mark poulson

I think that's similar to the Do-It Sparkie jig head, the one with no weed guard hole. If the 5/0 hook won't fit, it's easy to alter the mold to accept it. http://store.do-itmolds.com/Sparkie-Jig_c_103.html If you get the weedless Arkie mold, you have the option of putting in the pin for the weed guard hole, or not, giving you the Sparkie jig. http://store.do-itmolds.com/Weedless-Arkie-Jig-Molds_c_44.html They used to sell a mold with all 1/2 oz cavities, but I can't find it now.

I'd suggest you prep a cup of plastic at a time, so you can add stuff in easily measured amounts. Adding a little heat stabilizer will let you reheat quite a few times. Just a dribble, or it can yellow your plastic. And keep records of what you do, so you can repeat it later. I usually add 1/2 tsp/cup of softener, at the most, when I'm making senkos, but I use Baitjunkys' soft plastic to begin with and add both blast medium and salt. For swimbaits, I use Baitjunkys' medium with no softener.

I think this is where cellphone cameras really shine. I trace out the bait on a piece of notebook paper, add dimensions and total weight, ballast weight and locations, bill size and angle/location, and hand drawn cross sections, if it's a unique design. And any other things that are a part of the lure. Then I lay the actual prototype bait, unpainted, onto the same piece of paper, and take several pictures of the whole thing. That way I have a record of what I did, so I can jog my memory (better than a slap upside the head) when I want to make another, or play around to try and get a different action. I email the pictures to my computer, so I can save them in my lure folder.

I bought a bottle of Holbein transparent moss green from Coast Airbrush Products. That is the easiest to use air brush paint I've ever tried! I just wish it wasn't so expensive. $9 for a small bottle hurts.

Make notes as you go!

If you want a hard version of a horny toad, why not carve the feet into the last wood segments, or carve them separately and glue/screw them on? If they're carved from wood, they would be more buoyant.

I use the buckshot rattles (BRS on this page) http://www.landbigfish.com/Northland/Northland-Tackle-Buck-Shot-Rattles I slip the hook point through them and push the around until they are tight up under the jig head, and then add my trailer, which holds them in place. That way, I can take them off if the water's clear and the fish are spooky, and reuse them next time, if the water's dirty.

The Solarez does have some solvent odor. It is nowhere near as strong as AC1315, or any of the other solvent clear coats, but it is there. I use a fan at my back when I'm dipping, but only at low speed.

How about a pan head screw into the leg?

If you're painting wooden baits, the original paint is still protecting the bait, even after your paint job chips, so that's a good indicator of when you need to stop fishing that bait and repair it. If it's a plastic bait, there's no such worries. Either way, if you want to prevent/minimize chipping, you need to find a way to toughen up your top coat. I have never used DN-S81, so I don't know how to advise you with that. I don't think it's possible to make a bullet/rock-proof bait that actually catches fish, so maybe just figure you'll have to do some touchup after each trip out. I find clear nail polish is an effective patch repair, until I finally have to repaint the lure.

Me, too.

I used a actual Speed Trap to locate both my belly hanger and my bill, and the bill angle and size. The closer to the original you can get your bait, the better it will run. I am not proud. I used the hard work of the original bait designers as a template, first. Then, as I tried different copies, I learned what made that particular part of the design work. For instance, the triangular head and front shoulders of the original is what makes it so stable even when it's burned on the retrieve, but it took me four versions to figure that out. I wasn't sharp enough to pick up on that at first. Same with the tail shape and taper, and how the bait is shaped like and arrow head, with the widest part back past the mid point. Because I was building solid PVC and balsa baits, instead of a hollow plastic bait, I had to figure out both the amount of ballast, and the moving rattle ballast location and amount on my own, but I had already learned roughly the right placement from previous cranks I'd made with the same rattle setup. The Speed Trap is a crank in which each little detail truly serves a purpose. I bet the little wrinkle at the top of the tail probably does something, too, but I'm not smart enough to figure that one out. Those guys at Luhr Jensen really nailed it!

Someone on another forum posted a question about using glow paint on cranks, and that got me thinking. Dangerous, I know. I have lots of Glonation white/green powder, so I mixed some in Createx transparent medium, and shot it through my HP-C+ .3 mm air brush. It shot fine. So I painted up a new crank in a bluegill pattern, using the glo medium. I shot a white primer, Pearl White base coat, and then shot the glo medium over the sides only. I kept adding thin layers, heat drying, and checking in a dark closet. When I got the bait to truly glow in the dark, I put it under the tule scaling fabric on my spray easel, shot Pearl Silver over the lower portion of the sides, and a moss green over the upper portion and shoulders. When I took it back into the dark closet, the scale lines glowed. But they still look white in the light. All this is to say it's another thing to try, and the Glonation powder mixed with transparent medium and thinned a little with 4011 reducer shoots just fine through a .3 mm air brush. And it cleans up just the same as any other Createx paint.

Thanks!

Those look great! Do you have any const. photos, or tips for ballast placement?

A cheap way to learn how is to use Plano box dividers for tails. They are easy to shape, and will hold a split ring attachment if you leave enough meat between the hole and the edge of the tail. Clear margarine tub tops work, too.

Those are beautiful!

I am a hobby pourer, and use a hand injector. I hand inject my two Essential 5" senko molds all the time, and they shoot great! I wish they made more Essential molds, because I can afford them.

Salt makes senkos stiffer, so use soft plastic, and add some softener, too.

No, I'm not going to sell them, and I don't know of anyone else making them. But you can make your own easily from the plans I posted in the hard baits gallery. I included the link at the top of this thread.

A small drill bit in a cordless drill.

I think it's a combination of how much water it moves, how much air it traps, and how soft it feels in the fish's mouth. I would think the amount of machining involved to make all those rips would be Yuge. I don't think I could make a mold out of pop because the fins are too thin and wavy to hold up to demolding.

Someone here suggested putting the Solarez in a bowl of hot water to get it to flow more, and that works for me. I'm still on my second quart of the Gloss Dual Cure resin. I have an unopened can of the newest version, and it doesn't say gloss, so I'm a little apprehensive about using it without a test.

Generally speaking, finishes with solvents shouldn't be heated, because it only speeds up the off gassing of the solvent, which makes it set up faster. I've kept a dip jar of AC1315 for several years now in a cool garage, and it's still good. I do heat Solarez and the separate parts of two part epoxies to get them to flow better when they're cold, but I don't heat the epoxy once it's mixed because that speeds up the setting process, too. I haven't tried KBS yet, but I've heard nothing but good stuff about it. Maybe you had an air leak in the jar seal that caused it to go off like that.

Thanks. I just ordered 2 packs.