bassguy

I hear ya Ben, the material I use can be sanded down to super smooth too, but it takes time which I don't have a lot of these days, so that's why I prime and then sand the primer which does the job for my wants and needs. Right you are Mark, thanks to the chemists that thought they were making a product for home improvement market and some bass fisherman got their hands on it and ta da! Crankbaits, swimbaits and so on. Jerry

I'm not trying to get into a pissing match here. I apologize if it came off like that, but what I've seen on the manufactures site there was no evidence of wood fiber mentioned in the list of ingredients that make up their materials. Alot of poly this and poly that and what have you. I still love the material to work with and hope a lot of others turn to the "dark side" lol.

I've contacted Tap plastics and they charge a setup fee, (only fair) and then charge by the amount you want produced. I have yet to follow up on their offer, however, I'm still leaning that way due to the *&%$@ of a time when cutting them out by hand and sanding the edges to finish. I will get back to the TU group when I make the decision. Jerry

PVC is polyvinyl chloride, there is no wood fiber in the material I buy. Ben, I doubt that the manufacturer would put wood fiber in the material unless it is in there as a filler. I purchase mine from Lowe's and have found it to be the best as far as zero bubbles in the material and no filler, such as wood fiber of any sort. I've made mention that when sanding the material I end up with about 400 grit. Once the blank is to shape, ballast, line tie and hook hangers; I paint the blank with white primer made by Krylon. Once that is dry, I'll sand it as well to baby butt smooth, then paint. I rarely have any sanding marks afterward, if any. I hope this helps. Jerry

Pretty clever and a lot of thought went into the bait, but as I can see, there are way too many things that could go wrong. Thanks for sharing. Jerry

Brent, PM sent. Jerry

Nicely done, that took a lot of thought and to make it work, even more impressive. Not all ideas work the first time. Congrats!!

Hell, it would be funny just to get a stick of wood in the mail with a shipping label stapled to it. I would love to see the look on my wife's face when I got something like that in the mail; that would be priceless!!

I've found when painting with the Createx pearls, that thined to the consistency of skim milk, (haven't kept tabs on air pressure) and multiple coats produce the finish I'm looking for.

I mix a few paints in small glass bottles, and when I'm finished painting and or mixing; the screw top that comes with them seals them up nicely. Like jon boatin, I'll use the eye dropper for transfer from bottle to airbrush.

I did a quick google search and found this, click on lip patterns. I don't know if this is what you're looking for but it's a start. I'm sure with some of the patterns there you can come up with something that will work.

Here is another link just click BALSA.

I use the 1/8" because I build big baits.

I joined TU to glean the information from the others before me. When I built my first bait it actually worked, it dove when cranked and had a great wobble; I thought I had the lure building under control. After that the next 12 to 20 didn't work for a s*$t and didn't know why. Deep diver, please that was never going to happen, everyone had the dreaded death roll problem. So I continued with this site to find answers but really didn't have the correct questions in mind. All questions seemed to be so silly I would have been ran rough shod out of town, so I kept my mouth shut. It seemed like a physics class when some were talking "hydrodynamics", huh, what's that, oh, water pressure on the diving bill has to be relative to the force, ah, ok........where are we going now? All I want is a bait that dives deep when cranked to it's optimum depth.......well that is another story all together. So to those who have spent the time working out the kinks, I thank you, Dave, Ben, BobP, Nova, Skeeter, Mark and the list goes on. Oh by the way, I did look up "hydrodynamics", it is still physics isn't it? Jerry

I think the most important thing I would worry about on clear coating my baits is "waterproofing". I don't build baits out of wood so I don't have to seal my baits. What I worry most about; will water get under my coating and foul my paint scheme? This is why I use D2T, it takes a bit longer sometimes and I'm not able to do a multitude of baits but I like quality, not quantity. By the way Ben, nice and concise post. No best, just what works all the time everytime. Jerry

McMasters-Carr carries the G-10. Here is a link. Click on G-10

Awesome looking baits Pete!! Jerry

I use the egg sinkers and run the hook hanger through the sinker and epoxy to the bait. Cap off with two part epoxy paste and sand to finish. Jerry

Imho, lathe for stick baits, devil horse, poppers etc. and an airbrush/compressor. For crankbaits; bandsaw, some sort of sander (belt/disk type) possibly a scroll saw, carving knives etc, and an airbrush/compressor. For the finished product on both types of baits the airbrush/compressor is very important but not a must. A lot of guys on tackle underground use rattle cans to paint their baits.

Best advice you can give anyone using DT! Jerry .