Vodkaman

I was 13. Laszlo Biro invented the ball point pen. In the UK, all cheap ball points are called Biros. This happens a lot in the English language, respect for the inventor or creator. A famous example; even to this day, police are called, amongst other names, Bobbies, because some two centuries ago, Sir Robert Peel created the modern police force. Dave

I am very fortunate here where I live. You would think that Indonesia would be a very turbulent part of the globe weather wise. Yes, we get heavy rain and lots of it, a few thunder storms and that is about it. Indonesians never experience heavy winds. What they think is a heavy wind would be a light breeze. This is a pic of wifey in a strong breeze in the UK. She was actually afraid that she would be blown away, which is why she is hanging on to the rail and not too happy about me taking photographs! Dave

Ha! 45 years ago, I was making minnow tube spinners from biro casings for perch fishing. Mom had to hide the pens from me or Dad would go nuts when he was selecting his horses. Dave

Well read - Glad to read that you are all safe and you still have a roof over your head. Dave

After trying all the above, another worth trying is solder flux. Heat the hook and dip in the tin of flux, a touch more heat then in the mold. Flux is designed to clean the surface of all impurities and it reduces the surface tension of the hook metal, which I believe is your problem here. Dave

Hazmail did a lot of work on this. He designed a tool for the job. Try this link, should get you started. Dave

It was probably me, as I did a lot of experimenting with that moon shaped lip. I don't remember posting it though, as it was in my search for the hunting lip and I thought I was on to something special. Turned out to be a dead end as far as my purpose went. I eventually solved the enigma, but it was nothing to do with the shape of the lip. Is the lip soft plastic or hard? If soft, then you would be correct that the lip folds back. If the lip is hard and sufficiently deep into the lure, probably not. It may be something simple, like the eye position or too much lip, but we would need to see pics to help you with that. Another issue with using soft plastic for this type of lure, is ballast or lack of. The hook is likely to be your main ballast and if that is positioned too far back, could cause your problem. But, I am guessing here. Dave

Them fumes is nasty. The clue is in the name, it is a cyanide product. X2 on the fan for sure. Dave

Good solution and lots of good information. I have built similar projects for curing plaster molds, but it is surprising how many other little jobs the box gets used for. Dave

Ten coats does sound like a lot of work, but believe me, with a bit of organization, it is not. For pike and musky, stick with what Bob is telling you. DAve

The lures that I make have to withstand Bawal, which is a piranha type fish with literally bone crushing jaws. I was only testing to see if the lures caught fish. I never even added a top coat or paint. The fish loved them but the prop seal coat had no chance, one fish would rip it to shreds. It was a good test for the tiny lures though, as they held together against 6Lb piranha. Prop is a very convenient seal coat. Yes, ten dips is a good plan, for a good seal and a smooth surface. You can dip a dozen lures while the kettle is on, so it is no big deal time wise. The top coat has to be quality, especially for fish with teeth, but this is true no matter what the seal coat is, if you want to preserve your paint job. Next time I build lures for these piranha, it will be a thinned epoxy to seal and a thick epoxy top coat for protection, still no plans to start painting though. Dave

BobP - probably Palmetto Balsa. He sent me a few bags, but he hasn't been around for a couple of years now. Dave

That is exactly the kind of thing you have to try out to find what you are looking for. Make notes, if the change made any difference, even if it was worse, document it. Once you have made several changes, examine your notes and you may see a pattern. Once you see a pattern, you are able to predict. You start with adjustments that are fairly easy to make; shifting ballast around, including trying ballast in the other sections, changing the eye position. ALWAYS one change at a time. Never be tempted to take a short cut by making two or more changes, this is how you stay in control of the design. Once you have exhausted these two adjustments and still not found what you are looking for, then it is time to look deeper and it will involve a lot more work too. Other adjustments that will need exploring are; the length of the first section, changing the shape over the nose, between rounded and flat, again, taking notes for every change. Other things that can be tried are; mid nose profile, high nose profile, low nose profile. All these changes require a new body, so you start to see how much work is involved. It is a monster of a project to gather all the answers. To be perfectly honest with you, I need to follow my own advice more. On my last round of swimbait tests, I perhaps didn't learn as much as I could have, if I had kept better notes. DAve

Yes, there is still work to do on the design. The lure is nose heavy and there is roll, but it swims as it is and will catch. The rest is fine tuning and will take several more prototypes and a lot of experimentation, if you wish to take it further. My aim with my swimbait is; zero roll, the head holds steady with no movement and the hinged sections carry all the movement. This would not be realistic for your three piece, but mine is a 5 piece. This steady head idea, is achievable, I know because I have done it before, but I don't fully understand how I did it, so I am expecting a lot of testing. Dave

Good vid, easily clear enough and enough detail to see what is going on - I like it. Plenty of action in that lure, very encouraging - good job and thanks. Dave

Cool vid - I want one of these cameras, it is high on my list. Dave

The feature was designed to highlight special words and abbreviations, for new guys to click and learn. But, in recent updates the functionality had got screwed up. This needs fixing or deleting. Dave

Me and Pop decided to pop down to the local pond to pop some pop lures.I made the pop lip from a pop can to see if the pop action was improved. After a few short jerks pop pop pop, a fish did pop its head up but no takers. Pop said that the there was not enough pop in the pop. So we decided to pop back to the shop, add some more pop to the pop lip and pop back to the pond tomorrow for more pop action. Something is not quite working here, I can't remember writing this! Dave

Great, I look forward to seeing the action. I am particularly interested because I have a similar project on the go with Bob L Londe at the moment. Dave

If the lures belly eye is mounted across the lure instead of lengthways, you get the opportunity to mount your treble so that it equally straddles the lure. This is the same as T-ing, as suggested by Mark, but without having to bend the hooks. If you don't get what I am saying here, let me know and I will post a few images to explain more clearly. Dave

Very nice. Do you have any video of the swim, would love to see. For all my lures I twist my own. This allows me full control over the design, especially small hinged lures like this one, were space is at a premium. Dave

At 55 degF I think that you are correct. Bring the lures into a warm place for a week. If they do not fully harden, then the chemical process may have stagnated. A fresh coat may well be enough to kick it off again. If your workshop temperatures are consistently low, it may be worth building a heated drying cabinet. a 50W incandescent bulb should be enough heat to hold 70F. Read up on the product and find the ideal temperature and aim for that. Dave

You can try it on one bait to see, but I would say the chances are very low, as these are different products. Your time should be spent trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place; 1 - did you mix it right? 2 - was the temperature too low? 3 - was the paint completely dry/heat set underneath? 4 - is the air very humid? 5 - how old is the product? If you can be very honest with yourself and isolate the problem, rather than denying that anything was wrong, then the best chance for a fix would be a fresh coat correctly applied. This might be enough to get the first coat to fully cure along with the second. BUT, be prepared to strip the baits if it doesn't work. Once you have isolated the problem, do a test piece, to make sure that everything is working 100% before proceeding. DAve

MarkNY - there are no hard and fast rules. As a rough guide to a starting point, I would say; measuring from the nose to the tip of the lip, less than half way, 2:5. But a lot depends on lip length and width, body length, width and shape. Think of it this way; between a shallow swimmer with the eye on the nose to an untra deep diver with the eye half way down the lip, there are an infinite number of variations were the correct position of the eye can be anywere between these two positions. You should view the TU gallery and images of commercial lures similar to what you plan to build and try to get a feel for the position that they have used. But still, this is only a starting point. The ideal position for your lure can only be determined by testing. If you have already built the lure then post up some pics showing the top view and a side view so that experienced members can give you an opinion about where to start. It would be useful to include a rule in the images, so that there is a reference to point to. Me personally, I would build the lip too long with the eye too far back and gradually trim back the tip of the lip until the lure worked how I wanted. This way I can get an answer from one build. This is a sacrificial build, because you have to carry on trimming beyond what you might thing is the best position, to find out if there is any more available. Make notes of measurements. DAve

I agree with Mark, plus don't you need to move the lure through the paint. My solution would be to modify an old pair of pliers by welding a couple of plates that would hold the hook and keep it mostly covered. Dave