BobP

Yes, that may be the best solution. Mark, I haven't noticed much difference among putty log brands - they all seem to have similar consistency and cure times of about 5 mins.

An epoxy putty log like Ben mentioned is a solution that I've used several times to fill lip slots in baits. Using the putty is easy; the hard part is cutting a new lip slot accurately in a bait that has already been rounded.

You can use most anything to seal ballast holes. If you glue the ballast in first, any kind of wood filler will work, even the light duty interior wood filler that basically looks and acts like spackling compound. You're going to coat the bait with a durable topcoat, so what goes in the hole to fill it isn't critical. In hardwood, I drill a slightly oversize ballast hole, fill it with quick cure epoxy putty log from the home improvement store and push in the ballast weight, smoothing the epoxy that squeezes out of the hole to finish the job. The thicker topcoats you see are often slow cure epoxies like Devcon Two Ton, which require a turning wheel to rotate the lures while the epoxy cures for several hours. An alternative is Solarez UV cured polyester resin, though it doesn't level out or have quite the gloss of epoxy. I'll leave you to the search function on this page to explore those options.

Fatfingers is one of THE experts on Etex epoxy. If you doubt it, just look at his baits in the Gallery or his member-submitted tutorial! Didn't know Etex came in a UV filtered version.

One thing that can help get ballast into a small body is tungsten. I sometimes use tungsten shotgun shot since it's twice the density of lead and can be installed into small areas. But if you already have a brass rod running along the belly of the lure, installing any kind ballast becomes a big problem. In that case, I would probably go with external lead tape. I use the adhesive lead tape designed for weighting tennis rackets, which is thin and fairly cheap. You can burnish the edges of the tape after applying it so when you paint over it, it disappears. Suspend Strips designed for fishing are very similar, but more expensive.

I do my screw eyes about the same way, just a "mirror image" of the video. I chuck a drill bit that is the diameter I want the eye to be upright in a vise, bend a piece of wire over the drill bit, grip the ends with locking pliers, and twist the wire by hand. When finished, I flatten out the eye with some lineman's pliers and cut the screw eye to length. I drill holes in the bait that are slightly larger in diameter than the screws so I can pack the hole with epoxy before inserting them and I "butter" the threads with epoxy before pushing them into the hole. You can do the interlocked screw eyes with either method.

There are several ways to do it. First, you can cut the bait in half (or build the bait from 2 separate planks), then make recesses for the hardware and lay in a thru-wire frame, then glue the bait back together. That's what I do. Second, you can saw a longitudinal slot in the belly of the bait and insert your frame, then fill the slot with glue. I think that's how Rapala does many of their balsa baits. Third, you can drill a hole from nose to tail, insert a line tie-to-tail hanger frame, then drill a hole in the belly and hook the belly hanger onto the first frame, then fill the void with glue. Guys often have trouble with this method since it can be hard to drill a straight hole through the whole bait without the bit wandering off center. There may be more ways, these are just the ones I've either done or read about here on TU.

Everyone develops a routine on how to sequence building tasks based on their own experience. My routine works for me and my tools. Other guys build differently. The end result is all that matters. A hardwood plug in a balsa bait is a good way to strengthen the connection and several TU'ers use that method. I split balsa baits in half and lay the hangers and the ballast into recesses, then epoxy the bait back together with 5 min epoxy. The epoxy gives the bait a strong "backbone" that connects all the hardware and increases durability of the whole bait. Since all the hardware is connected by the epoxy, I feel using hand twisted screw eyes is strong enough. When I use a lip with an integral line tie, I use the method Dieter describes - a single hole in the lip with a twisted line tie which fits into a slot beneath the lip slot. I glue in the lip/line tie after the bait is painted, before topcoating. As a practical matter, I don't like gluing in the lip when I rejoin a balsa bait with epoxy. There's just too much going on and I don't want to take a chance of getting the lip askew or marred with epoxy when I do it. Plus with the lip out, I don't have to worry about masking it off while painting the bait. Mounting the lip is a critical step that needs to be just right, so I save it for the next to last step in building a bait. When I insert the lip, I spend time examining the bait from different angles to make sure it's aligned as accurately as possible. I use a slow cure epoxy (Rod Bond paste) that allows me a couple of hours to readjust alignment if needed.

Honestly I don't see an advantage for thru-wire in anything except balsa or maybe some musky baits (which I've never built). Not saying it doesn't make a stronger bait - just that I've never had a bass bait fail due to using standard construction. If you think about what fishing scenario thru-wiring is an advantage, I see only one. A fish hits your cedar lure so hard that it's able to break the wood body. The thru-wire lets you catch that one fish, after which you discard the lure anyway. How likely is that? I've never had it happen, even on 8 lb bass or quite a few pike. Not that I wouldn't LIKE the experience, but... A hardwood bait with properly epoxied-in hangers and lip will survive after the line has broken, or the trebles have bent out, or the strain has begun to strip guides off your rod, or the rod has snapped. OK, we all want to over-build our baits so they last. But I don't think they actually need to be immortal. JMHO

Yeah, I think Nathan's right. Most manufacturers of plastic baits employ shifting weights to improve castability so I think it's a non-issue. There aren't any innovations in hard baits that aren't copied by other manufacturers within a few months and seldom if ever do you see any legal action - it just doesn't make business sense for a patent holder to sue when overseas companies will be copying an innovation almost as soon as it hits store shelves, unless the copy is so exact to be "patently obvious" - pun intended. One case I heard of was the Chatterbait, which was originally manufactured by a small company. They were sending threatening letters to anyone who put copies on the market. The result was to inhibit copies for a few months, but their "bladed jig" was inundated by big bait manufacturers in the U.S. putting out similar products (but not so similar that a court case was rational) within 6 months. Then Chatterbait got sold to a larger company. Same story with the "Alabama Rig" - how many companies are producing umbrella rigs for bass fishing nowadays?

How about buying plastic squeeze bottles for mustard and ketchup at the Dollar Store?

Anytime I get an air bubble in a finished lure, my first assumption is that it was caused when my undercoat failed to stop air from escaping into the paint when the underlying wood was heated. Missing a spot, sanding too much epoxy away, or applying it too thinly might be the culprits. Alternatively, if you heat an epoxy undercoat enough, it can cause the epoxy to soften and an air bubble to form beneath it if the epoxy has not adhered well enough to the underlying wood. That's why I recommended cutting into the bubble to find out where the failure occurred. When you do, the problem and its solution should be more apparent. As far as Etex versus other brands, there once was a lot of controversy on TU about Devcon Two Ton (D2T) versus Envirotex Lite (Etex). I've used both. Etex contains solvents, is thinner viscosity, and takes much longer to cure. Its fans say it is more resistant to cracking and chipping than D2T. Probably so, but JMHO, there's not enough difference among epoxies after they're cured to quibble about, especially when used for undercoating. The critical thing in undercoating is to insure you get complete encapsulation so there are no areas where air can be forced out when the lure is heated during normal use. A coating of D2T, only slightly thinned, has worked fine for me - and it cures much faster than many epoxies.

I would get a blade under the bubble and see where the finish delaminated from the lure. If it's between the auto acrylic and the epoxy undercoat, the paint might not have been completely dry when topcoated, or you may have an underlying fault in the epoxy undercoating where the lure tried to expand and forced out air, creating a bubble.

I can't see why buying Devcon 2T in bottles would be any different from D2T in a syringe. It should be exactly the same stuff.

Epoxy doesn't depend on anything else but itself to cure so you can go to "the next step" whenever you think it's hard enough. I usually wait until the next day when I undercoat a lure with Devcon to make sure it has hardened enough to sand off the gloss without gumming up the sandpaper. While it's true that epoxy will continue to cure for about a week, it is not a linear process. Most of the cure is done within 24 hrs, then it continues more and more slowly until final cure is reached. The cure is not affected by being covered by acrylic paint, except to the extent that you want the denatured alcohol you thinned it with to evaporate, which happens in the first few hours. I've topcoated lures immediately after painting, using a hair dryer on the paint as I applied each color. No problems. But I usually mount the lips in my lures after painting and before topcoating and have to let the lip epoxy cure for awhile, so it's not often an issue about how long to let the paint sit.

Sure you can! Actual tank testing is the gold standard of balllasting. Of course, for suspending baits, it is only accurate for the temperature of water you test the bait in. And you have to choose at which point in the build you will do the test.

They are simple wood forms coated with an acrylic sealer. You have to sand them smooth, cut the lip slot, add all ballast and hardware, and finish them yourself. Many builders find cutting a lip slot in a preformed bait the hardest part to get right. It's much easier and more accurate to cut the slot in a bait that is still "square" (i.e., a body shape cut from a plank but not yet rounded). Most of these baits have been formed on a lathe and then coated with an acrylic sealer. The balsa models usually have vertical lathe lines and a pebbly surface texture that needs to be sanded out before finishing. In other words, it's not quite as easy as just buying them and beginning to shoot paint. However it does save you the steps of cutting out and rounding the lure blank. lurepartsonline also sells ballasted belly hangers, a lead ballast plug that has the belly hook hanger molded into it, as well as pre-cut lips.

I.see pics of installers in masks applying it outside, so wouldn't use it inside the house. We're talking about the solvent based sealers. It also comes in a water based version which I doubt is as water resistant.

Taxidermy supplier usually have them. Try taxidermy.net for a gateway to suppliers.

Seal the wood with one coat of epoxy before painting the lure, so the wood grain will not be raised by your water based paint. I use D2T slightly thinned with denatured alcohol for this. One coat of D2T should be fine as a topcoat. When to add the hardware is player's choice. I put in the ballast, hook hangers, and line tie just after the final sanding, then seal/undercoat and paint the lure, then mount the lip, then topcoat everything. I use a piece of scrap lip material as a "false lip" by which I handle the bait with locking forceps while applying the finish. It's handy and keeps sprayed paint out of the lip slot - and you don't have to tape off the lip to prevent over spray. Drill the accumulated paint out of the line tie and hook hangers with a micro drill bit in a Dremel tool after the lure is topcoated.

Mark, Glonation is just like any other acrylic paint. If used just for eyes, I think a few hours of drying would be enough before topcoating. I applied Glonation twice a day on the whole lure until I got the thick even coating I wanted (4 heavy coats), then let the lure dry overnight before topcoating. It's water based acrylic and I had no issues with topcoat. I used Dick Nite S81 MCU, pretty touchy stuff, and it turned out fine.

Some TUers use a heat box to speed epoxy curing times. A couple regular incandescent light bulbs in a box lined with tin foil will do the trick. One consideration - you may not want the motor of your lure turner inside the box if you think it will malfunction due to heat. Reports are the box shortens cure time considerably. I don't know the temp at which it harms the finish or the lure, but would be careful. If you make wood lures, the air inside will want to get out and will bubble your epoxy if it can get past the lure's undercoating. On plastic lures, they will blow up if heated enough. Some manufacturers warn against curing epoxy too fast, since that may compromise its physical properties. Can't say what is "too fast" but the stuff is designed to cure at 70-75 degrees F. I'm never in a hurry, so the topic is purely academic for me!

Yep, although a LED flashlight works better 'cause it has more intense light. It doesn't have to be UV light. When I coat spoons in my garage under fluorescent lighting, they glow just fine when I turn out the lights to go inside the house.

Mark mostly builds PVC baits that don't require a sealer since they are naturally waterproof. On wood, you need a waterproof membrane to prevent your water based acrylic paint from raising the wood grain. It also stops the wood from outgassing bubbles in your paint if you use a hair dryer on the paint between color shots, as many of us do. D2T works well and is especially good on balsa where it also reinforces the soft wood. But if you're using a hardwood, any waterproof membrane will work OK. If you topcoat your paint with epoxy, it will not react with any undercoating products. D2T, Solarez, lacquer, superglue, propionate, etc will all work in that scenario. I like D2T because I always have some handy and it's tough but lately have been using Solarez because it's fast. D2T is good at hiding small imperfections because it's thick and levels out well. It's good to lightly sand the glaze off epoxy before you paint to improve paint adhesion.

Great idea Gunnie. If you brush epoxy on a lip and let it cure, it is amazing how crappy it looks. You thought epoxy levels out excellently well but what you get is a coating that really shows lots of unevenness. Plus any yellowing will really show on a clear lip. IMO, we should probably stipulate that clearcoating a lip is mostly to appeal to the fisherman and not the fish. It fills in scratches and makes them disappear. If left un-coated, water performs the same function when the lure is fished.