mark poulson

Well, Bryan was right on target. After having my wire grip pins on two hooks break after only a few bait changes, I can home, found some old brush guards, and retied all the hooks that I'd put wire grip pins on. World of difference in terms of flexibility. I liked how the wire could be folded into the flip bait, so it really held them in place, weedlessly, but I was only able to change baits three times before the wire broke. In the course of rummaging through my hook box, looking for stout EWG offset hooks to use for flipping, I came across some VMC "Ike Approved" swimbait hooks that I use for my hard frogs. They are stout enough for flipping, and they come with a sst spiral hitchhiker, which is meant to hold the soft swimbait, but I found today it holds my flipping baits really well.

Has anyone tried their beaver mold? http://www.zeiners.com/doit/essential_series_soft_plastic_molds.html

Thinner walls adjust to differential heating more quickly, so there is less heat/cool stress with a thin walled glass beaker.

I'm going to stock up on 3/16" and 1/4" lead wire.

An AC filter in front of your fan might help cut down on flyaway dust.

Dave, When I was thinking about making my dust collection system, I read about overcoming head pressure, the amount of air within the system that had to be moved and the amount of vertical lift from each station to the overhead main line. Evidently, cfm wasn't the only criteria for what fan would work. At firstI mounted a 1000 cfm side mount exhaust motor on top of a plastic trash barrel on a 1/2" plywood base, and made a semi-spiral intake from 4" flexible duct elbows under the plywood top, to encourage incoming dust to move sideways first and, hopefully, precipitate out to the bottom of the barrel before it could be sucked back into the fan, which was pull air out of the barrel to create suction in the 4" intake hole. It worked, but it was a pain to move around the shop, so I just used it for my tablesaw. When I decided to make a permanent collection system, I mounted two of the 1000 cfm side mount fans on the side wall of my garage, and built a plywood enclosure inside, with a homemade cyclone intake and two layers of filters. Even though there were now two fans instead of one, because my main duct was now a 6" overhead line, with 4" drops to each station, the head pressure needed to overcome the 6' vertical run up to the main 6" line, and the distance the main line traveled to the dust enclosure, the system wasn't any stronger than the single fan on a trash barrel, but it was much more convenient. I am guessing that using a 6" main line may have cut down on the velocity of the air movement. In this garage shop, I'm using a Rigid shop vac, so there is only the flex line from the station to the vac to overcome, and it actually pulls better than either of my homemade systems. My friend, who is an award winning wood worker/furniture maker, has one of the wheel mounted portable dust collectors in her shop, and that place stays clean. If I were 20 years younger, I'd invest in one of those, but I'm not!

A piece of plywood makes a great "insulated" table top protector.

The distance between the bottom of the check jaws, when it's in the up position, and the work table will give you the max. you have for lure drilling. That is the critical dimension. More is better. You subtract the height of the lure, and however much the chucked up drill bit hangs down, and you'll be able to tell if the machine will for for you. You can always raise the height of the work table with space blocks to accommodate different height work pieces and drill bit lengths, but you're stuck with the fixed distance between the jaws and the table on a benchtop model. I have a Packard Chinese floor model drill press, with a movable table, so I can adjust the height as needed for almost any height work piece. The travel of the spindle, the actual amount it moves up and down, is only 3 1/2". But I leave the table down about 10", and use different height wood blocks to raise my work pieces as need so the bits can reach the proper depth. If I need to drill deeper, I drill my initial hole, install a longer bit, and raise the work piece up until the new bit is inside the hole, almost to the bottom of the hole, and I can then drill another 3 1/2"+- if I need to. I used to have a bench top model that I took to job sites if we needed to do a lot of drilling onsite and that is a good trick for deeper holes with a benchtop dril press. I have even put the longer bit into the hole in the work piece and then chucked the bit up, when I didn't have enough room to fit the work piece under the longer bit.

I think the 10" spindle is the amount of travel (up and down). Typically, the chuck size is what determines the size of bit you can use, and most bits larger than 3/4" have a shank that's machined down to either 3/4" or 1/2" so they can be chucked in a standard drill press. The most practical way to drill larger holes, like a 5" diameter, is with a hole saw, so the shank is still only 12".

The key to making any tool perform is sharp cutters!

Dave, I left my dust collection system back in my old garage. It was just cobbled together from two 1000 CFM kitchen fans from a job, and some 6" and 4" duct. It worked, but it never really had the drawing power I wanted. I set up my radial arm saw with a dust hood, and a connection for my shop vac. I use that now, and it actually pulls better. I set the vac up in the open garage door with the exhaust blowing out, and it draws really will, both for my saw, and for my oscillating belt sander. I don't know what I'm going to do, now that I won't have a fine coating of PVC dust everywhere! Bob, My drill press has it's own light, and that make a huge difference. My garage has three (2) tube 8' fluorescents at 10'. They work fine for general lighting, but I need the 4' fluorescents over my work areas, plus a couple of goose neck lights on my work counters for really fine stuff. My biggest problem is finding the old single post 8' tubes!

Walking Dead, The wire is plenty strong as it is. Any stronger and I couldn't bend it down and back up as easily. I have four hooks with the wire wrap that I'm going to redo. I may try the doubled weed guard, to see if it's flexible enough to let the plastic bait pass without gouging a huge hole. But your floral wire idea works, so I'm set, one way or the other. Thanks again.

Dave, After watching the video, I now have tying vise envy!

Stuff happens for a reason. If you can't fix the hole, find a 6" diameter gromet, enlarge the hole enough to accept the gromet, and make it into a trash drop.

Success!!! I fished one of my grip pin hooks this morning, the one with the floral wire V held on with tying thread and super glue. I had originally tied on one with the wire wrapped around the shank, but I found it to be too bulky, so I decided to go with the floral wire keeper. The first thing I noticed, when rigging my soft plastic bait, was that I was able to bend the wire V down toward the hook eye, so the soft plastic passed over it more easily, and then bend it back up and slide the plastic back down into the "pocket" it made. It worked great! Several flip fish, no bait slippage, even when I was punching through heavy hyacinth and into tulles. I don't know how often I can bend the V down and back up before it breaks from metal fatigue, but they are so easy to make, I'll just cut off the broken wire and tie a new V onto the same hook! Once I have the parts assembled, it only takes a minute to tie one on, and making a dozen wire V's takes all of two minute, including cutting time. I use the same wire that I tie my skirts on with, so I had everything on hand. Thank you again Walking Dead for the great idea!!!

I was a working carpenter, cabinet maker, and general contractor for almost 50 years, so I have a garage full of wood working tools But the power tool I use most for shaping is this oscillating belt sander: http://m.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-Oscillating-Edge-Belt-Spindle-Sander-EB4424/100061671/ Remarkably, even though I bought mine fifteen years ago, the price is still the same, and the machine just keeps on keeping on!

Dave, The first thing I did was paint the walls and ceiling white. What a difference! I had put up some knife bracket shelving over my work counters, so I cut some old cabinet shelves diagonally to make 18"deep by 6" tall angled pieces, and screwed them adjacent to the uprights, right under the shelving at approx. 4' above the work counters. Then I used light chain to suspend the 4' fluorescent fixtures that I had brought with me. Funny how a little light makes everything so much easier!

Jaw, thanks for the explanation.

I only know about vacuum boxes from wood veneering, but typically. as long as you can create a vacuum, that's the key. The closer to the edge of your workpiece the holes are, the tighter you can pull your material to your master with less vacuum, but the basic idea is to remove the air from beneath the master, so atmospheric pressure will force the stencil material down over the master.

Man, who knew there were so many ways to skin this cat? All great ideas. Thanks.

Bob, you're right. The only thing worse than having too much work is not having enough! Dave, I was fortunate. I was able to move all my work counters and cabinets with me to the new house, and it all fits! The hardest part was getting my lighting right. 11' high ceilings are a challenge!

Jdeee, I glued the soft plastic masters down onto a piece of plexiglass, coated the plexi around the masters with vaseline as a release agent, painted the resin into the details as much as I could without moving them, and then poured the rest over them, until I had 1/8" over the highest spots. The resin is strong enough so the thinner parts aren't weak. I let it sit in the sunshine for an hour, and it was hard. How fast it sets depends on the UV rating that day, and how thick the pour is. After it set, I removed it from the plexi with a putty knife, slowly, so I didn't damage the resin. I wasn't sure how strong it was at that point, but, it turned out, it was plenty strong. The soft plastic masters came out mostly, except some flippers which were fully embedded broke off. After I used some tweezers to remove as much as I could, I drilled 1/16" vent holes down from the top into the flipper cavities, and used my compressed air hose to blow out the rest of the plastic. Before I tried pouring the mold, I sprayed PAM into it as a release agent. It poured fine, and the baits came out in one piece, as long as I took my time. I decided to make it an injection mold, so I drilled and tapped holes through the original plexi and the mold itself, and attached the plexi as a mold top. I drilled injection holes down through the plexi over the fattest part of the mold, glued some 1/2" nuts I had onto the injection hole, to act as sprue extenders, and it injects just fine.

A fast sealer that is thick enough to smooth over minor surface irregularities is a UV-cured resin like Solarez. If you sand your raw bait, blow off the sanding dust, dip it into the resin (inside, so the sun's UV rays can't start the curing process before you're ready), and let it drip back into the dipping jar so you don't waste the drips. Then take it outside for five or ten minutes, you can start your painting immediately, because it cures that fast. Or use a fingernail UV light box to cure it, and it takes three minutes.

I tried the floral wire, and then I tried cutting tight U pieces of the floral wire, and wrapping them onto the hook with fly tying thread and super glue. I like that better. It's much less bulky than the all wire versions. Now, all I need it for the fish to tell me they like it, too!

I just came in from the shop. It is amazing how not being cluttered makes stuff so much easier! My Sears 10" table saw, circa 1953, has a piece of 3/4" plywood on top of it now, and it's my soft plastic pouring station, complete with microwave. Funny how stuff we "couldn't do without" becomes repurposed, and we don't skip a beat!