Camel1918

Husky, Yes, I glued the two pieces together. That is how I make my balsa baits as well. That way if I make a through wire bait it is very easy and even if I drill and epoxy in the twisted wire eyelets I'm sure to get them exactly centered. I also had some problems with the epoxy holding well however I scuffed up the surface and then laid a very thin layer of epoxy on it let it dry and then epoxied the two together. It held fine. I though after that I would have problems with the wire eyelets holding, however they seem to be holding just fine. I really enjoyed working with the stuff. Putting in a rattle is easy. I just drill a horizontal hole and then counter sink the hole. I then place a circle of hard plastic paper protective sleeve that I've punched out with a paper punch in the counter sink and fill the hole with the light wall patch. Once it is dry I can sand it down and once a thin layer of epoxy is put on I'm ready to paint with a white background already there. Or I can skip the epoxy and just put on my foil tape if I'm going to foil it. It is better to work with and much more exact that balsa and easier to work with that bass or other woods. Of course there is something about saying you make a balsa or hard wood lure instead of PVC but the consistency of this stuff makes it worth it. Guess we will see how it holds up. But I'm thinking it will do just fine. Oh, I do all my cutting on a jig saw and for the larger hard woods a band saw. I also have a sander but use a dremel sander and other attachments tools a lot. Camel1918

:-D Well I just had to go out and see this stuff, so I went to Lowes today and picked up the $5, 2" x 3/16 x 8 ft strip that Husky was talking about. Man do I like this stuff. I cut it in half and then layed out my baits to cut after sticking the two pieces together with two sided tape so I could cut out the shapes. It cuts and carves great and seems to hold the hardware with 5min and 30min epoxy. Very nice stuff. Thanks for the tip all. Camel1918

Thanks Jed

I know that this is a little off topic from weighting however I'm in the middle of making some baits and would like to know something. I've noticed that the front eye of most of the baits I see made here have the front eye horizontal instead of vertical and I was wondering if that is just a preference or is there a specific reason for this. I'm waiting for the ice to clear a little before going and testing my bait. Thanks, Camel1918

Photo is fine. All you have to do is just click on it and it will show up ok. Nice looking lure by the way. ;-)

It's always the slowest site I visit. Lately it has been really slow. I have cable running at 5-7 megs and it's still very slow. It is better today than two days ago when I had to give up reading.

Blades, How about bringing up that issue again about eye color and just what colors are those?;-) I was looking for your sunny side up fomula and also ran across this thread. It was a good one so I thought I would get it running again. Thanks Camel1918

Sorry Guess I should have searched first. Thanks anyway. It is an interesting scheme. Camel1918

OK now you have my interest up. I looked in the cookbook and there was no listing for "Sunny Side Up". Was just curious what paint scheme someone would pay $100 for. LOL Where can I find this Sunny Side Up from Blades? ;-) Got my Interest, Camel1918

Thanks for the link. I'm going to try and get up there.

Tom, I'm from the area. Where is the show being held, I'd like to stop by and see whats up. Trying to get into the Muskie thing this year. Will be hard to leave the smallies though. Thanks, Camel1918

Fire, Very nice looking lure. I've been tempted to try a jointed lure. Now I defiantly will give it a try. I've been looking at the site you posted on the lip-less and side swimming lures. I'm very intrigued by the side swimmer and I'm wondering how that would be weighted. I'm going to work on one and see what I can come up with. Again great looking lure. I like the way you left it natural wood on the top it worked out well for the bait fish your copying. Keep the new stuff coming. Camel1918

Petros, The plastic coat they are talking about is a coat to seal the wood before you paint. It's not a final finish coat like devcon. The platic dip makes a great platform to paint on and it also gives the bait another seal coat besides the two (well at least for me) coats of devcon. Hope this helps Camel1918

Thanks guys, thats just the kind of information that I was looking for. I figured someone had tried them out.

I am always looking for a better paint to spray. I came across Wildlife Colors airbrush paint. I was just wondering if anyone had used these before. The prices weren't bad and they have transparent, pearl, metallic, iridescent, and fluorescent colors as well as opaque. I have pasted their pitch below. They can be found at BearAir. Thanks all Camel1918 "Wildlife Colors Airbrush Paints are water-based acrylic paints developed to replace solvent-based paint products. State of the art pigment preparation and new acrylic polymer research places this coating on the cutting edge of paint technology. Through extensive research and experimentation, Wildlife colors is the finest water reducible airbrush paint system available today. Using specialized manufacturing techniques, the pigments are ground to an ink fine consistency. Wildlife Colors are non-toxic and free of extender pigments, resulting in a pure paint which flows better, has brighter, cleaner colors, and overall better performance characteristics. Wildlife colors are infinitely compatible with water, allowing the user to control coverage and opacity. Highlights Superior coating for various applications Superior adhesion to any surface Ready to use Fewer spits and blockages Easy to cleanup Shelf life of 5+ years Freeze thaw stable Flash point of over 200o F Overnight delivery of stock colors/non-red label "

Jamie, That's the schematic that got me going as well. It really helped me with my first and took a lot of guess work out of it. Taught me some things as well. Good luck NSpannTx Mark H.

Brett, I pretty sure my printer has special ink for pictures that I think is rated for a number of years. I haven't looked into it because the regular ink is doing fine for what I want. But I'm fairly certain that it is rated to keep its color for a number of years. Now I don't know if that is only if it is printed on photo paper or not. You might look into it. I have a HP PSC 2355 but I'm certain a lot of their printers now have two different types of ink you can get photo and regular. Hope this helps some.

I'm new at this but I've been doing it by hand after the foil is on the lure. I use a semi dull pencil, dental pick or dull awl. Something that will leave a sharp line but is not sharp enough to cut through the foil. I use regular kitchen foil I spray glue on. I then do it by hand. This way I can do gill slits and have a better idea of the proportion of scales I want for that lure.

Bombadier and all, I didn't want to say anything because I thought maybe I was crazy but like you Bomb the first couple of cranks I've made do exactly what you describe. They track straight but have a sort of a weird rhythm to them in that they might as described earlier go to one side for about 7 wiggles or so and then track back in line. They tend to do this to both sides in a type of rhythm. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want everyone to say Oh yeah right or think I was crazy just because I was new. Maybe I stumbled upon this also, because they do seem to catch bass well. Some one mentioned using a thin soft wire. I've been using a soft bendable wire to make my baits this could play a part. Bombadier glad I'm not the only one. Camel1918

Mills, That would probably be true as they are made so the mech. can handle very hot surfaces like mufflers and brake pads and hot engines. Sounds like a good Idea. I don't usually post to this forum, I'm over at the hard baits, but I do watch it all the time. I'm saving up to start pouring this winter. I would never have gained all the knowledge that I have now because of this fourm from trial and error. Thanks guys, Camel1918

Nice Idea Lapala. Think I'll try that. F/Tiger I've been makin them right on the lure but I think I'll give your idea a try. The reflective whites would be better than plain white like I've been using. Thanks guys, Mark H.

Ken, Welcome I'm a fairly new comer as well. You'll find the people here friendly and very helpful. All you need to know you'll find on this site or you'll have answered in a post. Best lure makers around are here. Mark H.

I was reading a report on new things out at ICAST 2005 by BassDozer. http://www.bassdozer.com/articles.shtml anyway it mentioned that the new craze this year was adding chartreuse coloring to the tail of your worms and that now lure companies are thinking of ways to do it on cranks. It showed a mylar flash tail called Swish Tail and a plastic type of skirt for spinners called EZ skirt. Ok to make a long story short I got an idea about using instead small croppie tubes. They are cheap and light in weight and come in a ton of different colorings or metalic sparkles. You just slide them over your treble hook and reattach it. Tried to place pic here but didn't let me I'll post it in Photos. Hope it comes up there. I tried it and it didn't appear to affect the action of the lure however it added some colored zing to the tail. This gives you the option of more color choices than feathers or hair trebles and it is cheaper. Maybe this isn't new or worth it but I just thought I'd share it with you guys for what it was worth.

Nathan, Posted a new pic the other day and it never came up. I was just wondering if it went through or if it's just a time thing. I really appriciate this site and being able to show work. Thanks Camel1918

I'm new to building but I'd be willing to get in. How many are we putting in to start. If it's ten I may pass on this one. It will take me forever.