diemai

@ seanmarty93 No need for poplar screw eyes dowels in cedar , just in balsa , ......but what I always take care of is to shape my lures in a way to position the woodgrain so that the belly screw eye would later pass through the grain at about 90° , not level to the grain lines , ...just adds stability to the eye against pullout . Another way to do your "line tie on lip" baits WITHOUT a thru wire form is to make a real long shanked so-called "twisted wire eye" , lead that one's shank through a single centered hole(could be larger than shank dia.), so that the eye comes to sit at proper location on top of lip , ...kink off shank at about 90° , so that it leads back towards lurebody . This twisted wire shank passes into a snug bore to be furnished into the lurebody below the lipslot and passing parallel to the lure's center axis and is epoxied in together with the lip at final assembly . Thoroughly epoxied twisted wire eyes hold up as well as screw eyes do , many lurebuilders around the world utilize these to save on cost of screw eyes or if they can't easily access them ,.........you need to take care of two things , when doing these , ....first is , that their bore should be just large enough to be able to insert their shanks (though may get larger in diametre close to the entry to generate some kinda "glue plug" there), Second is that epoxy glue MUST be applied to the inside of the pilot hole as well , not just smeared onto the eye's shank prior to insertion , as this way most of the glue would smear off when pushing or twisting the eye in and the glue bond would become unreliable . Off course the shank length to be glued into the body must be long enough to hold up , ....1" on quite small lures would be the absolute minimum , better exceed 1 1/2" and at least 2" on bigger baits , .......wood dowels required to resist pullout on balsa , too. Glad to be able to help some fellow lure carvers out with my experiences , ......greetz , diemai PS : Some videos on twisted wire eyes : ......and without a jig for serial production :

@ seanmarty93 Just got some PVC hardfoam baits in process , so I've thought to shoot some pictures displaying the way I do the line tie on lip. I'm using 1,0mm stainless wire for my thru wire forms , so I'd drill two centered holes 1,0mm dia trough my lips , just for the wire to pass through very snug . Now I'd take an approbiate length of wire and start wit the line tie U-bend , after poke through both tag ends through the holes in the lip , ...the shorter end comes to sit upward(deeper in the belly slot) . Now I'd bend the kink leading down to make up for the belly eye , insert the lip and wire form to determine about the correct distance of the belly eye and bend this one to another U . The upper , shorter tag end I'd now kink into the belly eye's U bend . Now I bend the rear tag end accordingly to the pass of the belly slot , ..this comes easier on straight bodied lures rather than with this 4 1/2 " curved crash diver . Now I insert the lip & wireform again to determine , where the tail eye should sit , mark the location with a felt marker and bend this eye around a matching nail clamped in a vise . The upper rear tag end I'd bend abaout prallel to the lower rear end and also kink the very end back into the U bend of the belly hook hanger . Since the entire belly slot is going to filled up with 5min epoxy at final assembly , these tag ends inside of the belly U bend don't have nowhere to go under strain , ......I'm maybe a bit over the top with this , since most luremakers snip off the front and rear eye's tag ends somewhere behind the eyes , not leading them back through the entire lurebody and kinda anchor them inside of the belly eye U bend like I do . Yesterday I've trimmed the swim level of these PVC lures in a waterbucket(they are going to be finally assembled soon) , this is why I have already inserted the individually cut ballast lead strips and rigged hooks for accurate levelling on the water's surface , ......off course these lead strips would be glued in together with the wire form at finall assembly , ...after 24 hrs curing time I'd remove glue excess overflow with Dremel router bits , fine files and sandpaper . Also note the holes and deep rashes furnished onto the base of the bigger lure's lip base , ...this is for the glue to find better grip . Advantage of this hardfoam or PVC decking stuff is not being vulnerable against water sepage like timber(does not require sealing prior to the waterbucket trimming), ...disadvantage of this PVC stuff , that I have access to , are the enclosed airbubbles , that need to be closed with glue , putty or primer paint before he final painting is done . Hopefully some other folks would chime in as well , as there are a few little different methods as well , ...guess , mine is a bit more elaborate , but yet quite safe against failure . Good luck , diemai

I'm absolutely with Mark , ......quite a few years ago the top lure displayed in the link below caught my PB northern pike of almost 47" , it has epoxied stainless screw eyes of 0.72" wire dia , 1" shank at the belly and 1 1/2" shank in the rear . After the battle I had not found any failures on the lure(apart from some teeth sticking into it and topcoat rashes) , not even the 2 millimetres aluminium sheet lip had warped nor the tow eye of 1,5 mm welding wire did bend , ....I had expected lip or line tie to have gotten out of tune , but not a screw eye failure at all , ......but right on the next cast after the capture of that trophy pike the lure tracked absolutely true . http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/gallery/image/2523-some-favourite-crankbaits/ I would extend the pilot holes of my screw eyes at the entry to about 3 mm dia , a few millimetres deep so that when twisting in the eyes with some epoxy glue , some kinda "glue-plug" would evolve there , adding to the strength of the bond . For muskie lures you might also go with the extra strong so-called stainless "muskie screw eyes" or "magnum screw eyes" of .092 wire dia , available in up to 2" shank length , .....you'd even have a tough time having to tune a tow eye made from these . Keep away from brass screw eyes , their shanks do easily twist off , when twisting them into tight pilot holes in hardwood . Also leading your screw eyes into the blank under an angle adds to resist pullout , so possibly drill the pilot holes of belly screweyes pointing somewhat rearward , .....lead line tie eye and rear hook hanger eye not dead paralell to the the lengthwise center axis of the lure , but under an angle . Even smaller angles of just a few degrees add to the pullout resistance of your screw eyes . Greetz , 61diemai PS : Welcome to the TackleUnderground , Mojo

Don't like travelling that much anymore , but during my teenage years I did , though not as far . Could not even go more than 10 miles to the east , as there was the "Iron Curtain" of Cold War times , ....the border was just 100 yards east of the opposite bank of the gravel pit , that we used to ride to on our bicycles for a swim during hot summers , we were used to the sight of the high fences and watchtowers . I rather headed for the west , ......at the age of 16 or 17 I've hitchhiked from Hamburg to London using 48hrs including the Channel crossing by ferryboat and a sleep over at a hippie community in the Netherlands , ...also travelled through France for a couple of weeks by train back in these years , ...also used to spend my summer vacations in southern England each year , as an elder sister of my mum got married to an RAF service man after the war following him home , so I could stay with them . Also remember a short-term trip from northern Germany down to the French mediterranian coast with a few friends in an old BMW , with little more money in our pockets than to pay for gas , all of the 1000 miles back home I've lived on a bottle of Coke , tap water and a French baguette bread . Or another rather short trip to southern France by car and trailer , when we had to get back the damaged Mercedes Benz of a friend's parents , that have been heading for Spain and got into an accident down there , .......our tow vehicle was much too weak and unsuitable , so we could drive back at only 50 miles per hour max. to avoid the heavy trailer from fishtailing , .....finally , just 100 miles before reaching home , the cops had stopped us and we had to leave the trailer and pay penalty , ...that friend had to ride back the next day with a bigger van for finally towing his father's Benz home for repair. A bit more adventurous back in those days rather than hanging out at overcrowded airports nowadays , I guess . Greetz , diemai

.............I can only second to this , ....greetz , diemai

@ ravenlures It's not about a patent , but a few years ago I had carried out some experiments with timber lures sporting internal weights to improve their casting ability , ........here is the particular thread(if you haven't come across yet ?) , maybe could provide some input ? http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/topic/23348-another-lure-design-with-shifting-internal-weights/?hl=+weightshifter%20+lures Good luck with your project , ...greetz , 61diemai

Concrete sealer is quite common amongst home lure carvers in Finland , ...I do not know any details about the process other than it is dipped on in about 8 dips , prefereably shortly after one another so that the single coats adhere very well to the halfway cured previous layer , ......but I have a few glidebaits made that way and I can say , that this stuff really provides a rock hard topcoat . Greetz , diemai

Shaping such tiny lures is finacky . I would make them in a way to use a rectangular wood dowel of proper dimensions and cut the slot for the internal wire harness all along the length at first . The dowel should be just a tad longer than two lures , as you would shape two lures out of it connected with a little stem at the particular thicker body ends inbetween , this way you could always use one blank to hold on whilst shaping the other , ....separate them in the end and round off the stem ends . After having cut out the belly and back outline(dowel still rectangular , never rounded) you would cut the lip slots , much more accurate to turn out properly angled this way rather than cutting them on a rounded blank , ....rounding off belly and back comes last . Learned this method of the two connected blanks out of one dowel on an Australian site , I find it very handy , especially with small lure blanks , that are somewhat too tiny to hold whilst carving/sanding . Greetz , Dieter

Also from my side , ....congratulations to all the winners ! greetz , diemai

Somehow the linking won't work , Mark , ..........it's always the video appearing , not just a clickable link ! Click on the video title above the picture , this would open up the original YouTube video site , so you could paste and copy the link from there , shown on top of page , as the vid is playing . Sorry , don't know any other way , .......greetz , Dieter

Came across this ingenious design the other day , ........rather made to observe the action of tuned trolling spoons without having to toss each and every one behind a boat , but probably could provide some input , especially in terms of generating a steady current by means of an electric boat motor . Greetz , diemai

After a snag I always check out the lure's hooks whether they would require maintainance , both in terms of having bent open or having become blunt , always carrying some kinda grindstone in each of my tackle boxes , .......probably I should even use them more often . Greetz , 61diemai

Maybe these might help : http://www.tacklemaking.com/default.php?pageID=42 Look for crankbait topic there . http://www.luremaking.com/catalogue/download/canguide-web.pdf Scroll pages down to crankbait section . Good luck , diemai

..............the snowplow outside my bedroom window just woke me up from getting some extra sleep after a hard weekend shift . greetz , Dieter

Looks beautiful , ...but the low temps disturb the curing of my epoxy topcoats ! Greetz , diemai

Hope it's still cold enough to keep up the icecubes in your cocktails sufficiently long , Dave ! Over here northern Germany we've had a few nights of -12° to -14° Centigrade(7-10 Fahrenheit) now , my workmate is already desperate for icefishing , but I'd rather keep my butt against the radiator , ...even got iceflowers on my workshop window ! Cheers , Dieter

@ fishon-son Same thing over here , and not only with fishing lures , ....but the difference is , that brand companies having their stuff produced in cheap labor countries like China do demand a certain quality standard from their manufacturers over there , .....just because they put their name on it and have a reputation to lose . But knock-offs of almost everything(including fishing lures)made on the overseas manufacturers own behalf and risk do not meet such higher quality standards , so this stuff often is the real crap ! I've already seen lures , that are obviously made in the same molds , but sold under different names by different tackle companies in different countries , same goes for tackle bags . Finally all of this stuff comes from the very same stable in China or wheresoever . Talking tacklebags , ....now and then local supermarket chains put fishing tackle on weekly special offers , .....never bought , since it is crap , ...EXCEPT , .....their tackle bags and rod bags , extremely sturdy and well made , costing far less than half compared to buying comparable items from brand fishing tackle suppliers in a tackleshop , but both obviously made by the same contract manufacturers in overseas , .......easily recognizeable by style , quality and material , ........these supermarket chains also have their own strict quality demands , that manufacturers have to obey , if they want contracts with such shop chains . Just my , .......greetz , diemai

Better post your request in the section "TU site updates & info" , you'd surely get more attention in there . Good luck , 61diemai