Vodkaman

Actually it was Phthmith, she had a lisp. Appologies Ice45, we've messed up your thread. Dave

Actually, Phthalates was a Greek lure designer, who invented an early form of plastic. His two brothers also gained fame, Phthilateles introduced the first postal system and Phthlatulates discovered beans as a source of nutrition. Dave

Would a bulldog clip do the job. I know you can get them in very small sizes. Would keep the eye hole clear. Dav Ignore, silly idea.

That is good thinking. Out of the box, as Pete would say. Dave

Yes, a few different ways of doing it. I am currently using the edges of the bandsaw plate, I can control the slot width (two cuts) and the depth, with stops. But my bodies are not consistent enough, so still experimenting. Dave

Because your blanks are consistant in size, you should be able to make a jig. Here is a link to the method that I use. It works and costs very little. it is quick and if you don't get it right first time, have another go. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/20271-lip-slot-jig/page__p__151196__hl__bondo__fromsearch__1#entry151196 Dave

I was going to mention the bucket thing, but you beat me to it. Here is a link: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/16110-balsa-filler-wire-and-assembly-questions/page__p__122166__hl__bucket__fromsearch__1#entry122166 Read it all, as I mention barrel twist in a later post. This proved to be a much more effective twist than a regular twist. In the pull test, the regular twist pulled out of its resin setting. I cannot remember the fail load, but it was high enough not to be concerned about, but the barrel twist did beat it convincingly. Dave

Your theory is spot on. A 1/4" dia plug has more than 3/4" of glue surface, so the screw eye would pull out of the lead long before the lead plug would be disturbed. Dave

My bet is that the designer is reading this and having a right chuckle. Have to admit, I didn't see the lip first time around, but seems to me to be unnecessary, but I guess we should leave that for now. Your head looks like it has a lot of movement. Maybe too much, causing it to 'dig in' rather than guide. Is it possible to restrict the side movement, maybe with a couple of blobs of hot glue. Dave

Mark, I have not seen that one before, very impressive. So simple, yet no one has done it before. Great design. When I first saw the pic, I thought that the head was going to shake side to side. But after seeing the vid, it is obvious that the head gets stuck on one side, until the pause, then the head moves to the other side and repeat. It is the same forces that act on the lure when you 'walk the dog' or when you twitch a multi segment swimbait. But walk the dog, if you continue winding, the lure will pull straight, WTD only works on a jerky retrieve. What result did you get off the first proto? How about a pic of what you have done so far. My guess would be that you have compromised with the flat head and not made the edges really sharp, because of the epoxy pulling away thing. Try gluing a thin lexan plate on the head, with filed sharp edges. Use a soft glue so that it can be removed if unsuccessful. Try a few different widths/lengths of plate. This can all be done at the waters edge, with a rubber cement. Dave

So sorry Pete, somehow I totally missed your post No21. It is possible to predict the ballast to get close to neutral buoyancy. You can accurately predict the density of your body by measuring the length, breadth and depth of your stock (centimeters) and weigh the stock on a digital gram scale. Divide the weight (grams) by the volume of the stock (cm3) gives the density. You then weigh the body after carving is complete. Divide the weight of the body by the density that you calculated, this gives you the volume of the body. Knowing the volume of the body tells you how much weight that body must weigh for neutral buoyancy, eg, if the volume is 21cm3, then for neutral buoyancy, the body must weigh 21 grams. Simple huh! But from here on in, it gets messy. You are going to add a lip, harness or screw eyes, hooks split rings, paint, top coat and ballast. The hardware is easy to deal with, because you can weigh it. Even the paint and the top coat can be measured on the first build, by weighing before and after and making notes. Here are the problems or the things that you probably did not take into account: 1. cutting holes and slots for ballast, eye hardware and lips. You are removing light body material and replacing the volume with the denser material. This has to be taken into account. 2. everything that sits outside the original carved body (paint, top coat, hooks, split rings, lip protrusion, eye protrusion), is increasing the volume of the final lure and thus increasing the final weight of the lure to achieve neutral buoyancy. So your original estimation of 21 grams goes up to say 22.5 grams, so the ballast has to be re-calculated. The main offender is the volume increase from the epoxy top coat, this is very significant. 3. consistency when applying top coat. There are solutions to all the above, but it doesn’t really work unless you are building a series of lures, so that the relevant information can be collected on the first build, mainly the weight of the paint and epoxy application. On the second build, weigh out the exact amount of epoxy plus a tad to allow for the waste left in the cup. This is about as accurate as you can get. You have all the information on the lip material, hooks, split rings etc, so with the use of a spread sheet to do the sums for you, it is possible to get very close. This will get you to a slow sinker or floater. If you want something that actually hovers or suspends, you will usually have to fine tune after the build. This is basically how I build the first two lures of a run. On the first build I collect the information, the second build I apply the information and check that I am close. All subsequent builds all I have to do is weigh the carved body and can calculate the ballast straight away, even if the wood is denser or lighter. I can control the amount of ‘float’ of the final lure. I like about 10% to 15% lighter than neutral buoyancy. For just building floaters, I do not get involved with the finer details of the above, but the epoxy volume, I do. Question now is, “do I press the post button”? Well, the question was asked, this is my answer. Pete, haven’t built the Thien separator yet. But when I do, I will be going with the side mounted inlet and mounting the shop vac in a bucket int the lid, so the entire unit is self contained. Here is a link to my design: http://www.cgallery....php?topic=375.0 Dave

Welcome to TU Brad. Nice work on the knives. That is at least one item you will not have to buy. Figure out how much you want to spend and keep in mind the other items that go along with the airbrush, compressor, hoses, water trap, spray booth (home construction), lighting etc. Iwata is a popular quality brand amongst lure builders, but their are others. Dave

Mark, no problem here, I just wanted to try and rescue this thread. I have asked Jerry if he could split the thread and insert this subject into a new thread in the docks section. I think it could be a valid discussion, not necessarily one I would be looking forward to, as I am very passionate about what I do and the way I do it. As a design engineer, tech is a way of life. Hardly a moment goes by without me thinking of some project or idea that I am working on, fishing lures is only a fraction of what I am involved in. This week, I have been working on a new type of turbo charger design, just got back from a shopping expedition to buy parts for the first prototype. I have drawn up plans for a ten piece cast iron production mold for a poured aluminium table, prototype complete and successful, have sales outlet waiting on this one. I have an invention in the early design process for an idea that could revolutionize the motorbike industry, can't give details. This morning I swam the first prototype of a baby sunfish body, moderate success, should have it nailed on the next build and a bit of techy analyzing. Also just done a couple of experiments with Husky’s silicon sealant. So you see, that a negative discussion on the relevance of tech in lure building would be hard for me not to take it personally, but I will try, but what ever the general opinion expressed, I cannot and will not change. I already pander to the anti tech lobby more than I probably should. For every techy post I make I have probably binned two more, out of prudence. Whittler, I would love to have that day of shop talk. I am sure it will happen one day, when one of my projects pays out and I can finally afford to cross the pond and meet some of you guys. As for the volcano, Merapi. It is two hundred miles away, but we are starting to get a thin film of ash on everything. Ironically, I was within a couple of weeks of moving to Yogyakarta, the city that sits in the shadow of Merapi. A lot of our customers and business contacts are based there, so it makes sense. I think the move will happen, but we have postponed the move until Merapi calms down a tad. Yogya is a volatile place to call home. It is subject to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis on the coast. It is not such a big deal, you just have to choose your location carefully, south side of the city and away from the coast, choose a small bungalow, not a high rise apartment building. On the positive side, property rental is a sixth of what it is in Bandung, a 3 bedroom house with garage, $500 per year. You can Google news ‘Merapi’ to see what is going on. Dave

CK, I am truly sorry that you find techy posts so offensive. I have read all your posts and conclude that you are indeed a reasonable guy, very helpful and informative in your postings. I am sure that you don’t really want to bitchslap me, but if you did, you would probably have to get inline with all the other guys who hate techy posts. Taking account of your username, relying heavily on the cost of airfare and the fact that I reside some 12,000 miles away, I am not going to be deterred and will continue to contribute tech if I see relevance. Best advice is not to read my postings. To help you filter out the offending literature, I shall include the word ‘tech’ as early as possible in the first sentence, so that you may skip my techy contribution. To be honest, I expected more members to jump in here with full support for your tech outrage. But they probably recognized the tech content from the title and skipped it. I do actually understand your feelings, you are not the first to express them. It is actually something I do consider very hard, before posting tech and usually expect to receive some negative feedback. Sometimes I am very surprised and get none, even positive feedback for my work. No offence should be taken now, but I am really hoping that Jerry will delete your post and the subsequent replies from this perfectly good thread, which I suspect is now well and truly destroyed. If this happens, you should start a new thread in the docks and lets all have a healthy heated debate on the subject. Dave

It is better than Scunthorp. Dave

Cliff, you are making progress, lots of experimentation is going to produce a few apparent failures. I say apparent, because they were not total failures, you actually learned from the experience and therefore made progress. Bondo (polyester car body filler) is a very good material to have around. It takes away the fear of removing too much material when shaping. A thin layer of bondo puts the material back and you are sanding again in 30 minutes. Dave

First off, the baits look great. The work that has gone into them is clearly visible. The only thing that I can think of that is preventing the tail from kicking, is the tow eye location. Close to the lip, it is located for maximum action. I can imagine an agressive action from the front section, but the tail section cannot follow it and so it just kind of folds in the middle, with the tip of the tail hardly moving. I think that you need to reduce the action of the front section, by moving the tow eye forward, away from the lip. The vortices from the lip will still be strong and travel down the sides of the lure. The reduced action of the front section will allow the rear section time to 'kick' out more, under the influence of the vortices from the wide lip. It would be easy to test this idea without having to modify the bait, by taping a loop of wire to the nose, a bit like an eye on your fishing pole. Still tying to the original tow eye (don't want to lose the creation). Try different tow positions, their will be an optimum eye location for the best 'kick'. This is just opinion based on theory, take it or leave it. I like the bottom square lip in the pic, for this lure. Dave

I use fizzy drinks cans in the same way. Can get half a dozen goes from each can before discarding. Perfect size and no hiding places for unmixed epoxy to spoil your application. Dave

Can you post a pic in this thread, I did not find the two piece in your gallery. This might help identify the problem. Dave

You are trying to make a resin master, to tidy up and make future molds. This is a good idea and have done similar in the past, so that I could do multi-cavity molds from one master. I cannot say that it will not work because I have not tried polyester resin in a PoP mold. A hard cast from a hard mold is a recipe for disaster, as the cast could lock everything up. Having said that, you do have a chance because poly resin does shrink a bit. So you could go ahead and try it, but accept the chance that you might lose your mold. I agree with Nova, poly resin clings to just about everything. I have had success with floor wax, the kind used for polishing tiled floors. But I would imagine any type of heavy wax would do the job. Start off with a thicker coat for safety, if it works, thin it out later. You can improve the surface finish with a heat gun, to smooth the wax surface. As for sealing the dried PoP mold, consider thinned epoxy. You do have to seal, or the resin will get into the PoP and it will be 'game over'. Bake the mold at the lowest temp possible and wedge the oven door open an inch or two. If you bake too hot and/or too long, the PoP will start to convert back to its original form and turn powdery. If you have scales, you are looking for 30% to 35% weight loss. so if your wet mold weighs 300 grams, your dried mold should weigh 195 - 210 grams. I would go for 210 grams (0.7 x wet weight). You should post the results, positive or negative, so that we can all learn from your experience. Dave

I think injection with a very slightly cracked (slightly open) mold, so the air can vent out. I don't think vacuum would solve the problem, without having to vent every rib. Just my thoughts on the job. Dave

Rofish, I use all the theory too, I find that it helps, in fact I cannot stop thinking theory all the time. Theory is what I do, but I would not want anyone to think that theory is anywhere near essential to lure design, it is just another way of going about things and you still have to test the theory. We have already established that lures are way too complicated to put numbers on, I already tried that several years ago. Even the fancy fluid dynamic programs cannot help with lure design, because they can only handle static objects in a flow. A lure is a dynamic object, continually moving in the flow, The software cannot cope when the goal posts keep moving. Lure theory is just understanding a few basic principles, understanding vortices around the lip, understanding buoyancy and weight distribution. It can help explain why a lure doesn't swim and guide you towards a solution without having to aimlessly try everything. Lure building experience gives you the exact same knowledge without the fancy words. In my early days of lure design, I did not have the experience to fall back on and wanted to understand how things worked. This was a good plan and it helped me find/predict some different movements/actions, which is something that only blind experimenting can do. But after about four years of building, I find that I have a 'feel' for the lure and can get a new design to swim how I want it by instinct and experience. It is hard to build a lure that doesn't swim now, which was not my experience at the start. I had a point to make when I started typing, but have lost it, so will probably have to post again, probably those damaged brain cells playing up. Many members get irritated about my theorizing and I can understand that, each to his own. I find the theory side interesting and rewarding, especially on the rare occasion that it gives me something new. I believe their is a lot left to be discovered in the sea of lure design. Discover it with theory or blind luck? I'll stick to theory thanks. Dave

This is so true. Fortunately, this experimenting and prototyping, is my favorite part of lure design. I am just off to my friends pool, to test a handful this afternoon. Dave

Actually, Bandung is a big city. Look it up on google earth. Dave