JBlaze

Barry thanks for the encouragement and good advice. I did Super glue/D2T/Paint and top coated again with D2T. It is just about ready to touch right now. Not sure that I have enough weight but will know soon. Not sure what the plug weighs either, My set of (MY Weigh brand 300-Z scales) bit the dust. I have had them for about 8 years so I can't complain. Will order another set this afternoon. MG Thanks. I don"t Believe that I have what it takes to do that either. I have already gotten a sanding belt wrapped around the lure blank. It had a string hanging off the side of it and caught and wrapped everything up. I was lucky and it was carelessness on my part. Nathan, thanks. will post a pic in the gallery a few minutes.

Thanks Nathan. That is what I did this morning. I roughed it out and got it semi-rounded with the tools then cut a sanding belt and used it to finish the job. I think it turned out pretty nice for a second attempt. I am putting barely 2 grams of weight in the tail of the balsa. I hope this will make it walk. I Also turned a piece of PVC Trim Board. The secret to turning this was getting the hard slick facing off of it. After doing that, it was not so hard to turn. It is the one laying on top of the Balsa. John

Just bought a lathe and a set of turning tools. Was trying to turn a spook jr. sized lure out of balsa wood. Just about had it shaped and the end that was centered on the tail stock broke off. Naturally, when this happened I gouged a big hunk out of its side. My question. Is Balsa wood to soft for turning or maybe I should use Emory belt to sand down and shape the wood instead of the tools. What is the best wood for turning? John

Not sure what you are talking about? can you post a picture?

Good tip, thanks for that. John

Thanks!! Scared the crap out of me. :-)

robalo01, I was intrigued by this thread that you started and hope that I have not stolen it. A couple of the posts really got me to thinking about it and I just wanted to see for myself. My conclusions may differ somewhat from yours and are not based on any type of scientific evidence. Just gut instinct and what I have observed for the past couple of weeks. I hope that I have not offended you and I thank you for starting this thread. It has in my opinion given me a better bait. John I honestly can't answer this question. I will agree with you that the less stiff and more flexible wire does swing more. Actually. watching it in the water as I pull it beside the boat, it actually looks like the middle section of the wire between the head and the blade is oscillating back and forth at a very fast pace/frequency. Is this transmitting more vibes to the water? Is it putting out vibes that a fleeing minnow might make? Again, I don't know. I do know that three trips to the lake with it, I have caught bass on it. Only one on the last trip but the first two trips, It caught more and bigger bass than I normally catch. I'm no rocket scientist but field testing as of now makes me think it is a better bait

Thanks guys, definitely not the king but when these things pop into my head, it just consumes me until I make an attempt at bringing it to reality. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. When I get one done/finished, I will post it in the gallery. will try to find time to do it tomorrow. Monday is fish day would like to take it to the lake. Hope someone out there can use this idea and make a few of these and lets us know if it catches or not. John

I have found that after taking lures off the drying wheel then placing them in an open faced box and placing a small fan forced ceramic heater a couple of feet in front of it so that it just warms the lures that they are hard as nails after about 12 hours. This is for jigs, I would be afraid that for wooden lures it would cause them to gas off and create air bubbles in the finish. John

Tried a new modification on the 1/2oz. cavity of my Do-IT Tail Spin Mold today. Good idea, bad idea, don't know. It just popped into my head and I had to try it. Did not have to do any cutting with the Dremel Tool. All I did was make two wire forms and press them into the mold with the shop vise. One press for the titanium blade arm and one press for the line tie/hook arm/eye. I did not think to take a pic of line tie hook arm before molding but the line tie end looks exactly like the open hook end of the wire except that it was squeezed shut before being placed in the mold. Go slowly with the pressing so as not to warp or break the mold. I started pressing on the hinged end and as as the wire was pressed in to the mold I gradually moved the vice a little at a time torward the handles. when I was finished, both faces of the mold were still fitting together with no gap. The line tie hook arm is .035 stainless and the blade arm is the .016 T-Wire. Good thing about this modification is that I can still use the mold for its original purpose of making tail spinners, will just have to do a little trimming where the line tie loop is. John

well, I threw the bait for about three hours and finally caught one little small mouth bass. It was a mean and feisty one, might have weighed a pound at the most. He beat my spinner bait up pretty badly. after I got him unhooked, I noticed that the T-wire was doubled up on itself and my line was wrapped around it about three, maybe four times. After getting it untangled, the T-wire sprung right back to its original shape and seemed to be just fine. We had a cold front blow through the night before and my fish were just not there, I finally managed to catch two for about four pounds on a jerk bait. never did try the one with the .026 wire. But after the way this mean little monster treated the spinner bait, I am going to say problem solved. John

Update on the "Flex Arm Spinnerbait" I think I have the problem solved on the T-wire arm pulling out of the crimp sleeve. I cut the grooves on the front and back of the main wire instead of side to side. I forgot to take a picture of this before I put them together so I drew this diagram to show it. As far as the wire bending down over the crimp sleeve and breaking, I put a drop of epoxy on top of the sleeve which made a small cone surrounding the wire and protecting it from the hard edge of the crimp sleeve. Hopefully, this will work. If you look closely at the second picture, you can see the epoxy cone against the white post. I also made a couple of them with the .026 100lb. test T-wire. Don't know how it will vibrate as it is much stiffer that the .016 and a lot less stiff than the main wire. Have a tournament Wednesday, will let you know if these changes make it more durable and if the .026 vibrates or not. John

Thanks Ben

Bob, thanks for the link. That would definitely solve the problem of the wire pulling out of the crimp sleeve. I have thought of another way that might work and will give it a try first.. Mark, the bend in the blade arm is spread over the whole length of the wire. I can actually bend the wire into a complete circle smaller than a dime and when released, it will snap back to its original straight form. If I bend it back over itself using a hard edge, it will retain that bend/angle and will break when I try to straighten it. I think what happened to this one when I got it hung in the rocks, was that the blade arm some how got bent back over the hard edge of the crimp sleeve and this left it at a weird angle which broke when I tried to straighten it. Will give the .020 wire a try maybe it will not bend so easily but maybe it will also not vibrate so well either. The lesser of two evils huh. :-). John

Mark, that is where it broke. I can see both wires inside the crimp sleeve. Actually, I had hung it on some rocks and when I got it back, the T-wire was bent . A hard bend right at the crimp sleeve. when I tried to straighten it, it broke. John

I think, somewhere i here that I stated that the titanium wire that I used was 75 lb test and .020 diameter. I goofed. Yesterday, I poured a few more 3/8 oz. spinnerbaits and had to cut some more of the .020 T-wire. when I tried to fit the T-wire and .035 spinner wire together inside the .055 sleeve, I could not get them in. I measured both wires on the calipers and they were correct in size. I measured T-wire arm on one of the previous baits that I made and turned out that I had used .016 thousandths T-wire. I do not understand why .035 and .20 will not fit inside a .055 inside diameter sleeve. I hope I have not inconvenienced any one with my misinformation. Report on the Flex Arm Spinnerbait: I have good news and bad news regarding the Flex Arm Spinnerbait. The good news is, A friend and I went to the lake again this morning. We threw only the Flex Arm Spinnerbait. We were on the water and started fishing around 7am we were throwing a 3/8oz size. by 9am we had 6 bass all were largemouth. The largest was about 4/1/2 lbs. three that looked like triplets about 2 1/2lbs. each 1 that wighed 1/1/4lbs. and a slick about 10 inches. I am thouroughly convinced that this spinnerbait is a "fish getter". The bad news is that I pulled out a T-wire arm from one of the spinnerbaits and after about 7 hours of throwing another one, I broke off a flex arm. I have given a couple of them to a couple of friends and don't want to get a reputation for making shoddy baits so I will try to find a better way of putting them together. Meantime, I will make some extras and continue to use them even if I have to go through a few of them in a day of fishing. Maybe going to the .020 wire might help with the breaking of the wire but it is most certainly much stiffer than the .016 and may not flex enough. John