Vodkaman

In the gallery, NOT here! Dave

Oh no! devastating news. I had a lot of communication with Ben over the years, a marvelous personality and a great loss to the community. My condolences to his family. I hope they find TU and savour his contributions. RIP friend. Dave

Can you try it now and let me know if it works. YouTube have made changes and messed up the permissions. Dave

Here is the Big Ed video. If you require anything else, quote the page number and the post number on that page. I'll do my best to help. Dave

Yes. Vortices always want to be vertical, there is a reason for this but I cannot remember. tornadoes are formed by a horizontal vortex switching to vertical. So, if you provide a square(ish) boot then the vortices will form on the sides. Be prepared to experiment and prototype more variations. Shoot video and study the swim in slow motion. If the tail flips/twists as in the Shafteez video then you may have to reverse the tail. The rounder body may give you problems, but good luck with it. Always best to change one feature at a time or you will not learn what works and what doesn't. Dave

Correct, the reason being; Injecting polycarbonate or any other material as used in the technique for smaller baits does not work for larger baits. The material thickness required to get the buoyancy right, will result in sink holes and an extended material cooling time. So, for large baits, dense foams are the way to go. Dave

Very good thinking Mark. I cannot reply with any conviction. My first instinct is that the extension would allow the tail to rotate further until the resistance from the body trying to rotate stopped the tail and the vortex reversed. So, the result would be the tail traveled further but the body would still rotate the same amount. But, all of this discussion is highly hypothetical, unproven conjecture, just me applying what I have learned about vortices. But, if ever I was to design a paddle tail, this post would be high on my considerations list. Dave

I have given this problem some thought. I get my best ideas in sleep and this problem just gave me a rude awakening. Theory - If you tow a round plate behind a swivel then it will rotate in one direction infinitely. The reason being is that the single vortex is continually propagating as it advances around the disk, the vortex never finishes and thus vortex shedding never occurs to cause the vortex to reverse. The Shafteez video above is very enlightening. First notice that the tail is rotating back and forth over the back of the lure rather than underneath the lure as designed. From the start of the swim, the lure tail is rotated through 180° before the alternating action even starts. This means that the bait is already loaded heavily from one side only with a 180° twist, and this loading causes the lure to swim on its side. Even though the tail shape is close to circular, the vortex is terminated when the tail section reaches the limit of twist. A new vortex forms on the opposite side and the tail twists in the opposite direction. I cannot explain everything because the action changes with speed. At very slow speeds, the tail swims under the bait as designed. At medium speeds, the tail swims in a figure-8 shape. At higher speeds the tail twists 180° and swims above the lure. To stop the rotation, you have to abandon the circle lip and adopt a shape that naturally causes the vortex to shed and initiate a vortex reversal. This shape involves an inverted ‘V’ shape with straight edges, a bit like the front lip of a hard bait lure. If you want to troll a circle tail at the higher speed then reverse the tail design; point the tail up rather than the normal down, this will cure the lure swimming on its side. Y’all know that explaining is not my thing and I have given you some heavy explanations to think about, explanations that basically say that you have been designing paddle-tails wrong all your lives. I suggest that you study the Shadteez and any other paddle-tail swim videos very closely and make up your own minds. Some of you are not going to like this post, particularly as I don't do soft plastics. That is too bad. Dave

Photos and a video would be very useful, as your description offers us little to go on. You may be concerned about offering photos, but this is a perfect case were photos are justified. BUT, we really need a video of what is going on in the water. Dave

This sounds like a paint dipped tooth brush solution. Draw your thumbnail across the loaded bristles and make a mess. BUT, I have not painted since school, and very badly then. Dave

I got my 500th post badge but still working towards my 'rookie' badge Dave

An error was found in the ‘lip’ section of the spreadsheet ‘TU wood lure calc’ I have sent emails to members who have received this spreadsheet in the last 6 months. If you have not received an email then message me with your email address and I will send you the updated file. Object of spreadsheet – To simplify the build of carved lures. To achieve the float/sink required without extensive trial and error. Apologies for any inconvenience. Dave

Keep in mind, the data on photos can be easily edited, free software is available to all for the job. Video and photo embedded data is NOT proof. If you are going to protect your design then do it properly. Starting a patent is not expensive, in fact it is quite cheap. It is defending the patent that costs BIG$$$. Dave

I looked into lure formulae many years ago. Unfortunately, the variables are too complex to be reduced to a simple formula, not because of lip parameters, but because of body shapes and their less predictable effects on flow. Trial and error rules when it comes to lip shapes and sizes, be prepared to experiment. Dave

Good idea, I like it. Dave

I almost have the 'magic' lure, and have a stable of six originals and standards that can be brought up to production design level in a short time. I need a 3D printer to get to the final prototyping and the next stage of market testing. As for the final stage of production, I will be skipping the gradual build up and going straight to plastic injection having located a local injection operation so that I don't need to go to China. A manufacturing and production team can be set up quickly, so I can move quickly once the decision is made. BUT, it will take my life savings unless I find an angel investor. I am not ready to risk my life savings at this time, but will go to final prototype if I can find a printer. I will probably go to visit family in SC for a few months to do the market testing. Dave

Sending me a lure would be very expensive, and I would have to pay more to receive the package. I would say that video showing the details of the lure and the swim action would be enough for an evaluation. I would be happy to take a look, but I am not a fisherman. You need an expert fish catcher for a true evaluation, I can only evaluate the design. Yes, my post is rather a depressing and negative read, and this is possibly validated by a lack of response from the community. The key is hard work or money, preferably both. Success is rarely about a single lure design, it is about a brand. The reputation of that brand is generated by that single, magic lure, but you will need more lures to generate that brand. You are also generating a reputation for that brand, so quality and consistency are extremely important. Reputation, recommendation, endorsement, are magic words. Fishing lures are all about confidence, we all know this fact. On the water, we may experiment with a few new ideas, but it always comes back to the lures that work for us, lures that have caught before. No one has confidence in your new lure, even if they buy the lure does not mean the lure will get a fair crack at earning a place in the inner circle of an anglers psyche, the 'goto' box. Essentially, the people that you sell to have to become your unwitting sales force. They have to be seen to catch enough fish to generate inquiries, and the lure must look the business too. The lure has to be good enough to sell its self and the rest of the brand family. A single lure will generate a few sales, a brand of 6 different lures, if just one of the brand is magic, will generate 10x as many sales. Dave

I have given this subject a LOT of thought; what to do with a new lure design. A - Design and build a unique lure that catches more fish than any other lure. B - Develop a low volume production process that guarantees a repeatable product. C - Issue the lure to testers. Beware of family and friends, you need honest feedback. If you get passed A, B & C, then the subject of patents must be addressed. Do you intend to sell the design to a company? If so then quality, robust patents need to be put in place before you go any further. If you put product on the market before a patent is in place then you risk losing the patent. Even 3rd party testing is a risk. Selling to a company is not as easy as it sounds. Companies will not even look at your product because of the legal implications of their future designs. If you decide to keep the business and have the funds to rigorously defend your design then you now need quality patents. If you do not have the funds to defend patents then you must proceed in the knowledge that your product will be copied and mass produced if successful. You probably have 12 months to make your money, depending on the complexity of the design. Now comes the most creative part; sales, marketing, promotion, sponsorship, paperwork, taxes, etc. There are many strategies from Mom and Pop stores through internet, EBay, websites, sales sites and a lot more. I don’t have any advice except do research and develop a strategy. Conclusions – Protection through patents is the biggest issue and requires a lot of research. You mention the ‘lurking company’ approaching with a lucrative deal to save the day. But, if you do not have quality, robust patents in place then why would they bother. Even if you had patents, if they were not strong then their legal team could take them apart. The ‘other company’ cannot take patents out on the idea even if you did not protect with a patent for the same reason that your patent is weakened if you patent after putting the lure on the market. Once the idea is ‘out there’ then it cannot be patented. Of course, a slick legal team will always find ways to negate these fine details. Personally I have been put off bringing a unique lure to market UNLESS it is a fine balance, and cannot be replicated without knowledge of how it works. Dave

Buy all the molds and other expensive equipment you ever wanted now, before another female moves in Dave

Carbite - Message sent. You must consider the flowing water when thinking about multiple inputs. The body of water moves as one. All the disturbances, lip, body, spinner etc. the water has to interact with as one flow. It is a difficult concept to explain, you need to have a good think about it all. Dave

I have posted this complex sinusoidal idea many times, in the last post of comments page 2 for example. I have even drawn the graphs on post No19 of this link. I might have posted some 14 years ago when I first thought of the idea and experimented with it, but may have kept it to myself at that time. I am very impressed that you arrived at the graphs independently, good engineering mind. Simple harmonic motion is always on an architect’s mind when designing tall thin structures or long bridges. There have been famous disasters due to combinations of SHM and vortex shedding. I do think that the double sinusoidal action has a chance of an explanation for your tail-spin lure, but not the Bass-Oreno, that is more likely caused by my definition of hunting, the lip passing 90° on the retrieve. On the tail-spin, the two actions are quite separated. Here is a video of a lure that I was experimenting with called ‘Big Ed’. It is a soft bait with a bulbous nose and a tail boot. The large sinusoidal motion is too slow to be assigned regular vortex shedding and so I am inclined to think that a complex sinusoidal action is going on. See what you think. Dave

Oh yes, that hunting action is the business. Thanks for posting the vids. Dave

It is a bit more complex than that. I have had 15Kg line snapped while trying to hold a freshly hooked 3Kg fish away from an obstacle. Smaller fish have snapped my line when I have struck too aggressively. Hitting a deep bodied fish is like hitting a brick wall. It only takes a millisecond for a limit to be breached for a failure to occur. Dave

RPM - good post, yes, good description of my method. I have discussed the double lip idea with a few members so forgive me for not recalling specifics. AZSouth - the best way to manage videos is to upload onto YouTube, then use the link YouTube will give you and paste into your TU post. This way you are not using up TUs limited resources. Dave

AZSouth - the best way to think about the rules; consider the purpose posting an image. Are you trying to clarify a technique, explain a feature or some other construction OR are you just trying to get feedback on your latest paint job. I love the construction; whipping on the extra eye, very smooth. Loving the story of how you arrived at the idea and the work you did to explore the idea. I would say 'Share of the Year' and we are only in April. Carbite - I have an idea about what is happening. The lip has a different frequency to the blade. Occasionally the 'pull' of front and rear aligns causing a change in direction. I worked on this idea about 14 years ago when I built bodies with two different width lips, front and back. The idea did not work because the water flow is a single, connected phenomenon and cannot be considered as two separate systems. I have a video of two lures swimming side-by-side, the lures always swim in sync with each other. This is complex fluid dynamics, but we can see it happen. I would love to see some video of the tail spinner lure Here is the video: Dave