grading. As you gain experience, you work to make the curve skew to the right but there are always going to be above average and below average baits. Personally, I don't look for hunters. I look for a particular thump rythym and amplitude that has been the most productive for me over the years. Hunting doesn't seem to have much to do with it and I try not to get wrapped around the axle about it. But that's just me.

Yeah, as soon as wifey comes home with the camera, I'll post one on the hardbait gallery. ((uploaded at 6:19 EST))

I just did a couple of King Shad type swimbaits with a medium light gray scale effect back and shoulders over metallic pearl white belly. The paint is thinned Folk Art brand hobby paint (not formulated for airbrush). It has more reflective quality than plain pearl white. Darker gray shad spot, faint red lower gills. I put rubber bands in the joints to hold the segments steady. Segments have sharp edges. If clearcoated with epoxy, it will draw away slightly from a sharp edge, making it thin and easy to wear and chip. I ease the edges on wooden segments to avoid that.

Blackjack, your experience with the 14 is all too familiar. My very best fish catching baits, on detailed examination, are exactly like the others in their batch. Same weight to .01 ounce, same bill angle, etc, etc. My guess is very small differences in shape and wood density that I can't see make the difference. And there is no reasonable way for me to make them more alike with handbuilding. Wood crankbaits will have some variability. The better you get at building, the more you reduce it, but you can't eliminate it.

Various ways get it done. Many use a band saw or a scroll saw to cut out the blank, then shape it with a Dremel sanding cylinder. For clear lips, most guys use polycarbonate (aka Lexan) which is very tough stuff - much better than acrylic plastic. Get it at a home center or a glazier's. I trace a lip outline, do a rough cut out with tin snips, then sand down to an exact line with a Dremel sanding cylinder. Mark your hardware positions, ballast position, and cut your lip slot while the blank is still "square" so you'll get a straight running bait. Read some of the tutorials and posts here on TU for lots of detailed info.

I make cranks for myself and friends, so there's no downside in building to "push the envelope" in action. Many of them are shallow flat baits and about half of them hunt. I use brass or soft stainless safety wire for 3 reasons: it's easy to form accurately, it makes the bait easy to tune, and I personally believe it helps them hunt. Notice I say helps, not causes. I shoot for max action at moderate retrieve speeds, but not so maxed out that a bait will blow out if burned back. It's a fine line. If 20% don't make the grade, I just consider it the price of getting the baits I want to fish and which I can't buy anywhere. Hunting is just a byproduct of that process, and one I don't consider paramount. If I built for sale, 20% non-performers would be a disaster. As it is, I guarantee my buds that they'll get everything they're paying for = Nothing.

I haven't seen problems with acrylics being pierced and failing as long as it has an underlying waterproof coating on the wood. To me, water based colors are mainly a matter of convenience. Fast cleanup, thin with water, no solvent vapors. There is a difference in color values among latex, enamels and lacquers but I've generally been satisfied with latex.

I'd like to add, prey fish don't often swim in straight lines in shallow water so crankbaits that do are missing an element of realism. Hunting is a nice extra. But a mania to find hunters (especially commercial plastic ones) can be frustrating and misdirected. You can make any straight line bait "hunt". Just bounce it off every piece of cover you can! Some cringe at making a $15 crankbait deflect 10 times while retrieving it through standing timber. Relax! It will get you many more bites and that's what it's all about. If it don't catch nothing, it ain't worth nothing IMO.

When the topic of mirror finish comes up, the usual answer is that nothing seems readily available for hobby builders. Manufacturers use custom foil wraps or special paints. Unless you want to spend more than $100 for special chrome paint that actually works (most doesn't), our solution is usually to foil the bait. But I'd be worried that a "typical" foil job on an X-Rap would be too heavy and ruin the action. Not saying the right foil couldn't be found and the right techniques used to minimize the weight, but I bet it would be a real pain.

I used to use D2T epoxy but have lately gone to propionate/acetone dips. You can dip 6-7 times in an hour and the balsa seems harder with the propionate than with epoxy. At least it won't dent like epoxy if you compress the sides with your fingers - don't know yet how impact resistant it is but it's pretty fast since you're ready to paint in a few hours after a light sanding to remove the gloss. But all said and done, thinned epoxy is also a good choice and it has the advantage of being readily available.

I think Nathan is probably right. Devcon usually is hard enough to handle in 5-6 hrs and ready to fish in 24. If it doesn't cure properly due to unequal measuring or insufficient mixing, you can fix it by applying another coat of Devcon over the top. It will cure and cause the sticky layer to cure also.

You're right about the time, effort and failures it takes to prototype crankbaits using typical methods. It can be frustrating. But I would argue that it isn't wasteful but a valuable part of learning the craft. Eventually, you get a feel for what works. As to a pure mathematical approach, I'd welcome one if it yielded reliable build specs. I'm certainly no mathematician but I'm doubtful because we're talking about complex hydrodynamic modeling. If you find one that a monkey (me) can use, let me know!

I do the same as Dean. And IMO, auto primer tends to make baits smell bad even after the epoxy topcoat cures. I just don't see any value in using a solvent based primer between epoxy undercoating and acrylic colors unless you are building with a wood like redwood that will leak stain through the finish.

I haven't used rubbing alcohol but have used many other solvents: lacquer thinner, DA, acetone, etc. The main consideration to me is how fast a particular solvent evaporates. We're all lucky that epoxy seems to cure regardless of the stuff we throw into it!

I've gone through several setups in the last few years. Now I use a Badger (free from a relative) but many guys prefer small tool compressors with an air tank and regulator/moisture filter (around $100). And you can use it for other stuff too As far as airbrushes, the Paasche VL and similar "mid priced" models go for around $75 and do a good job. But if you want to do detail work, consider one of the fine tip brushes like the Iwata HP-B+. It takes time to learn any brush and changing brushes means a new learning curve to climb. You'll get better results faster if you go straight to a fine tip brush. A comment about Chinese compressors you see on Ebay. My experience is they have 30 max psi for about 1 millisecond but their sustained working pressure is 15 psi - just barely adequate. Most guys want 30-45 psi.

Not sure where to get tungsten bb's (shotshells?), but I think the commercial cranks with tungsten weights have them enclosed in an internal plastic chamber to control their movement. Otherwise you'd have heavy weight shifts in the bait that might compromise its action. For a different, louder rattle, some Japanese lure manufacturers use glass beads. I've used them in rattle chambers in wood crankbaits and they sound sharper and louder than lead or steel. They also work well as an "additive" to lipless crankbaits to get a distinct sound. Any size from 3 to 7 mm works well, depending on the size of the chamber. Another reason I like them as a builder is they aren't weighty, so I don't have to worry about adjusting ballast or unbalancing the lure.

Bigredfish, we may have gone off track when the thread morphed from talking about clearcoats to waterproofing undercoats. How tough you need a clearcoat to be depends on how you fish the lure and whether toothy critters will be crunching it. I use water cured polyurethane on small baits and it works great - very clear, glossy and tough. How Minwax lasts, how tough it is, whether it yellows significantly, I don't know. I suspect it will yellow more than some clearcoats unless it starts out very clear and is UV stabilized. Even that isn't necessarily bad unless you think it is! Different subject: I've started using cellulose propionate (aka prop) pellets disolved in acetone for waterproof undercoating only. If you keep the solution thin, absorption into the wood is excellent and 6-7 coats make a very hard waterproof coating that can be done in 1-2 hrs of dipping/drying. With multiple prop coats, soft balsa becomes less compressable than balsa undercoated with Devcon, which makes me think it may be more durable.

Yep, thick acrylic coating can crack, especially if dried quickly by a hair dryer. I shoot a white color basecoat directly over my waterproofing coat and then colors. JMHO, it's best to keep things simple. Adding other intermediate coatings or non-acrylic layers increases the possibility of having 2 layers of non-compatible chemistry wrinkle the paint job or fail to adhere properly.