Vodkaman

Light some paper under it and create some smoke, so you can see what is happening. Dave

cheap brushes from a local shop. I don't know what kind they are, wooden handle, straw coloed bristles, fairly stiff. I don't have problems with the bristles comming out, but give new brushes a good wet scrub on a brick or rough surface. I clean my brushes by first squeezing out excess on an old rag. I dip in regular thinners and brush hard on a rough cut piece of timber, repeat about ten times. Renew the thinners and repeat again. Cleaning takes no more than two minutes. I cannot find decent quantities of acetone, but the thinners does the job just fine. Dave

Polyester resin (fibreglass resin) is readily available and should be good for a couple of hundred pours. Dave

Once it is cured and shaped, coat it with CA glue. This will strengthen and water proof it. Just my thoughts. Dave

I was using CA glue mixed with micro balloons, but my new brand of CA glue dries too quick to allow this. Now I am using bondo filler. Dave

Good observation and you are correct, the over generous play in the hinges allows the segments to roll more. Since this thread died, I have continued testing. I have built ten swimbaits and tested numerous variations/combinations and nine hinge variations. I have even designed a new hinge. Still, the goal of building a swimbait with zero head shake and zero roll eludes me, but I am getting close. The single jointed rear segment does give a false representation of the amount of roll, but the roll forces are there, otherwise it wouldn't flop from side to side. I have since changed the body design to incorporate two hinges in the rear joint. This reduced the appearance of the roll, but it is still there. I have more ideas that I want to test, but to be honest, I got tired of having to carve the bodies. It takes 90 minutes to prepare and carve each body and this became tiresome, knowing that it is only going to swim up and down my test tank about 20 times and then retire. It is doubly frustrating having a duplicator machine next to were I work, but it was only designed for small cranks upto 5" length. So I have shelved the swimbait testing while I design and build a new duplicator machine, this time with a 15" length capacity and a half depth capacity of 2.6", this should cover all my future swimbait needs. Once this is built, I will be much happier to turn out a new body for an insignificant or low possibility test. My personal goal remains to build zero roll and zero head shake. I am starting to think it may not be 100% possible, but I will get as close as I can. Dave

I still think that you are heading for trouble trying to drill long holes with a 1/16" diameter bit. I would go bigger, seal the hole with epoxy and fit eyelets or cup washers to centre the wire and tidy up the ends. You need more input and advice on this. Dave

My opinion is that it will work. Worst case, if it doesn't is that you have to change the motor for a slower one. Do a test piece first, before trying your hard work. Don't forget to report back. Dave

You are not missing it. I remember that feature, but the system has changed since then. Dave

CA glue holds well on this material. Use a pin to apply to the crack. Dave

Rick - thanks for your help. I just tried a few more experiments, using the agar with glycerin. It is close. Crystal clear, good flexibility, density only a shade denser than water, but still no tear strength. such a shame really. Well, at least I have something to play with, for soft bait experiments and prototypes. I have tried the conjak powder route, about a year ago. I could not get it to work. I could not find one of the components necessary, calcium hydroxide. I tried to make my own from egg shells, but could not get it to work. Will circle back to this when I find the lime water. The pectin and kappa look interesting. I will have a read and have put a note in my wallet for when I am out shopping. Dave

Anything that you add a hardener to involves a chemical reaction and bloxygen will not help you. Bloxygen blocks the oxygen from the substance you are protecting. So paints, moisture cure top coats etc or anything that reacts with oxygen, is protected by bloxygen. Dave

Rick – thanks for the information. I will see if I can find corn syrup, I don’t remember seeing it on the shelves. I will then have a read, to find out how to get the sorbitol extracted. I was right, gelatin is not readily available, as Muslims are not allowed to consume products that were derived from pig. This brings my gelatin experiments to a halt. I did find agar agar. Sold in 10 gram packets, it works similar to gelatin powder. I had to add 4x the water, to get a pour able liquid. The result was a white opaque solid with a little elasticity, but when you try to explore the elasticity, the tail snaps off. This is a great pity, as you could get a lot of baits from one packet, twenty packets would make a gallon, which would cost $5.60 and this price would come down if I could find it in larger quantities. I tried a 50:50 mix with gelatin. The result shared the properties of each, slightly opaque, more flex, but tore very easily. I am going to have to have a street party for all the kids, to get rid of all this jelly now. Dave

If you are going with the screws, you need at least one inch of screw in the wood, 1.25" would be better. There is not a lot of wood around the nose and tail, if a fish gets leverage it could break out. So your screw gauge is likely to be bigger again. You will have to drill out the prop to suit or make your own prop. If you through drill, you will be able to use the wire intended for the prop. You would through drill at leas 5/32" diameter and the drill length only needs to be half the length of your lure body plus a bit more for the chuck. I think beads next to the prop would be better than washers. I have to be careful here, I have never built one of these. Dave

You do not have to go through wire. If I was making this bait, I probably wouldn't either. I think the original was through wired, so assumed that you would be doing the same. Rob - the personal avatar is not available to me either, so it is not post related. I have mine purely because it was in place before the system changed. Dave

Good job on free handing those bodies, they look nice. Have you done the through drilling yet? If not, read up on it first. Would be a shame to spoil all that work. Personally, I do the through drilling as soon as I can in the process, certainly before shaping. Less stressful. Dave

Great job on the video. That looked like a lot of fun. Dave

Also, you have very little wire sticking out above the lip. This looks very neat, but you have left nothing for sideways tuning. Your lip alignment and hole drilling will have to be perfect for the bait to run straight. But this has nothing to do with the two eye arrangement. Nice bait. Dave

While your at it, read up on heat setting. Buy your wife a new hair dryer and steel the old one. This will side step a few problems, both with your wife and the top coat thing. Dave

I couldn't find anything on the web to help the situation, apart from adding vodka to the mix I tried the cooking oil. As I suspected, the gelatin would not absorb it. Ended up with what looks like a half eaten toffee. Also discovering what a pain paddletails are to pour. Using a split tube mold, there is no opportunity for venting. There always seems to be one bubble to spoil the pour. Next to try is agar agar, which is a vegetarian equivalent of gelatin. I think I may have had problems finding gelatin here anyway, seeing as it is made from pig skin. Agar agar works at slightly higher temperatures, so this might help, but I won't be placing any bets. I really need to find a solution for this, as there is no source of soft plastic here that I know of. Dave

I soaked the bait for ten minutes, to see how much water it absorbed. The weight increased from 16.5g to 18.2g, that is 10% in 10 minutes. But what is worse, is the bait became very floppy and started falling apart in my hands. Totally unusable as a bait. Gelatine is a water based substance and offers no resistance to further water absorbtion. I will try cooking oil next, but think it unlikely that the genatine will work with oil. Other than this, I am out of ideas. Dave

A generous offer indeed. A couple of problems though: the mold is designed for injection with a small hypo syringe (needle removed), so the gate is only 2mm diameter. Secondly, the postage is $41.90 to the USA. Unfortunately, the gelatine is heavier than water and the bait sinks like a stone. I did the Archimedes dunk test to determine the density and it was approximately 1.2gm/cm3. I say approximately, because the numbers changed rapidly in a very short time, as the bait absorbed water. This is going to be a problem, as even if you produce a minimum water content lure with good elasticity and tear strength, if it sucks up water, it will lose those qualities. More tests to be performed. Dave

Here's a pic of the 100% glycerin: After an hour in the double boiler and no progress, I let it cool for further examination. All the bubbles from stirring remained, forming a carpet on the sirface. The rest of the body was opaque. Tear resistance and elasticity were very good. The fish probably would not mind opaque, but I want translucent. I think the trick is going to be to find the minimum water to dissolve the powder and make the rest with glycerine, but I suspect even with theminimum, tear is going to be a problem. I will keep trying, I have 4 packets left. Dave

Ben, the heat shrink does not behave like plastic. Even red hot, you still have to press to get the nail to penetrate. I just tried it. I was surprised that there was only very slight shrinkage, but as a means of control of the cut, it did not work. Dave