BobP

Here's a pic:

Mark, I use U-40 Rod Bond paste epoxy. I comes in 2 versions; the original has a long work time, at least 2 hours. When I'm doing a batch of baits, I like it because I can do the initial fitment, then mess around with the lips to my heart's content until I get them just right. You know how that goes! Rod Bond recently came out with a quick cure version with a work time of around 10 minutes. I've seen several other brands of paste epoxy now being sold on rod building supply sites like mudhole.com but haven't tried them. I got onto Rod Bond since I occasionally build rods and use it to glue up grips. Decided to try it when I was replacing a broken lip and had to enlarge the slot to get out the broken lip. It worked great! No dribble, no voids, and very strong. Since then, I often use Rod Bond whenever I need epoxy and am in no hurry to get the job done. Mix a batch and you can use it to install all the hardware on a batch of 5-6 baits, without hurrying. The lazy man's epoxy. If I really bugger cutting out a broken lip and am left with a huge slot, or want to completely fill in a slot and cut one at a new angle, I go with an epoxy putty stick. It mixes to a clay-like consistency and cures hard in 5-10 minutes. Has a density similar to pine or basswood. I've used several brands, all seem similar and are available at any home center.

I know of 2 strategies for getting a crankbait down to 20+ feet. Either you enlarge the whole bait or get creative with the lip. A 3/4 oz Luhr Jensen Hot Lips Express is documented to dive 22 ft on 10 lb mono with a 100' cast. The Hot Lips line of baits (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 oz) all share the same lip design. The Rapala DT20 also uses an innovative lip design. The 10XD and at least one other bait I've seen (a Bee 24) go in the other direction and upsize the whole bait. If I fished tournaments for a living and had to have 5+ lb bass on a lake where lots of them live to make a check, I wouldn't hesitate to "go big" with an 10XD. But as a recreational angler, I've fished a few deep divers that weigh over 1.5 oz and found them a real drag. The jury's still out but I suspect the 10XD will be similar in spite of ad copy telling me it "casts and pulls surprisingly easy for its size". Like several TUers, I've built crankbaits that will dive 20+ without upsizing the whole bait. It's do-able but it demands lots of attention to lip shape and the overall balance and weight of the bait. But that's what makes lure building interesting and fun to me.

Ben, I'm pretty sure the 6" length includes the diving lip.

6 inches long, 1.92 oz weight, $15 Personally, not something I would like to be throwing all day long! They're available for January pre-order at Tacklewarehouse.com

The main problem is that whatever the method, you have to eyeball something to base the cut. I use a straight edge of flexible plastic or a rubber band to guestimate the lip angle and position, and then just trace a line for the lip slot and cut it out freehand with a thin Dremel cutoff blade or by hand with a blade from my scroll saw. Most of the time, with a little practice, that will be close enough. When it isn't, I enlarge the slot until I can adjust the lip straight and glue it in with epoxy paste instead of liquid epoxy.

Brent, I think you'll need to cut your own if you are looking for a unique shape like the Sisson P-20. It's actually not hard to do. The P-20 bills are made from white G-10 circuit board. If you have a P-20, it's easy to copy the lip shape. If that's the lip you are wanting and don't have an example, contact me via private message and maybe I can provide a lip template you can use to shape your own.

Nsmith, I wasn't recommending you try other polyurethanes, just suggesting that if you DID want to experiment with them you start with exterior grade solvent based polyurethanes that will be more waterproof than water based ones. I've followed TU Hardbaits for almost 10 years and there are really only a few clearcoats that have gained wide acceptance among TU builders: Epoxies (30 min slow cure, rod guide, and decoupage epoxies) Automotive Clearcoats - professional 2 part mixes only - not rattle cans Moisture cured urethanes like Dick Nite S81 Solarez UV cured resin (the latest contender) These all produce a durable waterproof topcoat but there are big differences among them as to application techniques, safety concerns, storage requirements, etc. You'll may notice one thing - they all have to "cure" after application to be tough enough to last on a crankbait. None of them are simple "spray it and let it dry" products you would find on the shelf at you local Home Depot.

I try to answer questions and give solutions to problems when I have what I think is good information. Yes, I feel some "question fatigue" on topics that have been covered many many times. When I feel curmudgeony about that, I don't have to do a thing. Ignore it and someone else will answer it. TU is a diverse community - commercial custom builders, hobby builders, guys with decades of experience, newbies, you-name-it. Don't expect everyone to share your interests, knowledge level, or your attitude toward building lures. Personally, I enjoy a little dust-up once in awhile. Adds spice! Provides sharper contrast between ideas! But it has to be between builders who have similar levels of knowledge and experience, or else it's not fair.

Ben, you're tougher than me! I won't even go fishing on days with less than a 50 degree high. I'm not sure whether epoxy requires the exothermic reaction to cure or whether the heat is just a byproduct of the process. I'm sure heat speeds up curing and cold slows it down but in my experience, it's gonna cure eventually no matter what. I regularly glue up baits and leave them to harden in my garage in temps in the low 40's and high 30's. I haven't tried at even lower temps; not because I think it wouldn't work but because I ain't gonna work on baits in a really freezing garage.

I think making the lures out of PVC will avoid most of the problems you might have with wood. Epoxy is as tough as any topcoat but it suffers from the same problem as all others - the lure's finish is just like a shell. Any topcoat will fail if the underlying lure body is significantly compressed and then expanded. PVC is naturally waterproof and assuming that PVC would compress and expand less than most woods, it would help to avoid that problem.

Ben, I use D2T with handmade screw eyes and do the same as you did - poke epoxy into the hole with a wire, then butter the threads of the screw eye and push it into the hole. But I never heat a lure while it has wet epoxy on it or in it. I've never had a screw eye come out in thousands of baits, so it works for me. I don't know what it is about wanting to heat epoxy to make it cure quicker. It only resulted in screw-ups when I tried it early in my bait making hobby. I eventually learned that it is the Crankbait Gods telling me that impatience is a sin punished by screwed-up crankbaits. Now I know to apply the glue or finish and Walk Away to let it do it's thing. How long will it be? As long as it takes.

I used Pledge in a couple of airbrush colors but stopped because it tended to harden inside the packing of the barrel and cause the needle to stick hard between sessions, plus it caused a few of the brands of paint I use to separate and form a hard deposit in the bottom of the jar. I didn't use it as recommended in the You Tube video, i.e., mixing it just before use in a separate container with the paint. So lesson learned - but if it's something you have to do before every paint shot, that's not what I had in mind. It did make the paint shoot smoother but I don't do enough detail painting with an airbrush to warrant the extra trouble and I don't think paint is so expensive that I want to extend it. I didn't have the same problem with DN shedding from areas on the crankbait though. Thanks for the report.

It's as simple or complicated as you want to make it. If you are finishing store-bought bodies, that's a good place to start because you don't have to worry about body design, woods, shaping, ballasting, hardware, etc. Most guys use acrylic latex water based paints. Lay down a white color basecoat on a plastic bait and then shoot your colors. Dry the paint thoroughly with a hair dryer between shots of paint. Then topcoat the bait with a good clearcoat product. There are a number of clearcoats that are popular. The best advice is to explore those options in the hardbait forum before you decide which one will work best for you.

I use 1/16" for everything, deep or shallow. I also like the G-10 circuit board when I can find it in white color because you can go even thinner - 1/32" is fine for anything and it's stiffer than 1/16" polycarbonate. What you choose is critical to the balance and performance of your crankbaits. It usually takes multiple prototypes of a crankbait to get everything working right. It's not important which thickness you begin with but I like to stick with whatever thickness I am using so I can control the performance of later versions of a crankbait. If you change more than one thing in a series of prototypes, you can never be sure which change caused the difference.

Squeeze out enough D2T to coat your baits into a small container. I use a baby food lid lined with aluminum foil. Coat a maximum 1 or 2 baits at a time because it will begin to harden as soon as it's mixed. I'm assuming the paint on the bait is dry. Mix the hell out of it - really mix it. Shake in a FEW drops of denatured alcohol and mix them in to thin the mixture just a little. That will extend the brush time and help expel any bubbles. Use a fine bristle brush and apply the epoxy in smooth strokes, making sure to hit every area on the bait and never brushing with a dry brush. Don't worry about the hook hangers, just coat over them and clean them later. You have about 4 minutes before D2T begins to get too hard to brush it on easily. Rotate the bait for about 45 minutes to prevent sags or drips. A rotation anywhere between 2 rpm and 10 rpm is fine. You can even do it by hand, putting hooks on the nose and tail and switching the bait up/down every little while until it firms up. It will be hard enough to lightly handle in about 5 hours and hard enough to fish in 24 hrs. Epoxy has a density only slight more than water, so it will not significantly affect the buoyancy of most baits. One coating of D2T is enough for any bass bait. If you brush it right, there will be no bubbles in the epoxy. If there are, breathe on them and they will pop. I do not recommend heating the epoxy after it is applied, nor heating the lure before it is applied. Just do it at room temperature on a room temperature bait and it will work fine. After the epoxy has cured hard, you can use a small drill bit in a Dremel to clean the epoxy out of the hook hangers. You can clean the brush in lacquer thinner or acetone and use it again.

NSmith, taking a look at the can in your first post, I see it is an interior grade water based polyurethane. Several TU members have tried similar products. I've tested some myself. I thought it looked great on the lure and was hard and scratch resistant .... until I got it wet for awhile and it absorbed water, turned white, got soft, and started coming off my test lure in sheets. If you want to try polyurethanes, I'd suggest an exterior grade solvent based product. That's JMHO. Look, clearcoats are probably the area of crankbait making fraught with the most confusion and differences of opinions. You're talking to a whole community of builders who have different experiences and outlooks, etc. Several good options have been mentioned in this thread. Choose one, search the forum for more info on it and decide for yourself whether its the right one for you. Sorry if you thought it would be a "Duh, this is the ONE" deal - but it just ain't that way. You seem frustrated at the lack of a clear declaration and in turn, some TU'ers get frustrated when a newbie doesn't seem to appreciate their honest attempts to share their experience. If cost is a deal breaker for you, buy a 30ML double syringe of Devcon Two Ton for a couple of bucks and it will be enough to do several baits. But put in the time and do a search to find out how to measure, mix, and apply it so you will get good results. It's the simplest, cheapest way I know to get a good durable clearcoat on a crankbait. If that's too much trouble, you're probably not gonna like working with crankbaits.

As far as yellowing goes, I hear that all epoxy and any product whose name ends in "thane" will eventually yellow. So clearcoats like Dick Nite or spar polyurethane will yellow but since their film is much thinner than epoxies you will notice the yellowing less. Well measured and mixed epoxy will yellow slowly in several years. Some epoxies contain UV inhibitors (Flexcoat UV, Nu Lustre UV) to delay yellowing but they cost more. Finish yellowing is not a big deal to me since the life of a crankbait usually does not exceed the time it takes for it to yellow. If it does and I think it's important to the bass (I rarely do), I strip it and put on fresh finish. Dick Nite S81 is a moisture cured urethane (MCU). After application, a MCU first dries as its solvent evaporates, then undergoes a curing process with moisture in the air by which it becomes much harder and tougher. Performance-wise, MCU is right at the top of clearcoats. The downside is that ANY air moisture that contacts the MCU during application or storage will eventually start the curing process. So you have to maintain pretty heroic measures to keep MCU's from beginning to cure hard in the storage jar. You can search to find best storage procedures for it.

I agree with Ben. If there were one clearcoat that was BEST, we would all be using it. BEST can only be determined by whatever criteria you consider important. Cost? Hardness? Clarity? Ease of application? Reliability? Ease of storage? Speed of cure? Gloss state? Toughness? Film thickness? You name it and you can rate various clearcoats in all these areas. All of the clearcoats mentioned are fine for coating crankbaits - but they all have differences. Many of us started out using one of the epoxies but most of us have tried most of the options. For a simple solution that will work in most situations and will consistently result in a good clearcoat (and can be used for other build chores), I like Devcon Two Ton epoxy. It brushes on well, levels out very well, and cures hard faster than many other epoxies. As a good possible alternative, you might consider Solarez UV topcoat and read the current post on it. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds very interesting as far as ease of use, speed, and results.

Many of us buy sheets of polycarbonate (aka Lexan) and circuit board material (aka G-10) and cut our bills from that. It allows you to build any size/shape bill you need for any crankbait - and it's inexpensive.

I use D2T or dip lures in Dick Nite S81 moisture cured urethane. There's also a UV cured finish product - Solarez UV - that has received a lot of press here on TU lately, but I haven't tried it yet. The D2T is a "twofer" since you can use it for undercoating and topcoating.

Ethan, I also use D2T, thinned with a few drops of denatured alcohol. I apply it with a fine-bristle brush and smooth it on fairly thick, making sure all areas actually get brushed and I am never brushing the lure with a dry brush. It's more like pushing epoxy than than brushing it like paint. Some say that you can cause those fish eyes if you have contaminated the wood surface with body oil, etc. I've not had that problem since I put it on fairly thick.

Nobody knows everything about crankbait dynamics but it seems to me that when you cut the lip slot lower on the face of a bait, one effect is to produce more body roll. Some like it, some don't. On shallow running flat sided baits, roll generates more hydrodynamic signature so I tend to like it. But like most things in crankbaits, there is no free lunch. Roll energy takes away from diving depth. Each design feature on a crankbait affects and is affected by every other design feature, so things are never simple.

Personally, I only use MCU on plastic baits that I paint. It gives a thin tough "factory look" that epoxy can't match.

You can apply MCU with a brush if you can't dip it. When I've done jointed baits, I finish the segments separately (best). If the joint is made from eye screws, you can glue the screw eyes so the segments will be stiff as you finish the bait, removing it later with a small drill bit chucked in a Dremel. I don't like epoxy CC on jointed baits because it will always chip off where the segments bang against each other.