rofish

Here is another link to wood densities: Wood Density I make crankbaits or jerk minnows out of basswood, poplar and a lighter wood called fuma wood. I think Diemai is right. For a swimbait you need heavier wood than for topwater lures, since a swimbait is usually designed as a sinking lure. As far as I know from the information available on TU, swimbait makers use heavier (and tougher) wood for swimbaits. There is no reason why you should use light wood for swimbaits, since you want them to be tough, and there seems to alway be a problem with the available space for the weight in the sections, especially with smaller swimbaits, so you would need to add just some small pieces of lead for stability. Find some swimbait pics in the gallery and see what kind of wood they are made of. The density of water is 1 (grams/cm3). Personally, if a type of wood has a density of less than 0.5 gr/cm3, I would call it light wood. As said before, the density of the same type of wood may vary very much. If you have a perfectly rectangular piece of wood, you can calculate yourself its density. The basswood I use is sometimes over 0.5 gr/cm3 and still the action of my lures is good, I think. By the way, it took me a long time to find out what basswod is. Only after visiting Wikipedia was I enlightened. I thought the tree was called lime tree. And there are many species of Tilia (americana, europea, etc.) it seems that the basswood in USA is lighter than the lime tree in Europe. Vodkaman, sorry to be offtopic, but I have a personal favour to ask you. How do you call the Tilia in England, basswood or lime tree?

I think I have discovered a 4th way of avoiding the blushing. Since the acetone evaporates so fast, causing condensation, I simply do not use acetone to dissolve propionate. This solution was found simply because there is no acetone available in shops here, so I had to find an alternative. And the alternative was to use a thinner which is designed for "nitrocellulosic products", which contains acetone, toluene and something else that I cannot remember now. Anyway, this thinner works very well with propionate stuff. Takes 2-3 days to completely dissolve the propionate, and the thinner does not evaporate so fast as acetone. But you have to take care not to use the propionate solution on lures when there is very much moisture in the air.

I think you can find better pics. Trout and Salmon Fish Art by Joe Tomelleri - Shop Indeed, you will have to go through some trial and error before you will be able to size the photo to the right length and height required for each section of the lure, even if you will cut the photo in sections.

I was trying to help with a better photo finish starting from the same image, but after seeing your second photo finish, I think you know better than myself how to play in photoshop. Anyway, here are the images (I also modified the shape a little bit): As to the problem of recovering your bait in your first post, I think you got the best advice from DSV - just make another one. I think it is impossible to sand a photofinish without damaging it. As to solving the problem of Devcon beeing brittle, the best way, in my oppinion, would be to cover it with a less brittle clear. Try several until you find the best.

Specific gravity is a ratio between the density of a specific material and the density of water, which is exactly 1. If that stuff has a specific gravity of 2.75, it means it is 2.75 times heavier than water. The material for a swimbait must have a specific gravity of less than 1, because you need to add hardware, epoxy (heavier than water), lead for stability, etc. The decision is yours.

Vman, I am 54. Unlike these days, 2 years ago I still felt young, happy and healthy. So enjoy your 52nd:lol:

Diemai, I knew I would not be able to bend the wire as I wanted to from the first trial, so I made my hand first on some soft wire, to see how to proceed. I am not in a position to waste precious SS wire, since I cannot find such a material here. As I already said, the 2 bananas do not have an action that I hoped for. They would mostly lean on the left and right, in a quite large action. But I will not give up. If after glueing the weight in the final position, they will still lack the "wobble" I expect from them, I will add a lip. Nice monsters you have there. Any connection between you and Frankenstein? Swede, Sorry, I do not know the lures you are talking about. But I will surely try that shape. I hoped somebody has already tried it.

Mark, I think that your ideas may struck gold. "Frankenstein Lures" ? Now this may be a brand name that every fisherman would like to try. It is a far more interesting name than Rapala, for instance Luretrekker, That's another wonderful lure. I think you had to spend weeks, or even mounths, to build a lure with lights inside. I also had this idea, but I do not know if this is worth the effort. Would be fish crazy about such a lure at night time? I think not. Thank you for your guidance in building such lures. Certainly, I will not stop testing such new lures for me, in case of a failure. I have a question for you. I have noticed that to some of your bananas you do not use just a split ring to attach the treble hooks. You also use a swivel, so the distance between the body and the treble hook increases. Do you have a reason for that? I think that you have. By lowering the position of the treble hooks, you also lower the center of gravity, and thus you increase the stability of the lure. Am I right?

Diemai & Luretrekker, I think you may consider yourselves as fully responsible for this thread going on ... As I said, I am not familiar with such type of lures. But you made me wanting to have some. So this is what I came up with: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas001.jpg They are made of poplar, which is tough yet light wood. I needed such a wood, because I understood that such lures may be unstable, so I needed to add some weight. They are 101 mm long (4"), and I draw the shape freehand, then I made a template, out of metal sheet, as I do for all my crankbaits. (I do not behave as an engineer, as Diemai does). I liked the ideea of Luretrekker about the hardware - to cut through the lip (head) part up to a certain point, but then I thought that if I continue with the wire all over the belly, up to the tail, it would be impossible for me to play with the placement of the weight. So I have chosen an intermediate solution for one of the lures. There is a short hole in the head of the lure, in which I glued the twisted wire end of the hardware, which then continues with 3 tow eyes, then goes underneath the lip and ends up in a single wire. There is a groove for the wire, all along it. After glueing the ends of the wire with 5 min epoxy, I used 2 part plumber's epoxy putty to fill in the groove. I have a very good quality putty, which is imported from Germany (brand name is Sun Fix). When using such putty, you have to make sure that the putty is well pressed into place. After cure, it sands nicely, better than epoxy. To the other lure, I used 3 holes in which I placed 3 twisted wire tow eyes. It was very difficult to drill the holes at a sharp angle without a drill press, one hole was off center, but I managed to enlarge a little bit the hole, and when glueing it I put it in the right position (centered). As the surface of the lip was not smooth after using epoxy, I sanded it, then I used epoxy putty and sanded it again. http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas002.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas003.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas004.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas005.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas006.jpg After sealing the lures, I tested them with the weight hanging from the belly, using electrical insulation tape: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas007.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas008.jpg In short, I could not use the top tow eye, because the lures would roll, and I was not extremely happy with the action in the case of the 2 other tow eyes (closer to the lip end). The lures would swing from one side to the other, more or less. I thought this way of testing the lures is not the best one, becase the tape and the flat side of the weight are significantly affecting the action. So I glued the weight with superglue: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas009.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas010.jpg This time the lures behave in a different way, to one of them I could even use the top tow eye, but they still have the swinging action from one side to the other. I think I will test some more locations for the lead (in the second way, using superglue), then I will put the weights in. I am sure that after this, the lures wil behave in a different action. And if I am not satisfied with it, I will try to add a small lip. But Diemai & Luretrekker also made it possible for me to make this creature: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas011.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas012.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas013.jpg http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas014.jpg And you know what? Out of these 3 lures, this one has the closest action to a usual crankbait. I think I will call this lure "Pterodactylus D&L", because Diemai and Luretrekker had a more important contribution than myself to the creation of this shape. Speaking of shapes, it crossed my mind that I may try this: http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k5/rofish_2006/rofish_2006-4/bananas015.jpg You could make it slimmer/taller, with/without a head, etc, as you like. I think this shape has the advantade that you can place the weight at the lowest points of the lure. I wonder it this shape has been tried before? Another idea came to my mind after seeing Luretrekker's "winner" (the lure which produced a nice pike for him). That lure has a scar on the nose, and I think it does not come from a pike, but rather from the encounter with rocks or gravel, or similar. I think I could make a protective cap for the nose, using clear plastic sheet, which you could wrap around the nose using heat. Just an idea. So Diemai & Luretrekker, this is all your fault:angry:

When speaking about difficulties that some may have in finding supplies, you could also consider that things are much worse for some. I simply could not find SS wire in my country. The only available SS wire here is welding wire which they sell in spools of 15 kg. That would be enough for my life multiplied by 3 or 4. So I got the wire from USA, Italy and Spain. A friend of mine went recently to Spain and he bought there for me a roll of 100 m (0.400 kg), 0.8 mm in diameter, for the shelf price of 18 euros. Quite expensive, isn't it? But it seems to be of a very good quality, and it is as hard as welding wire. This is the hardness I was looking for.

I am no specialist at all in swimbaits, but my guess is that the sides of your swimbait are too flat. There is a so called "Coanda" effect in relation with fluids, which says that a fluid has a tendency to flow very close over a surface. So if the water flows straight over the sides of the first segment, it will continue its flow straight over the sides of the second segment, and so on, without "knocking" on the next element to cause it swim. At higher speed, the water will knock stronger on each segment. But if you make the water flow on a curved surface of each element, it will also "knock" stronger on the next section. I repeat, this is just my guess.

Husky, I use a kind of paper which is very thin (actually it is packing paper) which has one side very smooth (silky) and the other side is absorbant. I print on the silky side, and all the ink stays there, or so it seems to me. Anyway, the results are very good.

Just saw what Palmetto Balsa said, and I couldn't agree more. 3 PMs are enough for me to be stored. And I can also upload pictures in the gallery again. So it is enough for me. I cannot read tutorials, but I don't need to. I have saved many of them in my computer. So bassman2008, if you need that tutorial, PM me your email address, and I will send it to you. I have it in word format. I also started photo finishing with the help of that tutorial, but I'll tell you that I needed about 2 years to obtain satisfactory results for me, and I am still learning. I may have changed the technique a little bit, but this will happen to anyone, I guess, after he has made a few (tens? hundreds?) lures.

OK, I got your ideas, so thanks Germany. But Diemai, why do you need a rather flat tail anyway, in your bananas, since you say that you have less chances to play with the action? So if a wider tail section (and not a taller than wider, as it goes for usual crankbaits) will make the lure flip over, then why do you need a wide tail section for?

LaPala, It seems that I have to learn many other things from you. I am not familiar with banana lures, had no time yet to make one (or more) for myself, but I will surely "dirt" my hands on them some day. I was already wandering about the action they have, especially after Luretrekker showed us his "winner", with the tow point close to the front edge of the lure. Now these Zalt lures have no lip part in front of the tow point, which make me believe that they might have a quite large swinging action left and right. They cannot have an "X" action, they would rather have a "V" action. Is my guess correct? Sorry for needing a quick answer () but I am just curious.

Diemai, Why are you trying to complicate things? If you want your swimbait to run deep, I think there is not a better method than to add a lip to it. What would be the problem in this case? Would you be ashamed that you have caught a pike on a wakebait instead of a swimbait? A lip would surely change the action of the lure, but perhaps it will be for the better.

If you use the printing foil technique, may I suggest a slight modification?

Juggernaut, Maybe this picture can help you more than words: Tackleunderground Home - Luremakers Photo Gallery - saved lure success

Diemai, Here there are also foil lids on yoghourt plastic glasses that are plain. But I choose to eat the brands of yoghourt or sour milk that are covered with textured foil, even though I don't like very much their taste. This is a burden that someone has to carry on his shoulders if he enjoys making lures I have seen large margarine packs covered with such foil, which would be suitable for large lures, but we do not eat many times margarine in our house, so I will not go so far