mark poulson

Yes.

I've never had a screw eye pull out of one of my lures, but I did have a twist wire hinge come out. It was a single attachment hinge in the rear section, and the action of the tail "unscrewed" it. I had used old 5 minute epoxy on that lure, and that one didn't hold. I threw all the old stuff out the next day. And I put double attachment in all my joints now. Live and learn.

That looks and swims great. Man, I was waiting for a pike to come up and eat it any second. Good job.

Sounds good. Let us know.

6 feet deep, I also have the Iwata, and use the air control at the end of the brush to "damp down" my airflow, instead of the regulator. Am I doing it wrong?

Dean makes a great point here. We're all adults here, or, at least, old enough to access this forum on the computer. Most things in life have risks. If you drive a car, statistically, you will be involved in an accident. It's not if, but when. To drive or not is a choice we all make. Educated decisions are the best defense against risk. Education, in the form of learning from what others who have tried things post, is the greatest part of this forum. Not having to fall over our own feet to learn some of the painful lessons others have learned the hard way. It's up to us to make educated, informed decisions about how we pursue our hobby. We can't take the risk out of life, but we be smart about how we approach and deal with it.

Charles Shultz said it best in a Peanuts strip: "You're a better man than I, Charlie Brown". I might be tempted to do it once, just to see if I could and how it would work, but I don't have the patience to do it on every lure I make. That's a good looking lure. How does it swim?

Can I put a finer tip on my Iwata H C plus?

The first punker type gliders I made were from Douglas Fir, because I had a bunch of kd fir left over from a job. The good news is it's strong, works well, and needs less weight for balast. The bad news is it's heavy enough that I couldn't make a taller profile bait with it rolling, unless I put so much weight in the belly that it almost sank. I would say try it, and see if you lure design works with it. If it does, great. It works great for big striper pencil poppers and low profile surface gliders.

Just a quick thought (I know, there's a first time for everything). Aren't there portable air filtration systems, like the kind that smokers used to put on their desks at work before the law banning smoking in the workplace? They might help when you're in a closed place, like a basement, and you've just finished painting or coating. I think you could leave those types of things running in the shop, and they would clean the air of the residual fumes. Of course, a truly active air evacuation system in a painting booth is the best way to go, but this might help when you finish painting and turn off the booth's exhaust fan. I'm fortunate. In SoCal, I open the big garage door, and the small one in back, so I have cross ventilation. And I do all my solvent based rattle can spraying under the big door, with my lures hanging from the tension bar. But in the winter when it's rainy or cold, I do spray Createx water based paints with the doors closed. I have some interesting over spray patterns on my stool's cushion. )

And keep your respirator in a sealed baggie when you're not using it. The carbon filter inside will keep attracting stuff in the air if it's not seal up, and it will stop working much more quickly. If it's not too much trouble for you, take the filer cartridge out each time, and put it in a small baggie. Force the air out before you seal the baggie. Fishthanks, I agree with everything you say about the safeguards we should take when painting. And also about the crappy products we're stuck with now. I'm in residential constuction, too. It's amazing how quickly the oil and chemical companies threw residential and commercial paints under the "save the Ozone" bus without a squeak, and left us with stuff that either doesn't work, or is toxic for humans, but good for the ozone. The paints and finishes we are left with last 1/3 the time the old sovent base paints did, and so it cost all of us 3 times as much to keep our homes painted. And if you don't keep up the exterior paint, you face much more expensive replacement of exterior woodwork, doors, and windows. Out here in SoCal, I push clad doors and windows to my clients. The extra cost for clading is offset almost immediately by the lifetime warrantee on their finishes. One of my best friends is my painter, but I don't love him enough to push raw wood for the exterior. )

I hope so.

Joe, I wouldn't put the lure in the oven to dry it. The oven heat seems to reactivate oils and resins in the wood, as well as vaporizing any trapped moisture, and breaks down the bond of the sealer and primer to the wood. Use a hair dryer to heat seal the water based paint. That's all you need. The oven is overkill, and makes more problems than it solves. I just coated three jointed lures last night, and I got what I call fish eyes on one section of one lure. Sometimes I get it in a few spots, sometimes not. I think I must have gotten some finger print oil on the lures at those points, or some other contaminant, so the epoxy didn't bond. I usually just recoat the bad spots and go from there. It seems to bond the second time. Try wiping the bad spots down with alcohol before you recoat.

Bob, I switched from double eye screws to hinge pins because I can remove the pins to do service to the lures if I need to. I bend the top of the pin over with 1/4" flag that I push down tight to the back of the lure. A drop of thick crazy glue holds it just fine, but makes it removable if need be. The pins fit so tightly in their holes that I don't worry about water infiltration, but, just in case, I put a drop of the runny crazy glue into the hinge holes before final assembly, and then re drill them with the same wire the pins are made from. Thanks to all the advice I've gotten from this site, I now cut the hinge joints almost thru (so I can shape it while it's still one piece), drill for the hinge recesses, through drill for the eye location, and drill for the pins while the blank is still rectangular. Makes it sooooo much easier. And coating the joints with D2T before I clear coat the rest of the lure with Etex so far seems to be the way to go. Really easy that way. No incompatiblility problems so far. I'm going to fish a few I did like that this Saturday, so that's the acid test.

Here in California, one of the substitutes that was developed to replaced solvent based urethane floor finishes is a product called "Traffic". It is a "moisture cured" urethane, but I don't it is water based. Rather, they came up with a formula to emulsify the urethane (I think thats the term, anyway) in the water, and the water is the carrier that helps spread the urethane, after which it dries, and the urethane molecules link up and remain. It is very hard when dry, but it smells like crazy for the first hour until it sets, so I don't think it's harmless. Like a lot of paints and finishes that have been developed to save the ozone layer, it's great for the environment, but not for people.

It's too beautiful to get dirty! ) You're on your way. Where, I'm not sure, but you're hooked for sure.

Bob, I have some 8/4 sugar pine left over from a job that's really light. It's not as light as the hobby balsa I used to fool around with as a kid, but it's light enough that even 6" glide baits need to be seriously weighted to cast well. I just thought that, since you say stronger balsa is heavier, and you need to put a hard sealer on the soft stuff to make it durable, sugar pine like mine might be an option that save time. And you don't have to through wire it if you don't want to, because it's stronger than even the heavier balsa.

Thanks SmokeyJ. I see what you mean, that looks like it would take forever. I just don't have that kind of patience.

Jamie, Could you post a site so I can see what you're talking about?

Just don't spit into the wind!

Ha, ha. That's funny. Don't you just hate it when you know you had a great idea, but can't remember what it was? That sponge idea is a good one.

Dean, I'm just curious. Does the extra buoyancy of balsa give a better action, or is it just that the lure backs up better when you hit a branch or rock?

You can buy clear kiln dried pine, already milled to 1/2", at most lumber yards. You can cut out the blank halves, glue them together with double stick tape or hot glue to shape them, and then pull them apart for thru wires and weighting. You can reverse the grain when you glue them up to assure the lure is weighted symetrically, or as close as is possible. Pine is strong, easy to work, and finishes well, and you can seal it with crazy glue, or any other sealer. Plus, I'm betting it's cheaper than Balsa. And it smells great when you're working it.

Just a question. I don't make lipped cranks. Couldn't you paint a small prey item on the opaque bill, so it looks like the lure is chasing something? I know you'd have to clear over the bill then, but that might make it a plus instead of a minus. Especially for suspended fish. I've caught a lot of fish on cranks with colored bills, but, admittedly, it's usually in stained or off colored water.

jwf, This is not to take anything away from anyone on this site, or their painting skills, which are amazing, but..... If your baits catch fish, that's the name of the game. Everything else is just a spitting contest.