mark poulson

I think the Etex thinned 50/50 with denatured alcohol should work fine. If you are making hinges with pins, you can also use the runny type of crazy glue to seal the smaller areas like drilled pin holes. You may have to redrill them, but the glue should wick all the way through the holes, and come out the other side so you know it's gotten into everything. If it doesn't come out, put some in from the other side. If you use a piece of the same wire you've made the pins from to drill the holes out, it should be a tight enough fit that water won't get in anyway. I have to use pliars to get my pins in and out, so I'm pretty sure the holes are water tight.

diemai, The lure is looking good so far. I can't wait for you to get home from work so you can do more and post more pics. I wouldn't worry too much about the variations in color you mentioned. I get variations in color from one side to the other with my lures assembled, and I use an airbrush. I don't think the fish care, only the fishermen! I sometimes paint the sections individually. When I am repairing a damaged section, I paint it individually, with the rest of the lure next to it for a sample. I'm just not that good a painter, so I find I get a more consistent match from one section to the next by painting with the lure assembled. One trick I learned here is to put a coat of clear pastel fixative over the lure during various stages of painting, when I've gotten a paint job I like up to that point. That way, if I mess up the next step, I can just wipe it off with water and repaint. Of course, I'm using water based paints. With rattle cans, if you let the paint dry completely, you could probably wipe off the next layer with paint thinner if you don't like it, but you'd have to be gentle. Depending on the paint you use, a solvent based paint can take a while to really cure, adding to your painting time. Like Rofish said, good luck.

Now get to work and turn some lures! Not to be a nag, but one last thing. Dan, I have several friends who are successful turners, making bowls, vases, stuff like that. They all wear full face shields when they turn, the kind that is on a band that fits around your head and covers their entire face. If they think it's smart, it probably is.

Just remember to keep the tool rest close to the work, and your cheisels sharp! Long handles on lathe tools are for leverage, so the tool doesn't catch and get thrown back at you, or into the ceiling or wall.

Looks good. Let us know how the fish like it. What did you use for the tail?

I think it's going to be fine. The tail section wiggles like crazy, and that's what you want. I've found that three piece lures kind of thrash from side to side, like a whip, and four piece swim like a snake.

I think Rofish was concerned about the actually wear of the wire to ball connections in the chain. Swimming the lure will make these points rub a lot (assuming it swims like a fiend!), and sst, while very corrosion resistant, can be a somewhat soft metal, unless it's tempered. But, as you say, it's a prototype, first-of-it's-kind lure. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Get it finished and fishing! The worst that can happen is you'll have to make another if something in this one fails. And I hope it's tested by a personal best bass!

Nuke 'em!!!

If you're worried about the line tie pulling the lip out, I've seen lures whose line tie passes through the lip, and back into the lure, so it's glued separately from the lip itself. I don't make lipped cranks, but I'd think how you attach your line tie would depend on how strong your wood is, and what kind of fish you expect to catch. Muskies are some pretty big, strong fish. I'd assume you're not using a soft wood, and you're not making small baits, so there would probably be enough lip glued into the wood, if you follow FF's method, to make for a strong attachment. But you could search the gallery for muskie lures, and see how the guys who do it all the time are handling this area, and you'd probably get a much better idea of the choices that are out there, and that work.

Dan, I'm no lathe expert, but your lathe may have a tapered chuck, meaning the end that goes into the head is tapered. That's pretty standard in lathes and drill presses. You use a piece of wood to tap the chuck into the taper, so it won't slip when you first start it up. There's generally lubricant, or, more accurately, protective oil/grease coating on new machine parts, and this is probably to get the chuck seated. Bear in mind, I have a 50 year old wood lathe with a separate motor, that I picked up at the Saugus Swapmeet for $10, almost thirty years ago. It has a tapered chuck on the headstock. So does my Grizzley drill press, which I bought twenty years ago. If the chuck slips after you've tapped it into place, you may not have enough tension between the head and tail chucks, or live center, or whatever you use. Try wiping the tapered end off with solvent, and then reinserting it.

There are a couple of things to try if it doesn't swim well. First I'd say get it adjusted so the weighting right and it sits in the water horizontal, with most of it's body immersed. If you have it sitting too high, even if it sits horizontal, it will lean to one side or the other on the retrieve. After you've gotten the weight right, if it still doesn't swim well, you can add a bill. I haven't made swimbaits with bills, so I can't advise you on that part. First things first. Stick it together and give it a bath, and let us know how it works.

That should do for water bucket or bath tub testing, so you can check the balance and float/sink. I don't remember if you said you wanted it to float, "suspend", or sink. You can get the weighting right in a 5 gallon bucket of water. Be sure you have the hooks and split rings you're actually going to use attached, the line tie in place, and any tail you might want to use attached. All those things add weight, and you can use the hooks to hang additional weight temporarily until you get it weighted like you want. I try to get my lures to hang horizontal in the water. The floaters have about 1/2" of the back out of the water, the suspenders just barely float, and the sinkers fall and, hopefully, rest on the hooks on the bottom in an upright position. I use #5 split shot to add weight as needed. I usually figure my paint and topcoat are going to weigh around 2-3 grams, just about a #5 split shot, so after I've figured out how much ballast I need and where, I subtract one spit shot, to allow for the finish. If it winds up lighter than I wanted, I just add another coat of epoxy, but it's usually pretty close. I never cast them at the local pond without a second coat of water proofing, and, usually, my first coat of Krylon primer. Too much can go wrong when I'm actually casting them across the water. It sucks big time if you get water into the lure after all the work you've gone through, so be patient and take the extra time and precautions. You don't want to worry about the finish failing because you trapped water under it.

He's the gold standard when it comes to jointed swimbaits.

Definitely seal any wood before you get it wet. Wood cells are generally shaped like a honeycomb, hexagonal. When the wood is alive, the cells carry water and minerals up to the leaves, and processed sugar (sap) back down to the roots. Once the wood has been cut and slowly dried, the cells are stable. If you get them wet again, they absorb the water and swell so the outsides of the cells are almost rounded, and when they dry out again, the walls collapse, unless it dried really carefully. That's why unprotected exterior woodwork, like windows and doors, show shrinkage and cracking at their joints, if water has gotten into them. And why keeping up your exterior paint on your house is so important. Minwax Polyacrylic is a good sealer, dries quickly, and can be painted over after light sanding. I dip my lures in it after I've epoxied in the hinges, hook hangers, and line tie, and then I can water test for buoyancy and balance without worrying about getting wood waterlogged. On smaller lures, you can just coat it with crazy glue. Like BobP said, D2T cut 50/50 with denatured alcohol works well, too, and, in the case of softer woods like balsa, can help make the lure more durable.

I think there will be no point in burying too much of the chain in the lure. 1 1/2" should be plenty. With D2T, the epoxy will not pull out of the wood, and the chain will break before it pulls out. Make a test with some scrap wood and a piece of chain before you decide how much to bury. Be sure and let the epoxy set for a day, to be sure it's at max. strength.

JRHopkins. I don't know his website, but you can find him by doing a search on this site.

DSV, I'm impressed. Where'd you find the chain? That looks really slick. Can't wait to see it finished, and hear about how it fishes.

Pete, Leave some of the chocolate on it. You never know....that big girl may have a sweet tooth, and a weakness for chocolate!

That's a good looking lure. Laminating two pieces is a good way to go if you're doing any kind of through wire fabrication. I like that the joint gives you a full time center line, and you can read the contours of the plywood laminations as you shape to keep things symetrical. Clever. Is the plywood waterproof? One more thing. Could you post a pic of your hinges?

I owe my youngest a trip to the bike store. This sounds like a good excuse!

Man, you had me worried. When you started out with the cat box, I wasn't sure where you were going with it!

Jerry, I, for one, would put up with pop up ads, if it meant keeping the site fee free. I say that because I don't want to face another, "How much will it cost in six months?" scenario, like gas prices or food. I think that kind of a thing is a big turnoff to fun. I realize it costs to host a forum and website like this. I just hope you can find an advertising method that pays, and yet is less obtrusive. In my first post, I suggested you visit Westernbass.com and look at their site as a model of one way a site is setup and run without fees. On their forum pages, they have an advertising banner at the top of the age which loads automatically, with direct links to the advertisers. Every time someone on the forum clicks on an advertiser's link from the forum, the site gets credit. I don't know exactly how it works. Like Jack the Ripper said when they asked him how many women he'd killed, "How do I know? I'm a murderer, not an accountant!". Well, I'm a carpenter, not an internet expert, and I don't have a clue. But I do know the method Western Bass uses seems to be working. I think Nathan might know some of the people involved, since he has a "west coast presence", and is well known and highly regarded out here. I say this because I want your site to succeed, pay for itself so you don't have to come out of pocket, and still be a fee-free site, which I think will severely limit it, and may eventually doom it. I've learned, over 60+ years, that I'm pretty average in how I think, so I'm guessing my view of pay-to-play sites is pretty common.

I'm going to try and get some this week. They're thicker than the sst wire I have, which should make drilling the hinge holes straight easier, since a larger bit will drift less.

And there are air valves that you can screw into the airhose just before the airbrush to regulate the air further. But I must admit I love the mac brush I bought, a Master brand Iwata knockoff I bought from Airbrushdepot.com. It's nowhere near the quality of an Iwata, but it does the job, for less than half the price. They sell Iwatas, too, and other brands, and lots of accessories.

Same to you, Sonny. Have a happy and save Fourth. And that goes for all the TU asylum inmates!