BobP

If the Bob Smith is a slow cure epoxy (it is if it's designed as a finish) you'll be just fine. Several TU builders use that brand. Flexcoat is a rod guide epoxy that will also work just fine. If you're concerned about the thickness of the coating, buy the version that is not "high build" - or you can thin it down a little with denatured alcohol.

I Use Vision Brite-bak foil. Apply it over the white color basecoated body, texture the foil, and then burnish the edges with the plastic handle of a paint brush. Shoot the colors then use a D2T topcoat that hides any edges. I skip the step of coating the foil with epoxy before painting - just lazy and the final topcoat of epoxy hides the edges just fine, IMO.

I use 1/16" Lexan for all size crankbaits and it's 1/32" thinner than 3/32" and 1/3 less the weight, of course. To me, it doesn't really matter what size material you use as long as long as the bait has the action and the balance you want. Thinner material should gove you a little sharper action, all things being equal.

Polycarbonate is durable, impact resistant, and moderately priced so is favored by hardbait builders. You can cut it with metal snips or a saw and you can heat it in hot oil and bend it somewhat to a desired form. Most other plastics are comparatively brittle and are weakened by exposure to UV radiation. That said, a lot of other plastics are flexible and simpler to use. So it boils down to how durable and stiff you need the plastic to be. For that particular application, I'd be thinking of using a softer, more flexible plastic because the wings on a jigging rap don't seem to get much abuse and a softer plastic would be easier to work. JMHO

I'd be thinking about a dye instead of paint with a topcoat. I think topcoats used on hardbaits have very limited flex, would crack and break off, and the paint would soon follow.

If you do a search on "bone" you'll find threads that address the question. Bone color is in the eye of the beholder. I start with opaque white, add drops of brown and yellow until I get what I want.

Google is your buddy: http://www.unclejosh.com/C/Kalins/206

I like to throw Firetiger pattern around vegetation and when in Canada to fish for bass it works well there too. Lots of contrast and it vaguely resembles a bluegill.

Yes you can buy an adapter. I got mine from Dixie Art supply in New Orleans, you might also look at Coast Aribrush supply. I bought an adapter for my Paasche hose to fit my Iwata Revolution airbrush. Not a big deal buying an Iwata hose, but they are several times the cost of an adapter and I like the Paasche hose just fine.

You ought to prowl around in a fabric store to see if they have something similar to what you're looking for. Disregard the disapproving looks from the women customers until you get what you need!

I agree with Ben on brushing versus dipping in DN. Of course, it depends on how often you dip and how many lures you coat at a time, in other words how fast you use up the DN before it begins to harden. The longest I've been able to keep DN liquid is 7-8 months as a hobby builder doing 75-100 baits per year. As far as ease of application, brushing DN is very quick for me: I slop it on fast and let it drip dry just as I would with dipping. There is some waste since you are dispensing more finish than you use on the baits but it's not as bad as losing half a quart ($25 worth) of DN to hardening in the can.

Nice going in upsizing a spybait Mark. They are a relatively new style of bait from Japan and I'm sure the idea will be expanded upon going forward but as it stands now, a spybait is a fairly small but heavy sinking crankbait with small props on both ends. It is designed to be fished on very light line, 4-6lb fluoro and the standard retrieve is to let it sink to the desired depth and then use a slow steady retrieve back to the boat. The small props and some body roll give it its attraction and it really isn't designed to be worked like a jerkbait or a glide bait - it's a minimum action shad style bait designed to attract neutral or suspended bass.

I'm talking petroleum based solvents, as in an automotive primer or a rattle can paint or primer. Not water or alcohol. I never have a reaction problem with MCU on top of water based acrylic paint and use epoxy or UV cured polyester as an undercoating on wood baits. On plastic baits, I use a water based acrylic paint for color basecoating directly onto the plastic, then acrylic colors, then the MCU. No petroleum based coatings. I use standard Createx or various brands of taxidermy acrylic paints on lures; I can't speak to Wicked Colors or other modified acrylic paints that may or may not contain special purpose compounds for automotive applications.

drdmh, when that happens, I attribute it to one of 3 things. Most often it happens if you let wet MCU sit anywhere on a bait for too long. MCU skins over very quickly but that doesn't mean it's not still liquid underneath the skin so you want all excess MCU to drip off the tail of the bait before that happens. Don't use a lure turner. Just hang it up to drip dry. The second scenario is if the acrylic paint underneath the MCU is not thoroughly dry. It won't bond to the lure until its dry and the MCU will cause it to bubble and crack. The 3rd scenario is applying MCU to a lure that has an incompatible solvent based coating on it. MCU tends to wick right through acrylic paint and its solvent will then react with a solvent based undercoating or primer. fix: lose the solvent based coating.

Yeah, that's an irritation. Bigger split rings and a good pair of split ring pliers help. Or mounting the rings before painting. Or choosing spoons that have wire hangers vs just holes in the spoon.

I suggest using G-10 garolite circuit board. It's very stiff and durable and comes in a wide array of thicknesses and colors. You can order it from McMaster-Carr or search online for other sources. McMaster also carries clear polycarbonate (aka Lexan) sheets in different thicknesses. These are the 2 materials that crankbait makers use for most of their lures. The G-10 or G-11 garolite is stiffer for its thickness compared to the Polycarbonate but does not come in a clear color. (1/16" thick polycarbonate) http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-polycarbonate-sheets/=xn0r2t (1/32" thick G-11 garolite) http://www.mcmaster.com/#garolite-plastic/=xn0pdz

Now you can buy fluoro blended to be softer, or tougher, or co-extruded with nylon copolymer, or whatever quality you think is important to you. I started out with BPS fluoro manufactured by Sunline Japan. It was rather stiff, had considerable spool memory, and was noticeably heavier than regular nylon line. But it had lots of sensitivity so I liked it. I still buy BPS when it's on sale. I also like Seguar and think Trilene is decent. I use fluoro on 3/4 of my reels, baitcaster or spinning. Not only because of its sensitivity and low visibility but also because it does not absorb water and does not weaken from UV exposure like nylon line does. I can use it until the level on the spool begins to get too low for comfortable casting, or until it kinks from a backlash which can severely weaken it. So it often lasts for a year or more, making it as cost efficient as nylon lines in the long run. Line rating versus diameter is so fraught with confusion and misdirection by manufacturers that I don't even go there. If Paul Elias uses fluoro to get crankbaits deeper with thinner line, you can do him one better using braid with a fluoro leader. 10 lb Suffix 832 is 2 lb nylon line diameter.

You can go to any width you like but as they get "too wide" they begin to look blocky unless you round them over more, which sort of defeats the purpose of a flat sided crank. One of the most famous flat sided cranks was the D-Bait by Gary Dees. They were just over 1/4" in width and many of the best known flat siders are similar. It's a balancing act. Less than 1/4" wide and it becomes hard to ballast them. Also, the thinner they are, the more poorly they tend to cast. But the thicker they get, the less realistic the profile of the bait becomes and the less lively the action tends to be. As to ballast position, 99% of balsa flat sided cranks use an integral belly hanger/ballast. Of course, none of the above dictates how you need to build YOUR bait. A lot of the "classic" flat sided baits are built the way they are due to commercial considerations, not purely for performance reasons.

I think baits can have several areas of physical appeal to bass: size, visual action, hydrodynamic signature, sound, etc. Conventional wisdom is to use a tight action lure in cooler water, a wide action lure in warmer water. But I catch fish with flat sided tight action lures year round, including in summer when bass won't hit a rounded fat bodied wide action lure. The opposite doesn't usually apply in cold water, at least for me, so I've developed a bias toward using flat sided crankbaits.

Interesting bait and nice video. I agree with Dieter that your results may be skewed by pulling the bait at a higher angle than it would actually be fished. Your test can give you some insight on which lip configuration will have the best natural action but I think you have to get the lip semi-permanently mounted and cast/retrieve it in deeper water to judge whether it meets your expectations. I usually just go ahead and build mine to completion before I test them but I think you might be able to temporarily mount the lip with a dot of super glue for testing, and then be able to break the lip out afterwards with moderate force. For me, there's no substitute for retrieving a bait in real conditions to feel how it thumps, how straight it runs, and whether it blows out at high speed.

Flat sided cranks have more side-to-side resistance and a tighter wobble, while rounded cranks tend to have less side resistance, so wider wobble. There are various ways to round a body. Through experience, I've found that is is almost impossible for me to round over a bait all by eye and get it symmetrical, especially in a wood that has any visible grain structure. And symmetry is critical. Some guys do a top template to guide how the bait will be tapered. Then they cut facets at the corners of the square blank to make it octagonal, then round those over to a cylinder cross-section. That's basically what I do. In the long run, it's worth going to the trouble to do templates and mark your cuts. Even with the marks, you still have to eyeball it to feather out the facet cuts in the nose and tail of the bait.

Like Ben says, if you expose a can full of MCU to air, it's absorbing moisture. Dipping accelerates this because your lure carries moisture into the surface of the MCU and MCU dripping off the lure as you lift it out of the can does too. Using Bloxygen after every session and decanting a quart of http://www.jegs.com/i/KBS+Coatings/191/8404/10002/-1).%C2'> I haven't tried it. I particularly like DN MCU so have switched to the tap-the-can method of storage. So far, so good after a few months. Guys who use this method of storage say they get to use the whole quart of finish. That would be nice since I've been throwing about half my DN away! One topic I don't think is discussed much is how to brush on MCU. Basically, I use a 1/2" wide artist's brush to flood the surface of the lure as quickly as possible, then hang them up to drip off the excess and dry. If you take your time brushing MCU, it can begin to harden so quickly that it has begun to gel by the time you get around to the place you started brushing - screwing up the finish. So fast is good, IMO. Not quite as lazy as dipping but much faster than epoxy, and no mixing. I think MCU is THE optimum clearcoat for plastic lures. And it looks great on wood or plastic. I often opt for epoxy on wood lures to hide any surface imperfections or when I'm building a wood lure that will be trolled (epoxy lasts longer against hook rash because it's much thicker).

Many "knockoff" lures have an area sanded on the lip where the halves of the bait were joined together. So yes, you can dip the whole lure including the lip on a plastic bait - in fact, you should to make the sanded part disappear. The MCU I use (Dick Nite) is quite thin and drains right off the lip without pooling on the nose of the bait. I think most other MCU's will do the same. Now if you can figure a way to dip baits in MCU without causing half your product to prematurely harden, you'll be ahead of the game - I can't - though guys using KBS say they can. MCU adheres quite well to plastic baits - but it will not adhere for long to polycarbonate.

That's a neat idea tho not sure how well it would work throwing crankbaits into grassy areas. Release or not, you'd still be breaking the bills off balsa baits if you slapped the bait on the water to shake off grass.