Vodkaman

The worst enemy of any topcoat, or lure for that matter, is direct sunlight. You would be amazed at the temperatures that can be generated. Sunlight seems to mess with the chemistry of topcoats and causes yellowing of the best of them. Worse still, it causes internal moisture expansion which can cause separation of the topcoat, and it will likely force an escape route, and even cause cracking. Once moisture finds a way out, water can find a way in. Protect your lures, you spent so much time creating them. Dave

For anyone interested, this is what my earliest prototypes looked like. They were not designed on CAD, I have just recently input onto CAD to see what I was up to back then. Somewhere hidden in this monster is the lure that I am looking for. This is not it so don't waste your time. Apart from the limited space in my tiny apartment and few hand tools, the materials I had were 3/4" balsa dowel, 1mm copper sheet and paper clips. Being Sweden, I could not find any lead sheet for ballast, and so used copper strips for the ballast and the lip, all held together with 5 min epoxy. Tools were; a small tenon saw, box cutter knife, a lecky drill with a few bits, tin snips and a hammer. I had emery cloth but it created too much mess which annoyed my landlord and it was very cold outside. From this simple prototype I learned a lot and even caught a few fish, mostly perch, but I did catch a VERY tasty sea trout. At that time I had already started the search for the elusive hunting action that everyone was talking about. It was acknowledged that it was something that could not be deliberately built, but occurred accidentally, caused by minor faults and imperfections in the build. Some even believed that it was something to do with the brass through harness wire used by one particular top builder. As you can see, I was experimenting with lip shapes. I went through a LOT of copper sheet. I did have some success and achieved some hunting action, but it was many years before I finally figured it out. It certainly wasn’t down to lip shape, what a relief! Have a good laugh Dave

LOL, good post Eastman03. This is important advice that has been validated on quite a few posts recently. It is a lesson that needs to be regularly posted so that new-commers to the site can pick it up. I was fortunate in my early days in that I only had a kitchen table in a tiny apartment and a few small hand tools, so finishing or even shaping lure bodies was definitely not on the menu. Just as well as there was a lot of firewood created. The second bit of advice' never throw a failure away until you have figured out what went wrong. Third; only ever change one thing at a time when trying to fix a problem, otherwise you will never know what worked and what didn't. You may even create another problem and think that both fix adjustments were wrong. Fourth; keep notes. Getting carried away here, I had better stop Dave

You have created a nice set of bodies. I suggest you stop the mass production now and concentrate on taking one body to completion. No paint or fancy carving. Fit the lip and ballast and all the hardware including rings and hooks. Test swim it. If all is good then proceed cautiously with small batches. So much can go wrong. Now is the time to learn those painful lessons with the minimum of effort invested. Good luck with your projects. Dave

PM me your email address and I will send you a copy. Dave

You definitely have the right mindset to achieve your project goals, you have knowledge and experience on your side. I quickly discovered in my early days of lure building that I was taking what I could get from results, I was NOT in control of the results. This obviously came from a lack of experience of the control factors and their effects. 14 years on and there are things that I am still trying to figure out. All those years ago, I got lucky and built a lure with the action I was looking for, really wild hunting, so severe that it looked like a predator might not be able to catch it. In 14 years I have never managed to reproduce that action. Rather than trial and error, I am searching for the answer through knowledge, experience, engineering and theory. I will get there in the end, but such a unique action is a big ask. I wish you luck with your lure. Dave

The purpose of this set of tools is to give the builder some indication of what they are going to end up with before cutting the shaped blank. It allows you a realistic look at the amount of ballast and prevents catastrophic errors of judgement. I have been thorough, but there is still enough fudge to make an actual suspending lure fairly unlikely, but it should get you close. Paint, hole sizes, glues, fillers, etc. all have an effect on the final result. Experience builders will likely frill the holes before carving, this too will have an effect. Even so, a slow sinker prediction is still very possible. It is amazing that even though some numbers look insignificant but they have a profound effect. The 0.1 density change is the difference between neutral and sinking at 10" per second. This is another useful aspect of the tool, it can teach the used the significance of certain parameters, it is a learning tool, you can gain experience without the pain. I have added a few more features: water density, useful for those that do sea fishing. Drop-down for selecting standard material densities. These can also be added to buy the user. Dave

Anglinarcher - Severe OUCH! Dave

I too am having problems. I can't post to the thread: 'Epoxy weight and/or density? Buoyancy spreadsheet questions'. Dave

I am having the same posting problem. I saved my text,so if this works now, I will go back and post. Postscript - OK, it worked Post postscript - nope, still cannot post on the other thread! Dave

Exx1976 - I was thinking 3D aesthetics also. Many use glitter in their final top-coat layer for the same reason. Dave

Thanks. I misread the file. I did this once before not too long ago. G10 has a density of 1.8g/cm³ here is a link. Later in the future, I will add drop-down menus that will allow you to choose a material and the density will be entered automatically. Dave

EXX1975 - I have now added a lip section. The idea is that you don't need to mess about doing side calculations. This is something that you are good at as you totally understand what is going on, but not everyone will. As with other boxes, a zero can be entered if no lip is required. Dave

Dgagner - true. If you were building a definite floater or sinker then the effect of the top-coat would not have much affect on the result. However, if you are skirting around neutral buoyancy, then the top-coat would play a significant role. The spreadsheet is designed such that if you do not want to enter topcoat data then you can enter a zero. The aim is to avoid the situation that Exx1976 had in another recent post were he 'winged' it and ended up with a bunch of sinking cranks. The system is designed to keep it simple and allow you to calculate how much ballast you will require before you start drilling holes. Another thing that is missing is lip data. Dang! I will have to enter a few more boxes now! Dave

I have fixed the 'sink / float rate calculator'. Float will give negative number. Added inches to the 'Ballast Hole Calculator'. Added a 'Wood Block density calculator'. The manufacturer specific gravity (density) for Etex lite is 1.15. Dave

Yes, I can go with those suggestions, after all, the spreadsheet only requires the volume and density of the topcoat. Obviously if you can measure your own density for the resin would be the best, but published numbers will do for most (MSDS sheet). I have just been looking at the float rate thing myself. I will address and fix it. Float rate is just as important. The "weight of body minus holes" box is a part of the calculation section that you need not concern yourself about. It calculates the volumes of ballast and internal hardware, subtracts it from the body volume and then re-calculates the the body weight. I have done the changes, here is a new pic. Dave

Your numbers are spot on in the 1st post; 105.1% float. Good job. Also, the numbers are correct on the 2nd post, once I got my head around them, again, good job. if you are going for a slight floater then 105% should give you enough wiggle room for Etex and still have a floater. Top-coat was always going to be the problem. I didn't add a top-coat section for fear of scaring everyone away, as it involved more numbers to be entered. But clearly (excuse the pun) a top-coat section is required. But now that you have scared everyone for me, I might as well build it in. 'Off the deep end', probably yes, but it was necessary. I will solve that problem for you. The problem of top-coats in my perfect world of 2 decimal place density calculations; is repeatability, any numbers are reliant on how good you are at applying top-coat. Having said that, an extra dab or three of epoxy is not going to spoil things that much. The work that you have done helps me a lot. I can see that I only need to add three boxes: 'Weight before top-coat' : 'Weight after top-coat' : 'Top-coat Density'. I have modified the spreadsheet accordingly and your numbers come in at 108.4% float. Email me again to remind me who to send the new file to, then let me know what you think. Dave

I could tell you that the rule is 'NEVER take a lure to completion without testing first', but I guess you already learned that gem. I build cranks. A big problem with shallow, steep lipped cranks is throwing. The crank is simply not aerodynamic. Cranks are designed not to be aerodynamic, we use the turbulence created in water (vortices) to make the lure waggle. The same happens in air except the lure tends to tumble, the hooks get line tangled, and the fly distance is usually disappointing. So, I tackled the problem using my aircraft engineering background and designed a lure with a hinged lip. The theory was that lip would move with the air and fly efficiently. It took a lot of prototyping, different materials, different designs, but I eventually arrived at a prototyped solution. I was pleased with the lure and proud of my achievement. So, it was off to the river in Gothenburg, Sweden where I was working. The water was only some 40 meters from my apartment. I was doing a lot of testing, so my rod was already assembled. I just clipped on the lure and threw it. I wanted to see something impressive, so I really gave it some 'welly' for maximum distance. Just as I was releasing the line, the bail-arm snapped shut, the clip knot snapped and the lure flew. Oh boy did that lure fly, it must have gone 75m or more, straight as an arrow with no tumbling. A total success. I did not know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both. And the moral - ALWAYS tie a fresh knot Dave

It was a popular coating at one time. I tried it myself but was not impressed. You should be able to find a post about plastic cups dissolved in acetone. This is basically the same thing. Dave

You MUST post in English language. Simply type your text into a translator then copy/paste into your post. I have done it for you this time: Hi everyone, I just joined this beautiful forum full of information. Before writing I used the search function but I did not find anything specific about what I would like to know. I make 3d baits and mold them with SLA printer, so far we are, I only have a doubt. If I wanted to apply the holographic foil, heating the bait softens, making it impossible to apply. So it fears the heat, which is not really good given the frequent exposure to heat of the bait especially in summer. At this point I should make the molds of the shells but making them do of the cables inside, I should also do the negative. Do you advise me to do it directly in 3D or with other methods? Silicone rubber for example? Also, what kind of resin should I use to avoid bubbles inside the mold and which can also reproduce the pins and holes to fit the two halves together? They are very small .. Less than 1 millimeter. Are there other methods to make molds?

As I said; great post. No problem here. Just let it flow Dave

All opinions are unsolicited, that is the point. When we post a question or an idea or what ever, we invite opinions, and opinions you received. You can agree or disagree with those opinions. This thread has developed WAY beyond the original post, so don't be using that as an argument about materials. Personally, I feel this has been a very positive and useful thread with lots of information and useful ideas. This thread is so good, has generated so much interest that it is half way down the second page, well beyond your initial tooling inquiries which were adequately answered in the first few replies. I strongly suggest that having gleaned your answers that you let the thread flow. I am pretty sure that I have expressed my views on materials enough, and further elaboration would be fruitless. Dave

Exx1976 - This post has drifted into alternative materials. This IS allowed. The original post highlighted specific problems with the use of wood, and alternate materials do address these problems. If you don't like plastics then fine, use wood. Personally I have room for both. All materials have positive and negative characteristics, there is no perfect material and wood does not even come close to perfection. It would be a shame to ruin your own post with a touch of animosity! Dave

Wood is just another material. Like all other materials, it has a density, mechanical properties, Cost, availability, finish properties and many more characteristics. Just because wood has been the material of choice for a few hundred years, does not make it the ideal choice today. The best quality lure is not determined by the material, but by its performance, its ability to catch fish. Even reliability comes second to performance, why else would anyone use delicate, fragile soft-baits, which catch more fish than hard-baits. Do not limit your opportunities to wood. If you prefer wood then go for it, but do not be making claims of a superior product based on materials. We must keep an open mind. Dave

I buy the 20g bottles of runny CA. They are incredibly cheap, sorry, cannot remember the price, I buy 10 at a time from local shops. They come with a very fine tube dispenser that never seems to clog, even after months. If I was making lots of lures, I would keep in a jar and dip. Dave