rofish

If the fins do not fit your requirements, I think you can post the pictures anyway, because someone might come up with some ideas to improve the process. No need to be shy

How many threads about lure turners do we have on TU? Pikeman, I think you waste time, putting your head to work about a false problem. It is obvious to me that head to tail rotation of the lure should be avoided. Let's put it this way: in such a case, epoxy would have the possibility to travel a longer distance until it "settles down". And it could gather around more in some areas compared to others. So belly to top rotation is the one to choose (JMHO). But further on, there might be a problem about which nobody seems to care. I have seen big wheels, with 2 rows (maybe 3 sometimes) of attaching points. These rows are in fact circles. This kind of big wheel should be avoided. The further the lure is situated from the shaft axis, the best chances you have that the epoxy sets unevenly. Theoretically, the best lure turner has only one lure to rotate, and that lure is situated in line with the shaft of the motor (like in the case of a single lure which you would clamp into a hand drilling machine). But nobody would like to have a turner designed to turn a single lure at a time. So you must choose a compromise. I think that between the 2 wheels of the turner you should attach 3, maximum 4 lures, as close to the shaft as possible. And if you need more than that, I think you should attach a third wheel, in line with the other 2. By the way, your drawing should be understood as having the shaft all the way between the 2 discs, I think. The second disc will not be driven by the first one, through the lures you will attach in between. (Pardon my ignorance in technical drawing).

I also use a thinner to thin the epoxy. The thinner contains acetone, toluene and something else I don't remember. My foiled crankbaits look better if I use thinned epoxy. After the first coat, I need to sand the epoxy, to smooth out the surface, then I apply a second coat of thinned epoxy, which will smooth out any irregularity of the surface. But the main benefit of thinning Devcon 2 ton is that your working time with the stuff is tripled or so. I also use an ancient hair dryer which is not very good for hair drying but is perfect for epoxy. It blows out little air compared to modern hairdryers, but the air is hotter. Thinned epoxy and the hairdryer means for me no air bubbles at all in the epoxy. So indeed, you do not really need to mix epoxies to thin them, but I think it is doable. I also remember that someone on the board has mixed Devcon and Etex (a guy in Holland, I guess), and he claimed very good results. Since the specialists in epoxy do not tell you what is the best way to mix epoxies, (your intention to do it or BobP's suggestion) I think you have to try them both.

I just want to tell everyone that my first turner had an old microwave motor with 15 rpm, and I had no problems whatsoever using it. The epoxy was not spitted on the ceiling and it leveled out great. Now I use a 5 rpm motor, which is also great. I think that if you apply, by mistake, too much epoxy on the lure, a higher speed motor than 1 rpm is more likely to solve out your mistake for you.

I always shave the lip at one side before I try bending the tow point. I know, I know, that it is much easier to bend the wire than to shave the lip, but I like to have a good looking tow eye (I mean straight). So when a crankbait has a tendency to pull to the right, for instance, it means that the surface of the lip on the right side ( the right hand half of the lip) is bigger that the left half, so you need to trim the lip on it's right side. When the perfectly symmetrical lip has a slight angle to the left or right, things are a little bit more complicated.

Sorry about the motor V-man. It can happen to anyone. What I want to tell you is about how I used that half moon drive shaft. I just glued some rubber (gasket) material on that missing part of the shaft, then I sanded it around, so that I replaced the missing part with gasket material. I left the diameter in that part just about 0.2 - 0.3 mm bigger than the shaft, and now I just push the disc into the shaft. The disc has in its center a wheel attached to the disc, and the wheel has a hole with the exact diameter as the shaft. The friction the rubber creates is enough to transmit the rotation from the shaft to the disc. And I can simply push out the disc from the shaft if I want to. The wheel is very light, it is formed by 2 CDs, with 4 gasket discs glued between them.

Diemai, That lure is also food for thought. I refer here to that cup shaped bottle cap. Imagine picking up some water in a cup from a water tank, by moving the cup along the surface of the water. If the cap can create a wobble like that to a totally unhydrodinamical piece of cork, why couldn't it be used for poppers?

Maybe not so crazy perhaps. But I think it would have helped you better if you were a construction engineer. I will refer to your first idea only. What if you would make a parallel between epoxy mixture and concrete? If you mix cement and water you will come up with a tough material, but if you also add gravel and sand, the resulting material (concrete) is even tougher. So instead of adding flour to epoxy, why not thinking of adding sand (washed and dried) ? If for some reasons you don't want to use epoxy putty (and I guess that epoxy putty can also be mixed with sand - may be worth a trial), then the epoxy-sand mixture could be a perfect strong filler for the wire channel. You can get a handful of sand for free, and it may last your needs for half a year perhaps. If you think that this mixture would add too much weight to the lure, I think that things can be solved out in many ways - I don't want to write them all just now. But I think that the mixture will not be too heavy, provided that the channel is made right. Usually a kilogram of wife cost more than a kilogram of flour, so be careful about using flour for luremaking

No, it isn't. It is much further to the tip of the lip. That lure has no chance to wobble, as it is now. I also think that the thickness of lexan is too big for that lure. The lip is not so big, compared to the crankbait, so putting a line tie there is not a good choice. The part of the lip that gives most of the action to a crankbait is the one situated in front of the line tie. Make a test. Keep the lure by the tow point with 2 fingers, and with the other hand try to "wobble" the crankbait using the tip of the lip. You will notice how hard it is to do that. Water will have the same problem when trying to make the lure "wobble". I think that my idea with the bending of the lip will not work in this case. I assumed that the tow point is at the middle of the lip, and I was also hoping that the lip was bigger.

You also need to know what your lure will finally be, a floating or a sinking one. Since you say your wakebait is small, a second coat of epoxy for the sealing, together with the final coat of epoxy, may make the difference between floating and sinking. But it also depends on other factors, wood density, weight, etc.

It seems I am not familiar with the new way to make quotes. The ones I wanted to point out are the following: 1) It sits in the water perfect 2) I'm thinking I'm way over weighted on the bait

[quote It sits in the water perfect I'm thinking I'm way over weighted on the bait. These 2 statements do not go too well together. I'm sure the lure is not overweighted, it is mainly a matter of lip angle, if anything else is OK. This happened to me many times. this situation is due to a number of factors, but the first thing you have to check (and modify) is lip angle. The lip and the tow point form the main lever in a crankbait. My guess about how you should fix the problem, based on your description (a picture would be much more helpful) : you should bend the lip downwords, not the whole lip, since the tou point is on the lip, but part of it. Since the lip is lexan, dip the part of the lip which you want to bend in hot oil. The temperature of the oil is critical, too high, and bubbles will appear in the lip. You may need several bending trials to get that lure work right.

Marlake, I just want to help Vodkaman in his strive to help you out. Using the search engine, I found something which might be of interest to you, especially if you are going to paint a large number of lures: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/9858-easy-method-to-paint-scales/page__hl__both%20side%20scales__fromsearch__1 PS: I dont speak English too well.

Diemai, About the tail section... Why aren't you able to paint and clearcoat this section together with the others? I would simply put a small wire eye at the middle of the rear part of the tail. After clearcoating, I could cut off the wire eye, then put some clear in that spot. But I would prefer to leave the wire eye there. I wouldn't mind having that eye there. Fish wouldn't mind either, that's for sure. Besides, you could attach something to that eye, if you think your chances to hook a fish would increase this way. If you know of anyone who would oppose the idea of having the eye there, let me know his contact data. I will talk him into droppind the idea

You would surely get more action with a lip that has a bigger angle. But then, maybe the lure will not reach the depth you want it to swim. Another option (and this is a guess) would be that you extend somehow the front of the lip, because it seems to me that the tow point should be a little more towards the nose, to get more action from the part of the lip situated in front of the tow point. But since everything is already glued in, I would try to extend the front of the lip, using, for instance, some thin PET material, to see what happens. You could put the material on both sides of the lip, and, using heat, or just glue, you could make a sort of glove at the tip of the lip, to extend it. If it doesn't work, you just take it out.

I choose a lip for each crankbait I make, by testing several types, on the bank of the river. I have noticed that the action or the depth has very little (if nothing) to do with the fact that the lip is round, square, or coffin, for comparable sizes, of course. But other unusual types of lips (half moon, for instance)do change the action of the lure in most cases. On the other hand, what changes greatly the action or depth is the angle of the lip, (I have also used bent lips, meaning I have changed the angle of the lip), the distance between the tow point and the lip (I have used 2 tow eye twisted wire) and the surface of the lip. A shallow lure has more to do with the angle of the lip than with any other variable. But there are other things to take into consideration, as BobP pointed out. For example, a shallow diver is generally more buoyant than a deep diver.