mark poulson

Try dipping them in acetone for just a second before you foil them. That should clear up the cloudy look.

Lincoya, That's a neat setup! I'm no machinist, so I'd have trouble duplicating it, but it looks like the way to go, for sure. In the past, I've used sst cotter pins pushed through the center of an egg sinker, with the tag ends bent over and clipped off. I'd seat that in a hole with epoxy, and the wood would fail before the cotter pin would come out.

If you want to add a bill/type lip, try making a pop mold of the bottom of the lizard, carving out a lip slot, and then pouring some hot plastic into the lip slot, and laying a new lizard in on top of the hot plastic. Or you could make a lip mold and attach it with Mend It or some other soft plastic glue, or even crazy glue.

Ben, That's okay. I need the royalty money.

When I used rattle cans, I used Dap Touch 'n Tone paints because that's what my local lumber yard carried, and it was cheap. Dap makes a clear acrylic rattle can sealer that went on really well over the paint. Recoat time for all the Dap rattle can paints was within the first hour, or after 24 hours, so I'd do the entire paint job, including three coats of the clear, in an hour, waiting 10 minutes between coats. Then I'd let it sit for a few days to cure out. I could tell when the paint got hard. My buddy hung one of my wooden rattle can painted baits on a buoy line, and we had to wait a week to retrieve it. The water never bothered the finish at all.

I just dip them in acetone, to renew the virgin plastic surface, and then spray Createx, or another airbrush paint, directly onto them.

Hahaha...

I drill pilot holes in my PVC baits, thread the screw eyes in, back them out again, coat the shank with brushon crazy glue, and screw them back in. The excess glue collects on the surface around the hole as I screw them in, and it forms a kind of a seat for the eye when it's tight to the lure. They hold find. The biggest bass I've caught on one of my small PVC poppers, with .072 sst screw eyes, is the one in my avatar, 8lbs8oz. I can still unscrew them if I need to, but I have to "break them loose" from the crazy glue/top coat seat. I use a double screw eye/hinge pin system for my jointed baits. With two screw eyes, unscrewing isn't possible, since the hinge pin keeps them from rotating. For really small sectional baits, I only put a hook hanger in the first section, so I can use sst cotter pins instead of the larger screw eyes for my hinges, to save space and weight. Since there's no stress on the hinges, other than the swimming action, I've never had one fail. Like Rayburn Guys said, the glue is stronger than the wood or PVC, or whatever you're using, so drilling oversized holes, filling them with epoxy, and then pushing the screw eye in is a strong method. Just try to make the holes the same size as the outside of the screw eye, coat the treads with epoxy before you insert them, fill the hole, and push the screw in. Cleaning up the excess while it's still a liquid is a lot easier than having to drill it out later, so do it if you can.

The cut looks fine to me.

That's a really nice looking lure. I like it a lot. For my topwaters, and for lures like the Sammie, Megabass DogX, and Pupfish, the area directly below the head, from the line tie down to the hook hanger, is a sloped flat, almost like an inverted ramp, and the rest of the underside of the lure is rounded. I wonder if the interuption of the area between the line tie and the front hook by the "neck" gap has something to do with how it walks. You could probably test this idea by building up the gap with some silicone caulking to see if it helps. Silicone doesn't stick to anything except itself and flat metal surfaces, so it should be entirely reversible. Also, I'm wondering if the rigid tail fin is acting like a rudder, fighting the side to side walking action. I hope you work this out, so I can copy your idea!!! Hahaha

Ingenious! Thanks for sharing.

Having the bed level isn't what's critical. It's having the bed square to the blade. Also, a blade that's duller on one side will wander, and not cut as true a hole. The side that's dull will cut with more resistance, and the blade will tend to belly away from the dull side.

A longer head/first section will give a more stable head, with more swimming action in the following sections.

You can make a reservoir by wrapping the top of the mold with duct tape that extends up past the mold another 3/4". It will hold enough plastic to allow for the shrinkage from cooling.

I use the .092 sst screw eyes for my bigger swimbaits, for the line tie, hook hangers, and hinges. I use the .072 for smaller swimbaits where I have less room, and where the bait is going to be swallowed most of the time. I would use the .092 for striper lures. They are crazy strong, both the hardware and the fish.

That looks like the one I have. Mine is 5 years+ old, and still going strong.

Dieter, I don't make underwater gliders, but the weighting theory should be the same as for top waters, I think. I test my topwater glider weighting on my bench by placing the lure, on it's side, over a round wood dowel, and moving it until it's balanced. For me, ideal gliding weighting has the center of gravity about 2/3rds of the way to the tail. That way, the rear of the lure has more weight, and more inertia, than the front, so, as the force of the water slows the front, the reat still moves, and turns the lure as it tries to pass the front. For topwaters, how the lures hang at rest in the water is a good indication of how they will perform, so I tank test them with all the split rings and hooks in place. The smaller the lure, the more vertical I want it to hang in the water. The largest lures, 6-8", hang almost horizontal, with just the top of the front section above the water. 4" and under lures hang down at about 80 degrees from horizontal, with the tail just a small bit up. I bought some unpainted Sammie lure bodies from Predator Bass (great lures) and found they needed about a gram of ballast added to the rear to achieve the proper hang in the test tank. The extra down hang is critical in allowing the lures to walk properly, especially when there's wind chop, or boat wakes.

You guys are brutal!!!