mark poulson

Stretch it more, and cut it slower. I had the same problem when I first tried, and really had to stretch it and take my time.

I've never tried to mix the two, and only use bondo as a filler in making cranks, so I'm far from an expert. My surfboard making is many years in the past. But I've used bondo to fill dings in one of my sons' surfboards, and it holds up fine. I just coat it with crazy glue after it sets up. However, I did sleep in a Motel 6 last night, so here goes..... The resin used with fiberglass cloth is like a glue or binder, and is meant to be applied in thin layers. That's why it cracks when poured thick. It has no tensile strength on it's own, and shrinks when thick. The fiberglass cloth provides that tensile strength, like the steel in steel-reinforced concrete. If you've ever mixed some pure cement, and then let it set, you'll see it cracks, too. The sand and gravel in a concrete mix provide a matrix, and the cement is the binder. Too rich a mix (too much pure cement) will shrink and crack. Bondo has some kind of filler added to it, which allows it to be applied thick without shrinking and cracking. I don't use bondo for making my molds. I make my one and two part molds for plastics out of POP, reinforced with drywall fiberglass mesh tape, and coated with diluted D2T to seal the plaster once it's dry.

sallystrothers, Look for large, round bend sst snaps.

I used to use primer, but I found that Createx bonds to the PVC just fine. I use the primer to get a smoother surface if I want that, but, for me, it's a step I skip, since primer usually needs to dry overnight to let all the solvents escape. I find that Createx paints have enough body to fill any surface texture that's left after I wet sand my blanks with 400 grit paper, and the top coat fills in the rest. I'm a carpenter, and love working with wood, but if I'd have known about AZEK decking and trim board when I first started lure making (I think JRHopkins told me about it as soon as it became available) I never would have used wood for lures in the first place.

Klondike, Anything that's absorbed by the lure body will decrease buoyancy, because you're packing more material into the same space. In wood, trapped air provides buoyancy, and wood hardener displaces some of that air. If you just brush it on, it probably wouldn't be enough to affect buoyancy much, but soaking it, so it really penetrates, will cause a change.

Pizza, If I want a sub 3" four segment swimbait, I buy the Baby BBZ, from Spro. They work. I agree, JRHopkins' bait is truly amazing. All of his baits are. He must have the patience of Job, or job, or whoever that guy was!

I also use a table saw, set to 25*, and a miter guage with a sacrificial wood fence screwed to it, and cut my joints while my lure blank is still a rectangle. I do a test cut, use a square to mark a line up the wood face to the top, and then align my joint marks with that line, so that the joints line up from both sides. I don't cut all the way through, so the lure body holds together during the shaping process. I cut the joints through with a drywall knife after the lure is shaped and sanded. If you've already shaped the lure without precutting the joints, I would cut them all the way through, square, and then use Dave's idea of a dremel with a sanding drum, or a spindle sander, to creat concave faces on the back of each segment, and a belt sander to make complementary convex faces on the leading edges of the nesting segments. It all sounds complicated, but I've found that jointed swimbaits are very forgiving of my errors, like not being perfectly symetrical, or not having perfect joints. Just try and use a hinge system that's openable, like Dave said, so you can adjust your joints as you need to. For me, that's sst screw eyes and bicycle spoke pins. It also helps me to be able to top coat the segments separately, and then assemble the lure. Sorry to be so long winded, but it's easy to get frustrated, so I try to pass along what I've already learned, so you don't have to make the same mistakes. Good luck.

Klondike, If you're making a small, sinking, jointed wood bait, there are some things you might want to consider before you chose balsa. You will need to add enough ballast to overcome balsa's most outstanding feature, it's buoyancy. That may require so much ballast to be a problem in such a small bait. Balsa is not a very strong wood, and that is critical in a jointed bait with hinges. I'd go with a heavier, stronger wood that doesn't require as much ballast to get it to sink, both for it's strength, and because you don't have a lot of room for ballast in a 2.5" bait. If I use wood, I like pine for small baits, because it's easy to carve/shape and strong. It is buoyant enough to let you ballast the belly, which will help the bait swim true. But, if pine is too buoyant, I would probably look for something even heavier, like poplar, because I still want some buoyancy, so the tail section still swims. Woods that don't float are a nightmare to carve, because they are very hard and full of oil,(teak and malaysian hardwood come to mind) and they are very hard to tune so they swim. Small jointed baits are a bear. Good luck.

I'm sure, if you can fit it into your segments, twist wire will work. Overall weight would be my only concern. Pizza, I've found that three segment swimbaits tend to flap, like a flag. I have to go to at least four segments to get the snake-like slither. I stopped fishing a two sement swimbait, the Jackall Giron, because all it did was big lazy S's, but it turns out the fish like that, so now I'm probably going to make some like that.

Jig Man, I think you're right. I have my Hagen's jig heads coming today, and I know Mustad hooks are good. I'm going to paint up a couple dozen 1/4oz heads, since I am down to my last one, after feeding the lake last Sunday. Hahaha I really don't like using the torch. As I've gotten older, I am much more aware of how clumsey I am, and can just see myself tipping it over, or passing my arm over it. Neither scenario appeals to me. One of my buddies does his powder coating in his kitchen, using the burners on his stove, but that's not for me. I'm going to buy a heat gun today. Lots of my friends use them, and say they are the way to go.

cadman, Is that true for POP and bondo molds, too?

Thanks for the info. Maybe just put your fluid bed on top of a boom box playing heavy metal. Hahaha

Sounds like I scrap it and wait for my red and purple from Lurecraft. I poured enough with it to fish this weekend, so I think the rest of the batch is going into a top pour mold of some kind. That's what I get for taking crayons from kids!

I'm no expert, but, for me, once a batch is flubbed, it's gone. I save it for top pour baits, or file in the trash can. Plastisol may be expensive, but it's not worth as much as my time.

I made some 4" four piece PVC baits, and wound up having to use sst cotter pins for the hinges. I only put a hook in the first section, so there was no strain on the hinges. They swam like a snake. I typically like to make my head portion 2X the size of the other segments, but these baits were too small for that. They are a lot of trouble because they are so small.

What kind of aerator are you talking about?

It looks like white with some pearl hilite powder, and a very fine flake.

Years ago I read here about using crayons and candle colors for coloring plastics, so I bought some candle colors, and confiscated a box of broken crayons from my kids. I used them both from time to time, and they worked fine in top pour molds. I just made an injection mold, and tried using it in that mold. It doesn't inject well at all. The mold works fine with regular plastic colored with the plastic color tinting that I normally use, but I wanted a purple, didn't have any tinting color, so I used a combination of burgundy candle color and crayons to get the color I wanted. The color came out great, but the mix doesn't want to inject. Has anyone else run into this?

And try just overspraying one color with another, but with a fine, thin coat. I find that works well to give baits metalic sheen without losing the underlying paint color, or to adjust a green to a chartruese.

Target Coatings had a flat finish water borne urethane that doesn't yellow. I use it sometimes for my baits. But flat film finishes aren't as strong as gloss, so I do two dips in the gloss, and then one in the flat. Here's the link: http://www.targetcoa...eries-25-1.html Or you can look at their EM9300, which is an exterior rated urethane. It isn't super clear, and three dips gives a less crisp, almost flat finish.

I agree. Calling him out is uncalled for. Clint, I don't oppose banning the rig. I just voted to make it legal for our Club. But everyone needs the same chance to voice their opinion, without worrying about being attacked personally. Otherwise, we don't life in America. I'm pretty sure you came across a lot harsher than you intended, but it does read as a personal attack. Tolerance is one of the basic concepts that this country was founded on. Our forefathers came here to find tolerance of their religious differences, which was denied in Europe. "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" Many have died defending that freedom. Let's not lose it here at home by being intolerant of each other.

In my neighborhood, poor education and no job is the recipe for white trash. Sorry, couldn't resist. Are your looking to match someone's white trash color, or just come up with a bone color?

Me, too, if the price is right. I'm buying Zoom 4" mini lizards at $3.99 for 15 right now from Tacklewarehouse.