mark poulson

Me, too.

Just remember that the AC1315 will melt if left in contact with a soft plastic lure for more than 30 minutes. I think the softener in the plastic is also a solvent for the AC1315. I keep them separate on my boat's deck. If I want to use a soft plastic worm as a tail on a rat bait I've made and coated with AC1315, I put a layer of clear nail polish around the point of attachment, and it prevents any problems.

I mix my fine glitter into some Createx transparent base, and then brush it on where I want it. Dry with the hair dryer and dip.

I was wondering if leaving the bait whole and not trimming the extra plate material, so you can lay the stencil over the bait you're painting while it's lying on a flat work surface, might make holding the stencil in place easier. Maybe use a soft cloth on the flat work surface to protect the paint.

I think so, too. It's worth investigating. Plastic dinner plates are cheap.

That kind of double ended rasp was used a lot by carpenters I worked with for rough shaping, when we used a lot of hand tools. I can see how it might be easier to use while holding a lure blank in your hand. If memory serves, they weren't too coarse. My dad's old rasps are too coarse to for me to hold the bait and use them.

This guy made his own 10" vacuum chamber out of a piece of pipe, and plywood ends. He drilled holes in the top lid, and put a vacuum attachment on one side. Then he put a bait on top of the chamber, covered some of the holes farther from the bait with some kind of tape, placed a plastic dish plate that he'd heated with a heat gun over the bait, and turned on his shop vac. It sucked the plastic plate right down around the bait. He use a full bodied bait, not a half, so he faced some trimming. Or maybe not, I don't know. But I thought it was a really clever idea.

That will work really well on Azek PVC trimboard. I use some old wood rasps that were my father's, and they do work. I just have to hold whatever I'm shaping in a vise.

This is genius, because it is so simple and easy to do: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1281784588575840/2855694247851525/?comment_id=2874018259352457&notif_id=1580389777177601&notif_t=group_comment_follow

Royal blade update. I fished a new lake near my house Tuesday. It's basically a deep hole with steep sides, and a shallow apron all the way around. Grass out to 20', and then a bare+- bottom down to 100'. I threw three different tandem spinnerbaits with Royal blades. Two 3/8 oz, bluegill and chart/white, with #4 blades on the back, and a 5/8oz bluegill, with a #5 on the back for slow rolling the bottom of the weed edge. I could definitely feel the Royal blade thumping. I should have tied on one of my Indiana blade spinnerbaits, too, so I could compare the two side by side, but, alas, I wasn't that smart. No bites on them all day. I did fish other baits, too. They had stocked trout on Saturday, so I threw an 8" Huddleston, ROF 12, in a trout color, for an hour. Nada. I threw two different A rigs, a finesse one with 3" and 3 1/2" swimbaits, and a bigger one with 4" and 5" swimbaits. I got one bump on the larger rig, but no hookups. I threw shallow, med, and deep jerkbaits which got ignored, although I did have a follower flash on the shallow one as I got it almost back to the boat. I'd like to think the fish were just full of trout, instead of me just sucking.

Mr. Poulson! I am flattered. Obviously, you haven't spoken to my children. They have a different name for me. Hahaha KennyP, it's Mark.

That doesn't sound too difficult. Any machine shop should be able to do that.

I do that, too, sometimes. Temporary insanity.

Maybe they can help you figure out how to adapt the Jacobs molds to their machine.

Hahaha. My hands don't work anymore when it gets down to the low 40's, so I don't, either.

Maybe in your hands! Hahaha Seriously, a carving knife, provided it really sharp, is a great way to go with PVC, since there's no grain to fight. Any knife will work, but it has to be sharp! I rough shape a lot with my oscillating belt sander, but I've been using it, and power tools in general for over 50 years, so it's easy for me. If I do remove too much material, I can always build that part back up with bondo, and then reshape it. But going slowly, and checking the shape often, cuts way down on the screwups. I add details, and do some of my hollowing out, with a dremel and drum sanding bit. The one I use most has a flexible shaft, so it's easier to hold to do finicky stuff, but my other dremel will work, too.

Toadman, I'm happy if it helps you. I'm a old retired carpenter who is good with his hands. My sister and my daughter are the artists. They paint 'em, I frame 'em! Yes, the tail fin is the trickiest part. The thing it took me a while to really come to grips with is that the fin rotates away from the water on the spin, not like a boat prop. The cupped part has to direct the water that gets trapped by it as it rotates toward the tip, so it can spill out easily once it's done it's plopping job. Think of it as pointing toward the rear of the lure, but only slightly. Now that I've made a few, I can do them pretty quickly, but I still need to test swim the final product. Fortunately, since PVC is waterproof, I can test them unpainted, and then each modification as I do it, without the need to reseal each time. It cuts way down on building time, and I love that. I do enjoy the building process, even if it's long and involved, but I hate down time, like waiting for sealer to dry enough to continue. With PVC, I can think of a bait, make it, paint it, and topcoat it with Solarez UV resin, and fish it the same day. I don't generally do it, but just knowing I can makes me more likely to get up off my duff and do something. Now, if I could just find something to get me out into the garage to work when it's 40 degrees, short of a space heater and gloves, I'd be all set! Hahaha

Bear in mind, I'm doing this from memory, since it's been a while since I made one. Here's a picture of the last one I made. It is slightly smaller, but you should get the idea. Notice how deep I made the belly, so the ballast could be low enough to keep the main body from turning. I traced out the body on a rectangular block, square on each end, of 1" X 1 1/2"X 4" trim board for the main body. I took the distance down from the top of the bait to the nose/line tie and drew a line that far down at the other end of the body block. Then I put a mark at 1/2" on both ends, so I had the same location at each end. I also added centerlines at 1/2" on the top and bottom of the block, for reference. Where the traced body shape was closest to the bottom, I marked a hole for the belly hook hanger, which was going to be a heavy duty Spro swivel. I also marked two ballast holes, in front of and behind the belly hanger, close to it but far enough away to have 3/16" of material between the holes when I was done. I pre-drilled pilot holes at all these locations, while the block was still square, so I could find them more easily once the shaping was finished and they would still be centered. I clamped my rectangular block with one end down, square to the drill press table, and drilled a pilot hole half way into the block, and then flipped the block and drilled from the other end, so the two holes connected. If I was careful with my block squaring and clamping, they did. I passed a .051 sst shaft ( from Lurepartsonline) down through the hole to be sure they were aligned. Once the shaft was drilled, I used my compass to draw a 3/4" diameter circle on the rear end of the main block , since I knew the shaping would result in the end of the main block toward the tail being round+-, and about 3/4" in diameter. I shaped the main body, using my oscillating belt sander, a sanding block, a file, and whatever else I had on hand to get the shape close. Close counts. I am not an artist. I kept the body almost 1" thick at the top, but I tapered it down to 3/4" at the belly, to remove as much buoyant material as I could, which I hoped would reduce the amount of ballast I would need. I installed the rivet in the back end of the main body, and then the sst shaft, leaving the prebent loop at the front as the line tie, and leaving the shaft run wild for now. Then I drilled the whole for the swivel hook hanger, and cross drilled a hole to allow me to pin the buried eye of the swivel with a piece of spinnerbait wire, so it couldn't pull out. I also drilled two 1/4" ballast holes, all the way up to the shaft. I drilled two recesses for the eyes. Next I cut a piece of 3/4" X 1 1/4" X 1 1/2" trim board for the tail. I laid out the tail profile, and marked the line for the shaft, but keeping the hole 3/8" from one side, so I had a lot of material left for the fin. I used the same method to drill the shaft hole in the tail block. And I drew a 3/4" circle on the front of that piece, where it would meet the main body. I used the band saw to cut out the profile of the tail. I used my compass again to trace a 3/8"+- circle on the back end of the tail, which I knew would be close enough for rough shaping. Then I connected the two circles with straight lines, so I could see how much material to initially remove, without cutting into the tail's fin. Bear in mind I had one of the original ploppers, hooks removed, on my bench next to me the whole time for reference. I put a sanding disk into my dremel, and began removing material with it. Bit by bit I refined the shape until it was close to the original. The first time I did this, I was really afraid of removing too much material, since I wasn't sure how strong the PVC would actually be. Turns out, as long as I coat the faces of the fin it was plenty strong. (I did break on of my first baits, but that was when it refused to just bounce of the concrete wall I hit with an overly strong cast in the early morning gloom. Damn uncooperative bait! Hahaha) A thinner fin spins more easily, so it's a balancing act. I found, through trial and error that the depth from front to back of the actual fin part of the tail, not the length out from the shaft, was critical. Too long, and the fin wouldn't turn at low speeds. I wound up removing material from the front part until it spun easily, and the magic dimension wound up being 1/2", front to back. The distance the fin projects out from the shaft to tip is basically whatever is left, once I cut out the profile. Getting the shape of the fin was made much easier by have the original in hand, because the fin is cupped, which makes it trap water/air as it spins and make the plop, plop sound. The deeper the cup, the deeper the plop. Just be sure to make the cup slant back as it goes toward the tail, to give the trapped water a way to escape easily. Err on the side of not enough slant, and then you can increase it as you go until you get it to plop easily. Then I put the rivet in both ends of the tail piece, slid it onto the shaft, added a couple of 3/16" sst spinnerbait spacer balls, and used my round nosed pliers to form the tail hook hanger loop. I started my bend almost 3/4" back from the last ball, so I'd have room to do a couple of wire wraps before I cut off the excess with my dremel. I adjusted how tight the tail was the the main body by either removing more wire with the demel to get more space if it was too tight, or spreading the coils to get less space and tighten it up. Then I put on my split rings and trebles, including a split ring on the nose, and did a float test. I used 1/4" lead wire, just pushed up into the ballast holes partially, to adjust how much ballast I needed to have the bait lay belly down, but not tail down. Once I got the amount right, I pushed them in flush, and super glued over them. Then I took the bait out for a test swim. I played around with it, if it needed it, until it would plop as soon as I began my retrieve. I hope this helps, and isn't too confusing. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. You can always make another, and another, and another. Hahaha

Maybe you're using too much super glue to hold your eyes on. I put a small drop in the middle of the eye socket, use a piece of wire to spread it around, and then apply the eyes. I never get any white haze. If I'm applying eyes to a bait without an eye socket, I use a fine file to make a flat area for the eye to sit on, and the put a drop of superglue onto that. It does take longer for the glue to hold enough to do the other side, but it works.

If it performs as a bait, it will still get bit. My own lures are proof of that!

Here's a picture of my first plopper. It's in the Hard Baits Gallery:

I have found that, for me, AZEK Trimboard is similar to med. density balsa, and their decking is similar to Poplar.

I make my ploppers with a through wire from the line tie to the rear treble. .051 wire works best for me. I drill an oversized hole that just fits a buzzbait rivet so I can use the rivets for bearings at the joint of the two body parts. It make the tail much more free spinning.

If the UV cure is under the eye, maybe it's not getting any UV light to cure it.

Here's a link to the sticky at the top of the Hardbaits Forum page. I think it will answer most of your questions: