Vodkaman

The temptation is to progress your first creation right to the end, with a fabulous paint job and a nice glossy top coat. Only to find that it swims like a pigs tail and is only good for the display cabinet. If you did this, you would not be the first, I did it as did many of the members here. In fact, if the first one works, either you have done your homework or it is a fortunate occurance. There are lots of features that can be adjusted to affect the performance of the built lure, the main ones being eye location, lip size, weight position. Two of these can be adjusted at the waters edge, namely lip size and eye position. By making the lip larger than you think is correct, it can be trimmed down with simple hand tools, I invested in a battery Dremel drill, this makes the job very easy. The second adjustment, the eye position, can be achieved by making the eye loop stick out about 3/8 inch. It looks ugly, but we are only dealing with a prototype. You will be amazed at the effectof bending the eye up or down. When it swims how you want it, you can go back to the workshop and build your first lure with confidence. The next tip is to keep notes of every thing, the adjustments, lip measurements and there effects. Don't throw the failures away, sit and stare at them until you know exactly what went wrong. If you cannot work it out, post a pic and ask for help. The best tip of all, is to have fun. If it is not your style, none of the above is compulsory. ENJOY.

Yes, a lot of stuff was lost. But, to be honest, you will get a lot more satisfaction and knowledge if you get stuck in and design your own. All the information is here under the search function. If you cannot find something, just ask and the answer will be delivered. What kind of baits are you contemplating, wooden cranks, plastics or wire baits, not to forget fly tying?

You're making me home sick!

http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9826&highlight=upload This is a link to a recent brief discussion on the subject. I upload to aol.com (photo's only) and photobucket for photo's and video's. Google 'photobucket', it takes a few minutes to register and it's free. You can start uploading straight away. Hope this helps, good luck and welcome.

BBC. It sounds very do-able to me, well at least to get in the ball park. Reading your post again, I am assuming that you have written the spreadsheet and it is working out OK. My problem is measuring the volume, which will obviously be part of your calculations also. I can get close with jars and tubes, so how are you doing the measurement, or are you using lab equipment. Can you suggest a home made aparatus. This requirement would help in the hard baits section also, as they often play around with zero sink rate lures. This request is not a hijack attempt, I think it is valid and relevant to the subject.

Well, I was doing final testing on your baits to make sure they were running perfectly before delivery, when a giant musky grabbed the lure and scuffed the finish. I need a couple of days to re-do the top coat for you.

Lazaro wrote an interesting tutorial within a thread on rattles a while back. It may give you an idea or two. http://www.tackleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8083&highlight=rattle When you find a solution, publish it here for all.

This touches on a thread from a couple of months ago. The general concensus then was, if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing. But I think that the regular readers of this site are experienced and knowledgeable enough to be able to read between the lines when negative comments are made about supply or service companies. Bravepiper, I totally agree, we should all have more respect for those amongst us brave enough to go full time, sacking the old 9-5 guaranteed income job, to persue an income doing something that they enjoy, even though it usually means a drop in living standards.

Great article Del, it needed saying. If I was asked to model a complex shape like a frog or a craw, I could see it taking et least ten hours to model on CAD and It would cost a lot more than $175!!!

It seems to me that the most likely place for a water breach would be the eyelets. The breach would not be visible to the human eye, but it is the part of the lure that undergoes the most stress under load. The surface of the metal is generally very smooth and polished. Although in many posts we have established that the lure is best not handled for good paint adhesion, I suspect that the same attention may not be given to the metalwork. The metal should be degreased in acetone to remove finger grease. The metal that comes into contact with the top coat could be scraped with a craft knife or similar. This would give the top coat something to bind to. Great care should be taken when cleaning excess epoxy from the eyes. This process should be done well after the epoxy has cured, even though it is easier while the epoxy is still soft. It is also easy to disturb the seal around the smooth metal. These are just my thoughts on the subject, would be interested to hear more opinions on the subject of leakage, as it seems to affect many builders judging on the number of related sealing posts.

INCULCATE!!! Nice one, I had to look that one up.

B75' I just checked out the gallery for your work. This scale technique, was it used on the 'newest redbreast' lure? It looks very good, in fact all your work looks excellent. Thank's for sharing.

Has anyone built an agitator for PoP moulding. I had in mind a small cheap battery operated motor with a piece of wood epoxied to the spindle, slightly offset. The motor is firmly fixed to the tray. The offset load will set off a vibration strong enough to free the bubbles and leave you hands free.

Lumpy and bitter!!!?

Best cancel the golf club membership, you won't have time. Welcome and enjoy.

I think it is great. The general rule of steep angle for shallow swim and shallow angle for deep swimmers is a good guide, but not the whole story. It's all about balance. Your solution will certainly help when it comes to casting and the good width of the lip will really shift the water for a wide action. Congratulations on a beautiful job Hoosie.

It still could be true. The same physics that apply to the water are applied to the plastic. The changes in density for diferent materials vary like metals expanding at diferent rates, so there could be an overlap. There are lots of density tables available on the WWW for water, but may need a bit of research to find the equivalent for the plastic that you are using. Do some experiments and post the results. The results will be interesting and valid for this site.

Heavy subject!!

Don't feel bad BobP, I nearly backed the whole thing up with calculations, no wonder I couldn't get them to work!

That thing must weigh half a pound by now. Glad you got it sorted.

Smirkplug and Rofish. Very sorry but I have not been able to view your video's. Rofish, yours asks for software to be down loaded, I tried twice but still no success. This is very frustrating. Interesting trade offer but it does not seem fair as the mermaids are free (generally), I don't want to rip you off. It is hardly re-inventing the wheel, as no one on TU has been able to explain or consistently reproduce the action, according to everything that I have read. But it does not surprise me that a few have found it. Personally, I considered it a challenge to solve the enigma and I am feeling very pleased with myself. Longball. This one has a 60 deg lip and therefore is a top water bait. On a long cast it would probably achieve 3 - 4 feet depth. But there is no reason why the principles cannot be applied to deeper lips. It is my intention to develope 60, 45, 30 & 15 degree lips in various body lengths. Unless there is already a mass produced hunter out there, then I think that this project could be worth persuing. If you can suggest a solution to my video viewing problems I would appreciate it.

Does the hook getting snagged or twisted up on the eye without a split ring, become a problem, a bit like keys on a keyring (god this is hard to explain!!!!).

Ask as many questions as you like, probably many people out there thinking the same questions. No thinning required. Tap the mould container to release any air bubbles as for any moulding process.

Yes, the trailing edge sharpened should help it cut through the water easier and thus help with the depth. But, a sharp edge down the sides will help promote a stronger vortex, which will apply more pull down force and inevitably more action.

Like I said, I haven't tried it. If you already have the materials, try it on a test piece first. But from my very limited experience of resin, I would guess that it would be no problem. Remove it after about half an hour. The stuff I used, the instructions were 15 drops per 25grm and it hardened after about 20 mins. After 30 mins I removed it from the latex mould. The surface was kind of greasy, like the surface layer had not gone off, but the definition was first class. This greasy layer leads me to the conclusion that the master will not bond to the resin and give you 'withdrawal symptoms'. Also, the stuff does not smell too healthy, I would wear kitchen gloves as it tends to get everywhere. Please try it and report back.