Vodkaman

Not really, sounds really good though, don't you think? Dave

Dan - PM sent. Dave

I have signed in too, just for a looksee. Dave

There is a new wood material that could be perfect for the job. It has virtually no grain and so carves and drills very easily. Its density is about right too, roughly the density of pine. excellent water resistance, such that no sealing is required, I could not believe it when I read this fact, but it is true. Indonesia has a lot of timbers, but I have never found anything that comes close to this spec, you guys are so lucky over there in the US of A. The only down side, is that the dust is an irritant, but this can be said for ALL woods. You should never work with wood without wearing at least a dust mask. For those giant muskie teeth, this material is a must. Even when the teeth pierce the topcoat, the lure is going to keep on swimming and will never become waterlogged. Dave

Dale - the tests are good. When you are pulling in the fish of a lifetime, the last thing you want to be wondering, 'is my lure going to hold up'. You want to savour the moment and respect the fish. Confidence in your construction just adds to the pleasure of fishing. Dave

The engineering is quite simple; it is all about the load spread over the glue contact area on the side of the hole. If you double the diameter of the hole, you halve the load per area. Also, a large, sloppy hole will allow a better chance for filling completely with epoxy. Dave

Skimpy - Nah, we are just messing with you. Your choice of music is part of your trademark, it would not be the same any other way Dave

I reckon perspex would machine nice too, but maybe a bit expensive. There would be lessons to be learned from clear molds, especially high cavity counts and appendages. Dave

Mark - while I was writing my last post, I too was thinking about Bondo filler as a machinable material. I know it is a pleasure to work with when drilling and shaping. I was thinking that at least for testing designs, it would work pretty good on a CNC machine. Dave

Fishon-son - I am not really sure what you were expecting or wanted from this thread or what you want us to move on too. Just to recap; you started a discussion on the Tormach that your friend uses. The discussion was inevitably going to move to other machines in the price range and their advantages and disadvantages. This is valid input to the discussion, after all we cannot just promote the Tormach. We then have to forewarn anyone getting enthusiastic and diving in, about the commitment required for hobby CNC. Next comes the options of CAD or no CAD, G-code and all the other options for generating the model. There is a wealth of experience in the membership, and each has something valuable and informative to offer to the knowledge base. This thread has progressed much further than these types of threads usually do and that makes it a quality thread, useful for anyone looking for information or general discussion on the subject. Yes indeed, it is possible to achieve a mold without CAD and I look forward to viewing your progress and videos in the spring. Dave

What I do, is mark on a lateral line and carve to that as the thickest part of the side. The best way to describe the method is to show you. As you can see, I am taking my perch to the next level, planning on a 3-section lipless swimmer. Dave

Frank - yes, very impressive engineering. Mine isn't exactly a Tesla, it is a 3-wheeled TukTuk. The entire team comprises of 4 players; boss, chief engineer, stylist and me, the designer. Dave

Rachmaninoff works for me. Dave

Frank - good words of wisdom. A note on graphics cards though; I am currently working from home, designing an entire electric vehicle, and doing the work on the cheapest little laptop that I could find, as I was skint at the time. The laptop cost me $215 and it does just fine, until I try to load up half the vehicle, then it slows down and stops. But as far as mold and lure design, it works extremely well, and this is using one of the CAD industry giant software packages, CATIA V5. I will add that this software is available FREE to you all UNOFFICIALLY of course. The unofficial copies of Catia V5 are actually distributed by Dassault (Catia), the thinking being that the more people who can use their software, the more the software will be adopted. So you can safely download a pirate copy, no one is coming after you. If you want to go legitimate and buy Catia V5, well you cannot. You have to rent it, and it will set you back something like $20,000 per year per seat. If you do decide to try Catia, there are plenty of training materials also available on the web. Use the torrent system to download Catia and training documents. It may be time for a thread on CAD techniques, as there are quite a few members modelling on CAD. DAve

Well I for one am loving this thread, and definitely think it has a place on TU. The numbers of members that will ever get involved in this sport is very small, but the numbers of members who buy ally molds and commission molds is very high. I think it is important for at least the mold users to have an understanding of what goes into their precious possessions. JR - funny you mentioned the disillusionment of the design office. All those years in school, learning trigonometry and how to use compasses and all the rest. Design offices (pencils and drawing boards) do NOT use compasses, they use circle templates. Most of the job is tracing stuff that has been drawn before, from blueprints and photocopies. Occasionally you got to draw something new and original, but definitely not the norm. This is why CAD was so powerful, it allowed you to copy with total accuracy and no degradation. However, the introduction of CAD was slow, as existing and current projects were all manual. Only when an entirely new project was started, could a CAD commitment be made, and even then, there were enough old soldiers that made sure that the projects were never 100%. Me being in there for the birth of CAD and totally keen, was a very frustrating time. I basically had to sell the idea to the senior management. DAve

Because of the short life of a plastic, I cannot see more than an orange throat and an olive back. Other than for self satisfaction of personal baits, the time spent painting could not be justified. Dave

Woodieb8 - I would like to give foam another crack, as I didn't give it a fair shake at the time. All I succeeded in doing was gluing P0P molds together. I had not used RTV at that time and failed to try the foam again when I did start using RTV. 16Lb seems perfect at SG 0.25, the equivalent of a very dense balsa. 26Lb has an SG 0f 0.46 which would be about as heavy as I would go with timber. My ideal would be SG 0.35 which would be 22Lb. I haven't found a supplier of foam here in Indonesia yet, but the silicone RTV that I am using, I think would be a bit too soft for foam and will distort under the pressure build up during expansion. I guess the learning curve that you spoke of, is largely about dealing with this expansion, getting the proportions, mix, temperature, vent sizes etc, all correct. I have designs for small lipless swimbaits with molded in piano style hinges. A dense foam would be the ideal material for this venture. Dave

Bass100 - good to know. I probably didn't allow the bodies to cure long enough. It was many years ago and such details have faded. Dave

I certainly would not write whole scripts, but rely on my CAD software to generate the script. More software to emulate the run, to check for errors and clashes. Just enough editing to fix any obvious errors. This is all hypothetical, as I have no plans to get involved with NC machining. Having said that, I still have a new type of NC machine for duplicating compound shaped bodies. The target is 10 seconds per inch of body, so a 6" body will take 60 seconds. This is way faster than any duplicator machine can manage. Dave

Skimpy - great vid of a really simple solution. Nothing wrong with those baits. Dave

I certainly would not be afraid to tackle G-code with my background. The more basic the language, the better. Dave

Mark - good read. I have never had an opportunity to fish these big baits. I just had great fun designing, building and testing. I have a set of 3 PDF files, of perch body profiles from 100mm (4") up to 300mm (12") in 25mm steps. If anyone wants the profiles, PM me your email addy. Dave

I used to love programming and was able to write software for every computer that I worked on, from my Casio programmable calculator, Psion organiser, DOS command procedures, GRAPL (design) and more. But then I made a bad decision, as I did not have time to do electronics, hardware and software, I chose electronics. By the time I realized my mistake, software had moved on so far, that a computer course would have been necessary just to catch up. A course was out of the question, as I was working and had a family to support. That was my second mistake, I should have made the commitment and made the jump. Computer programming was what I enjoyed, but mid-career moves when you have a family were just not allowed or even contemplated. Dave

Jim - please post the pics in this thread, as they are relevant to the discussion. DAve

The argument is that Createx paints are stiffer and will crack under bending and even reduce bending. BUT, if you are not heat setting the paint and successfully applying a clear dip and the bait flexes well, then why not. If it works for you then go for it. The life of a soft bait is not intended to be more than perhaps a few fish, so I do not see any other issues to stop you. Dave