mark poulson

A fresh idea. Hinges with plastic bearings. Let us know how it works.

Seal it well, and give 'em hell. I know you'll catch fish with that lure. It looks great. How did you do the foil? Is that a photo finish? Next time, you might try putting a pearl silver undercoat on before you foil, so the edges of the foil blend into the paint and aren't as noticeable.

I bought them when they first came out. The action isn't that great, but they swim, and they are very brittle. I won't buy another one. If you're buying a jointed swimbait, the BBZ is the best bang for your buck. And they work.

Jamie, My experience, using screw eyes and hinge pins, has been that the actual wear and tear on the inside of the joints is minimal, but that having very lose and free moving joints is key. I avoid joints "sticking", which does happen occasionally on casts, by coating my lure's joints with Megastrike or some other scent, which acts as a lubricant.

I agree with Mountain Man about the section sizes. That has been my experience, too. Mountain Man, when you figure out why it swims better, let me know. I sure don't know why, but I think it may have to do with the head being rear weighted, which makes it unstable. The back of the section is heavier, so it moves more slowly than the front, initiating the swimming motion. And yet it is big enough to "anchor" the S, and allow the other sections to "flap" in the current flow behind it. When I've made equal section lures, they only swim at certain very limited speed ranges. Too slow or too fast, and they don't swim.

Funny, I was going to post the same thing. My father was a lathe hand, and we had a small lathe in our garage when I was young. I was taught never to wear long sleeves or loose clothing when operating a lathe. In high school, I had a part time job in a production metal shop, where we tooled stainless steel parts for the aircraft industry, and the tailings coming off the lathes were hot and sharp. One of the lathe workers did wear long sleeves, but he taped the sleeves at the cuffs, so they were tight to his wrists and couldn't get caught. I just made sure I kept my hands and arms away from the cuttings. My father's warnings were too deeply ingrained in my head. The loose clothing danger carried over into carpentry, for me. It's too easy for a sleeve to dangle down and get caught in a table saw blade. Short story long, be careful. At least button your cuffs, and no dangling jewelry.

Fun to watch. I just visited your gallery collection. Nice work.

I use the Hitch Hiker with weighted Falcon hooks for Flukes and other small swimbaits. I also bought some of the 60 degree jig hooks (5/0) with no weight and use that setup for soft plastic toads.

TJ, I think I'll try the rod building syringes. Bob, I've had yellowing, both with D2T and Envirotex. I wonder if it's really the paint underneath yellowing through the clear. I use Krylon spray on glitter over my paint jobs before I clear, and the can says archival safe, but it doesn't say anything about UV. I've also use pastel fixative between coats on some lures. As soon as I get some free time, I have to repaint and re coat some lures that had the D2T flake off. When I do, I may do one with glitter, and one without, and see if it makes a difference. I haven't had either yellowing or flaking on cranks I've repainted, only on wooden swimbaits. Weird.

Sounds good. How long do the syringes last?

I use a mossy green mixed with brown, to get a darker brownish green, or greenish brown. No formula, I just do it by eye. The mossy green is an Apple Barrel paint, and I thin it with windex. The brown is a Createx transparent dark brown.

I meant putting the stencil over the back of the lure like a saddle. I do that so I can use the fold in the back to keep both sides the same distance down from the top.

Ah, the seal of approval! Way to go! You should post those onto the gallery.

Muskiefool, Those paint jobs are outrageous! How does that lure shape swim?

Chief, Do you make your templates 2 sided? I cut my pattern in one side, fold my template in half, and duplicate it on the other half, so both sides are, more or less, symetrical. I think the soldering iron would be perfect for making double sided templates. Do you use clear mylar?

carphelo, That looks great! You da man!!!!!

Balsa is a very soft wood. I don't think it would be my choice of wood for a jointed swim bait. I have a 6" four piece pine lure sitting on my work bench that I haven't finished yet, because the wood is so buoyant I will have to add a ton of ballast to get it to float right, and there's just not enough room in those small sections. It was something I made, early on, to play around with the physical challenges of hinging. It was a great help in figuring things out, sort of like assembling a wooden cabinet dry first, to see what needs to go together in what order, so, when the glue has been applied, you don't forget a step and ruin all your work. But, as I said, I probably will never finish it. Wrong wood. I've settled on poplar. Some people use basswood, some fir, some oak, some cedar. It really depends on the actual piece of wood you have to work with, and how heavy it is. Pine can range from super light, like the easy-to-carve piece I used for that prototype, to some really heavily pitched stuff, which is heavier, and which I actually use for my surface gliders, which are one piece. I'm sticking with poplar or fir for my jointed lures, since both woods are strong, heavy enough to require relatively minimum ballast weighting, and are still easy to shape and finish. What ever you finally choose to use, know you probably won't get it right the first, or second, or even third time. But each attempt will get you closer, and teach you something. Life is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the ride.

summitlures, You should try to do your balancing and weighting after you've sealed your bait, but before you paint it. It's much easier. When I first started making floating gliders (Lunker Punker knockoffs) I carried suspend dots and suspend strips in my boat when I took them to the lake, but I found that the best way is to work really hard to get it right by float testing them in my garage, in a 5 gallon bucket of water, and then priming them white, so I can really see them well, and going to the local pond and trying them out. It's really hard to get things right on the water, with so many variables. A water bucket, or your bath tub, will give you much more accurate results when it comes to weighting. Just make sure your rubber ducky doesn't get hooked.

Mark the lure off into four equal sections. The head is 2 sections, the other two are one each. The tail, if you're using a plastic tail or something else, shouldn't be counted in dividing the lure, only the woodens sections. If you're making a wooden tail section, I'd just make it the third section. Where are you hanging your hooks, and what kind of tail are you planning to use, if any.

For a three piece lure, I'd think in terms of 2/1/1, starting with the head section, not counting whatever you're using for a tail. If you're thinking four piece, 2/1/1/1, but I don't know how you're going to get all your hardware into four little pieces like that. I look forward to hearing about, and, hopefully, seeing whatever you wind up making. Good luck.

If I do decide to put a UV resistant clear over my Etex epoxy, would I need to scuff the epoxy for a bond, or do you think the acrylic would stick?

My fishing buddy says acrylic paints react with the kind of plastic used in soft, making them gooey over time. Are you familiar with any such problems? I do want to try that clear acrylic top coat with the UV protection over my Etex, but I use screw on plastic tails on some baits, and don't want them to melt.

summitlures, There are two basic types of hinges that I've used, with success. Back to back screw eye/wire loops, and screw eye/wire loop with hinge pins. Depending on your skill level, the material you use to build your lures, and what's available to you in terms of lure building supplies, both these types of hinges will work. Rofish posted pictures of twist wire hinges used in Europe, and I'm sure there are lots of clever people out there with their own ideas. And JRHopkins has his own unique hinge that works. I now use the screw eye/hinge pin method, because it works for me. I can adjust the width of the joint by adjusting the depth the screw eye is inserted, with the finer threads making small adjustments easier, and the hinge pin of sst spinner bait wire, with one end bent to 90 degrees, gives me the ability to take my lures back apart for "service". I'm still learning, so some of my past efforts now require tuneups, where previous paint schemes, gluing methods, or top coating efforts have failed, for one reason or another. I don't sell my lures, so I have been able to learn as I go, without worrying about customer satisfaction. Aside from my weekly fishing buddy, who I've given lures to, and who doesn't hesitate to make "constructive criticism" and request customer service, I'm the only one I have to please. Correction. Me and the fish!

summitlures, If I understand your question, and you'd like to use the clips on the drop shot weights for hook hangers, the answer is no, they are not strong enough. I use egg sinkers with sst cotter pins pushed through them for my hook hangers. It's a idea I read hear when I first joined the site. I've found, with the lures I make and the wood I use, I always need ballast weight anyway, and the location of my hook hangers is a good place for it, in terms of the way the weight affects the action, so I kill two birds with one stone. I use 1/8oz egg sinkers, two per lure, and I haven't made one so far that didn't need even more weight afterward. The 1/8oz is small enough and short enough that it doesn't interfere too much with my hinging method. I haven't tried Basswood, but I've use pine, douglas fir, and now I'm using poplar, and they all need additional weight. Also, the profile of my lures, taller than they are wide (think Triple Trout), makes a ballast weight at the bottom, to act as a keel like diemai said, is always needed, or the lures lie on their sides, even with the hooks in place. So I wouldn't use drop shot sinkers for hook hangers. But I would try and use weighted hook hangers. There used to be an outfit that make them, but I can't get a return phone call to reorder, so maybe they're not around any more. That's why I make my own with egg sinkers, and they work well so far. Sorry to be so long winded, but I've had two cups of coffee this morning, and I'm wired.

rofish, I don't make lures to sell, so I don't have to make them bullet proof. I haven't really notice a problem with the epoxy failing in the hinge joints too much. I coat the insides of the joints separately, and then coat the rest of the lure. I have run into the hinge joints sticking when the lure lands funny on a cast, like the two epoxied faces bind. I've found that, if I shoot a little fish attractant on the joints before I throw them, they free right up, and I don't have that problem. It doesn't hurt the epoxy, and adds a little scent to the lures. Like the guy said in the movie Evolution just before the proctologist went in to retrieve an alien insect that had gotten into his body, "There's always time for lubricant!".