mark poulson

AZEK decking and trim board is the brand I use. JR Hopkins turned me on to it several years ago. The decking is harder, and denser, and it's as buoyant as poplar. I use it for jointed swimbaits, walking baits, and bigger baits in general. The trim board is even more buoyant, so I use it for cranks and poppers. Both are strong enough to hold screw eyes. The biggest bass I caught on a homemade PVC popper was the one in my avatar, and it is over 8lbs, so I know it will hold up to fish that size.

I don't know of any good, cheap Iwata brushes at that price. I'd suggest you do an Iwata search here and see what you come up with. Also Google it, and see what you can find. The Coast Airbrush site I gave you is a good baseline to start with for pricing.

My bone is white with either a little yellow or a little grey. I like the yellow bone better. You can add some brown instead, too. It's a "season to taste" kind of thing.

I've played around a little with that kind of ballasting. It is really finicky. You're right, as you move the ballast up toward the center of gravity it does become more unstable. I was trying to find the perfect spot where my lures would "hunt", or move erratically from side to side as they lost their stability, but then regained it quickly. I gave up. It was too tricky, and each lure is just different enough that I couldn't tune them without exhaustive testing, and then the paint and topcoat would change the action again. Grrrr!!!!! Strike King's KVD shallow runners, the 1.5 and 2.5, are supposed to hunt. It is much easier to reproduce an erratic action in a mass produced, injected plastic lure than in a hand made lure. I just never got to be repeatable. There is such a fine line between hunting and rolling, which is what my lures did when the ballast was just a little too high. So I stopped trying, and play around with the lip design and placement now instead. I haven't come up with a repeatable hunting action yet, but I'm not so concerned with that anymore, since I fish my cranks mostly through brush and over weeds, or grinding over rocks.

I would go to Badger's website, if they have one, or Coast Air Brush at http://www.coastairbrush.com/products.asp?cat=103 and check out what your brush is designed for. I have a similar Badger brush. Mine has a .5mm tip, and is a suction brush with glass paint bottles that are hung from below the brush. The paint is pulled into the brush with a plastic "straw", a tube that comes out of the top of the bottle and is forced up into the bottom of the brush. I use my Badger for applying large amounts of thicker paint, like spraying multiple baits with undercoat white before I move on to my Iwata brush for the finer painting. The tip on the Badger, plus the amount of air I find I need to make the suction work, make fine lines and fine work impossible for me, but it sprays thicker paints and big volumes great.

Amen to that!!!

Thanks guys. Actually, I was thinking of the salt in the plastics I make and use in freshwater. If I leave one on a bronze jig hook, it's guaranteed to rust. I was hoping the bluing would provide some protection. As for salt water fishing, the only protection I've found is to break everything down and flush it all with fresh water when I'm done.

Snowman, Sidetrack here. Sorry. Does bluing protect the hooks from salt corrosion?

I don't think you'll get as smooth a surface with the PVC as you got with the wood. It is made from fine grain particles, not grown like wood. You will probably have to wet sand it with 400 grit wet and dry paper after priming with Rustoleum rattle can primer, several coats, to get it smooth. Myself, I don't bother. I sand down to 220, and then paint directly over the PVC. My Createx white base coat, pearls, and other colors in multiple coats fill it in almost completely, and my dipped top coat, three dips, finishes the job.

You really do a beautiful job of carving!

My buddy told me today it works on plastic worms for bass, too.

I googled alginate, and watched a U tube video of a guy making a mold of his hand and forearm. Interesting stuff.

Steven, I buy it by the quart, which lasts me several years. As I said, I'm a hobby builder now, so I only make and paint when the winds of inspiration break. When I made and sold swimbaits, I went through a quart much more quickly. I use the screw eye and pin type of hinges on my swimbaits, so I remove the pin, dip each section individually, and then reassemble after it's all dry and cured for a day. It's important to monitor the sections for the first 15 minutes so you can blot off any buildup or drips before they skin over. It may seem like you're taking all the finish away, but remember the reason it needs to be blotted in the first place is because the wet finish is concentrating in that area to begin with. So there will be plenty of top coat, especially if you dip three times like I do. If I want to repaint a small store bought swimbait, I still dip the whole bait, hang it, and blot as much as I can. The urethane isn't that thick, and the store bought baits are already sealed, so coverage is for protecting the paint on the faces, not waterproofing.

Griffond, You don't need to plane off the texture or smooth factory finish before you begin building. I cut out the profile on a bandsaw, smooth the profile on my oscillating belt sander, and then trace a centerline around the bait body to use as a symmetry guide, to keep both sides even when I'm shaping with my sander. The sander, with a 50 grit belt, makes short work of the factory finish, and there's typically none left when I'm done rough shaping, and switch to 80 grit for more smoothing.

It's pretty clear from your testing that the PVC you bought isn't up to making lures. Try finding some AZEK. While it's not perfect, the AZEK decking doesn't have large voids in it. I have broken hardware before I could pull it out with a pair of needle nose pliers, once I'd glued it in with crazy glue or epoxy. The AZEK trim board has no voids. I'd suggest you try some tests using the same line and knots that you fish with to attach your weights. I find the line breaks long before my hardware has a chance to fail.

if you remove the powder coat from the eye before you cure it, it's easier. Not easy, but easier.

Two tabs for clear water and cold water, three for off color or dirty water.

I carry a small piece of spinnerbait wire to stick into the soft plastic first, to act as a guide for the hitchhikers. It works, but not as well as the ones with the centering pins.

Dieter, If you're fishing for catfish, try it. I don't know exactly what's in it, but I've seen it work.

I also use sharpies, but have found the solvent based ones tend to bleed over time.

I never fish one of my swimbaits with anything less than 20# mono or fluoro. I don't use braid, because, if it tip wraps or digs into the spool on the cast, it snaps.

For toothy critters, like pike and musky, the AZEK decking is a little harder than the trim board, and would probably resist teeth better, although both are great for any lure build. I use the decking for all my jointed swimbaits and for my one piece topwaters. Al Lindner bit one of my AZEK decking swimbaits, and couldn't dent it. Plus, if a tooth does manage to break through the topcoat and paint, it won't matter, since the PVC is totally waterproof. I've fished baits with no paint at all, and caught fish. The trim board really shines for cranks because it is so buoyant. Cranks made of it back out of snags really well, almost as well as balsa. I sand or plane the textured and the smooth faces off during the shaping process.

That's a great system. I use it, too, so, of course, I would think it's great. Hahaha One thing I'd add is to use a lure that's similar to what you've made, one that works, in a side by side float test, so you can get your lure to sit like one that already works. I'm talking more about type of lure, like shallow runner, mid range/deep runner, top water, one with a similar bill angle, and not so much a close match to the actual lure you've made. I've found the attack angle, the angle the lure sits at rest, is critical in how well the lure dives, and how well it lure performs, but I don't know enough to say what it should be for each type of lure, so having something to imitate helps me a lot.

Thanks Gino.

You're starting out right! Good luck.