mark poulson

Yes, Lowe's carries some, and so does Home Depot. The brand I use is AZEK, and their trim board is the most buoyant of all their stuff.

Ben, I told you washing your computer wouldn't clean out the bad stuff!

with an artificial cork, and having time on my hands, is I fool around with stuff. Oh, yeah, the wine is gone, too. That's always a problem. It weighs 6 grams, is finished in nail polish, has doll eyes, and hangs tail down, thanks to .5 grams of lead wire around the rear hook hanger. I cut the foam with a pair of serrated scissors, and melted it kind of smooth with a flat blade on my soldering gun. I used an exacto to hollow out the mouth, and "refine" the shape. Hahaha Front hook hanger is a Spro swivel that the line tie to rear hanger through wire passes through, so it can't pull out. #6 KVD EWG trebles, #4 split rings. Took about an hour, and it was fun to make. I always told my exes that drinking would pay off someday!

I went into my rattle trap plano box this morning to put some stuff away, and look what I found" I don't mean to pick on Strike King or Lucky Craft, but their traps have suddenly grown spawing bellies. It's not the hottest year hear, so I know they've been hotter on the boat, but they sure swelled up. I'm going to coat the splits with crazy glue, to seal them, and then I'm going to throw them to see how the swelling affects their action.

I've found that adding red glitter browns up a green plastic, so maybe a drop of red will do the same thing.

I'm just guessing that, if the salt will settle when you inject them horizontally, it will settle when you inject them vertically. I can get the salt to settle in hand poured fat Ika bodies if I get the plastic hot enough, but it's right on the edge of scorching, so I don't do it any more.

Just a wild guess from looking at the photos, but the only place I see for ballast is in the deep belly of the first lure, like a Rapala DT bait. The other two look too thin for ballast, unless it's some kind of sheet lead like Dieter uses. If you don't have an original or knockoff for comparison, I'd suggest you make three sacrificial prototypes. Shape and finish them completely, and see how they sit and swim unweighted. Then begin adding ballast, either by wrapping lead around the front treble or taping it to the belly, until you get them to swim and dive like you want. Because I use PVC I can do this easily, skipping the sealing and finishing completely, and float test them totally nude in a bucket of water in my driveway. With wood, it's really important that you seal and finish the prototypes just like a finished bait, to prevent water intrusion, which will affect the bait's weight and performance and not let you get a true reading on how it needs to be weighted. Good luck. Those are some interesting shapes. The last two should have some wild actions!

That is slick!

Thanks. That sounds familiar, but it's been a few years, and a few beers.

Isn't that what centrifugal molds are supposed to do?

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

"But on the other hand.....there's a wedding band". I don't remember the singer/song writer, but that was a great line from a country western song. See what happens when I have a glass of wine before I post!? I used to put my scale paint on thick to get the 3D effect. It was a pain to remove without pulling the paint off, but it did give the 3D effect. I don't do it anymore because I'm lazy, and I've gotten effective results without it.

You know, Berkley just came out with a soft bait that has a heavier head, so it glides backwards on the fall. Maybe you could orient your mold so one end of the baits is down, and wind up with the salt heavier on one end, instead of one side. It could be like a built-in nail weight.

I go to your site whenever I think I know what I'm doing, just to bring myself back to reality.

Just rig them with the salt side down, and you'll get good action on the bait.

It should have been a single top hook bait, I guess.

I had a 2003 Tracker, and this is what I did. The rod locker ended in an aluminum "tube" that was really a slot with the tip folded back over itself, forming a closed tube. I opened the front access panel, bent that aluminum tip back toward the bow until the tube was open and clear. When I put longer rods in, up to 8', they would go all the way forward until they rested against the inside face of the hull at the bow. I glued some indoor/outdoor carpet to the hull surface to cushion where the rods hit, and it worked fine from then on. I did use rod sleeves on my rods in storage, so the tips wouldn't get tangled, since they weren't separated.

You make some really nice baits!

What kind of soft plastic is so buoyant that it can float a weighted hook, so it lands and retrieves face up?

Neat!

A smart idea, for sure.