Stringjam

I recall reading an article on the HOK forum about Bulldog adhesion promoter, with input from the guy who writes the HOK tech sheets. I believe he suggested that there is a time window to apply the basecoat after the adhesion promoter has been applied, and that the adhesion promoter must be applied VERY THINLY.......and if I remember correctly, he sprays the Bulldog onto the plastic part and actually wipes it off - that's how thin the coat needs to be. I was led to believe from the article that if the above wasn't done accordingly, that the adhesion promoter would actually be detrimental to adhesion.

I have a lot of crankbaits that hunt, and IMO it is an overrated attribute, and one I actually find undesirable in anything but a shallow crank. The only plastic bait I've used that hunts out of the package is the Lucky Craft Flat CB SR - which is discontinued. They're great crankbaits (IMO one of Lucky Craft's best designs). I can impart all the action I want to with my rod tip and retrieve variations........how a crank responds to those inputs is far more important to me than whether or not it hunts.

If it's one of Pete Reynold's baits it should say "Little Petey" along the bottom of it:

That's hard to say . . . I bought a pair of originals off eBay (in new condition) for about $25. I've seen a few go for a lot higher. It depends on how much the bidders get into it. Now that Pete Reynolds is making them again, I really don't think the Petey is going to go the way of the crazy Bagley collectors........that and everybody with a knife and a piece of balsa is making a copy of it.

Exactly

I've just been using super-glue.........but I haven't long-term tested any baits so I'm not going to say that's the way to go. I used it based on a test I read rating various types of epoxies and glues at joining PVC. The thin (not gel) super-glues ended up winning. I cut my pieces both for side profile and for vertical profile, so I have no need to find a perfect stock width. Sintra has a "skin" on the outside anyway that needs to be cut off (I know some guys run their pieces through a saw to start with to get rid of the skin. There are several people on this board with a lot more experience than me using PVC....hopefully they'll give you some better answers.

If you want Sintra - you'll need to look at sign shops......or you can just order it online. I bought mine from foamboardsource.com. It isn't cheap material, though. You'll need to laminate it to get enough thickness for a deep crank. I buy the 1/2" sheets.

I built a deep diver out of Sintra and was very pleased. The lure behaves very similar to a DT-16 (which was a bit of my intention). I experimented a lot with ballast......if you want you can go light enough that it will pop up like a cork (think Bagley DB3). That, of course, really hurts the casting distance. I prefer moderate to slow float most of the time with my deep divers so I weighted it down. The lure is very lively and in the end I was able to get exactly what I wanted out of it, so don't hesitate to give it a try. It's versatile enough that you can design around a high-buoyancy bait or a slow floater.

A picture would help....if your lip is too far away from the line tie, that can cause the problem. Placing the line tie right on the lip gives you the widest action. As you raise the line-tie's position away from the lip, the action will tighten, and the higher you go, the tighter it gets. If you raise it too high, though, you'll drop the action completely. Very small movements of the line-tie position have a large effect on the action.

Thanks for posting that . . . very interesting. I don't really get the purpose of the block in the plastic channel, though (?) I'm surprised at how far the lip material extends into the body of the lure. I'm with Bob on the BassStar. I don't really understand the purpose of that design - - I want my lipped cranks to float. If I need to go super deep with a crank I'll throw a lipless bait, which has the added benefit of being able to be worked vertically and horizontally, and not just pulled across the bottom.

I already have a fairly potent vent "booth" for painting......I'm referring specifically to auto-clear shooting, which requires high levels of protection whether you have the paint booth or not. A shooting "box" as I described would isolate the stuff from getting anywhere near you or your working environment.