mark poulson

Hahaha

Mike, Nathan is the Fur Master. His rats make my skin crawl, they look so real. I am guessing that it takes a LOT of work to get animal skin/fur to work on a bait, and there is a very steep learning curve. I'll stick with sharpies and paint. At least I know they won't bite me!

Woodie, Is the PVC hard on cutters? I've machined it, and it doesn't seem to be hard on bandsaw blades, drill bits, circular saw blades, or hand saw blades. It does heat up when sanded if I apply too much pressure.

Really good looking baits! "Abandon hope all yee who enter here". You're doomed!!! Hahaha

Man, now I'm going to have to dig out my old Pemco tackle box, and see if I still have mine. I bought them to fish for trout. If I remember correctly (50-50 chance) one has a wire spreader for holding two trebles out to the sides. It's been a long time since I opened that box, so I don't know what I'll find. Anything is possible. If I find Jimmy Hoffa, I'm closing it up and putting it back on the shelf, forever.

Bass100, I haven't. My lathe is buried behind a bunch of crap right now, and I'm too lazy to dig it out. Sorry. I just posted two pictures in the Hard Baits Gallery of a rat with 3D eyes that I made using Solarez to get the clear bulge over the painted portion. Thank you again.

Thanks. It was fun to build, and to paint. I hope it's as much fun to fish!

Ichthus, I just posted two pics of the finished bait. Lousy pictures, but I hope you can see the 3D eyes. They look really cool in real life. Now, if I can just convince the bass...... I just looked up the definition of Ichthus. I'm glad I didn't call you Icky. Hahaha

They look great! Please tell me you're an experienced turner, or else I'm going to go out to my garage and burn my lathe! If you do a search for Diemai (Dieter Maiberg) in this forum's search tab at the top right, it should take you to some of his lathe turned lures. He has a bunch, and a lot of great ideas.

Since, for me, this forum is about learning and sharing, I just posted pics. of a 4" rat I made, test swam, and painted yesterday. I hope it helps some of you who still hesitate to make one, because it looks too complicated, to go ahead and take a stab at it. PVC trimboard made it a breeze to build. I'm saying that because I would never have taken the time and effort required to seal and test with wood. I looked at a successful rat on TW, to get the 3/2 ratio of head to tail section, and the rest was just playing with the shape until it looked ratty. I just made a slight V for the joint cut, and then deepened the V on the tail face so it had plenty of room to wiggle. The bait didn't need any ballast. The two trebles, #4 KVD EWG short shanks, and the #4 Spro swivels for hook hangers, plus the lexan bill, were all that was needed. I took it up, unpainted, to my local lake, and threw it a dozen times. It didn't foul once, and it waked really well, with a wide side to side. If I held my rod tip high, it would wake on a fast retrieve without diving at all. Otherwise, it would wake on a med. or slow retrieve, and dive 6" on a fast retrieve. PVC has made the lure building process a joy for me, and I build lures for fun. I hope someone here give it a try. It is a ridiculously easy build. You can PM me if you want more details, but I think I pretty much covered the build in the Gallery description.

Just be sure and dry each coat of paint really well, so it's strong enough not to be pulled into wrinkles when the AC1315 shrinks as it sets.

If I'm not coating the bill, I hold the bait by the bill and dip it. If I am coating the bill, or if it has no bill, like an unassembled jointed bait, I use hemostats, and hold it by the hook hanger, or the line tie. Just be sure you're going to use a split ring, so any scaring from the hemostat's jaws doesn't break you line. I tried just using paper clip wires to dip with, but the buoyant baits like to float, and the wire comes out of the hole sometimes. That's not good. A quick dip is key. Otherwise, the solvent in the AC1315 has a chance to wrinkle the paint. If I miss a spot, I just brush some on after the dip coat has set, about 4 hours. I've also just brushed it on with an artists brush, when I don't want it to get into the joint areas of swimbaits. My youngest loves dill pickles, so I have a ton of pickle jars for dipping. When I was using my initial 4 oz. can for dipping, and I had a bait that was too long to dip completely, I would dip the head, and then flip it and dip the tail. It works, too.

You're a good son. Does she pour, too? Hahaha

I use a piece of paper, folded like that, to align my eye holes.