Musky Glenn

When I do remove paint, I use a sharp, short, stiff knife blade.

Devcon works great and can easily be removed with heat.

Have you tried putting the zinsser on the bare wood?

I've had some luck with a small drill bit working slowly to drill the lip out. Epoxy the new lip back in. Doesn't need repainting just to fish.

My favorite top water lure is a salt water model of the Super Spook in Clown Color. It is chrome basically but the chrome won't stick from the factory. Great while they last.

No problem Chuck Young, this site is all about giving choices that work in our own situations. I failed to mention that I use those cheap nylon brushes and dispose of them each mix. I have picked up many good points from your post and look forward to many more. Good luck to all.

My $.02, I use Bob Smith's slow cure epoxy and pour from the 4.5 oz. bottles into what looks like equal size puddles of epoxy and hardner. I stir the two puddles together with the same brush I am going to coat the lure with. I do this on a clean 4"x4" sticky sheet that I make notes on by the phone. Sure ain't rocket science, but it works for me. I don't measure anything.

I spray with a small Craftsman tankless compressor. I solved that problem by attaching a portable air tank in my air line then spray from the air tank. I added a tire valve to the air tank and attach an airhose to it when ever the air pressure drops low. I can usually spray on about three tanks of air per four hour session. So compressor only runs three times for approx 3-4 min each fill up.

As good as Createx is on lures, I don't believe it is the best choice for this project. Bonding is not one of its strong points. Good luck

My uneducated guess was that the spray can was Lacquer base and the humidity was high when you sprayed. Lacquer doesn't like moisture, turns white. Good luck.

What MonteSS said.

One thing that will help with the balsa wood is to invest in a live center/ball bearing center for the tail stock of your lathe. This keeps the lathe from burning the end out of the wood.

Nearly all paint companies make a urethane clear coat. The higher the percentage of urethane the better. Semi gloss is semigloss , "high gloss", and "clear gloss" are the two that have the good shine we want on lures. These are usually made for furniture or cabinet finishes for the home use. I don't know how much water protection they have. I would soak a scrap piece of wood finished with the urethane to see how it reacts to water submersion. One thing to be sure of is it will turn amber with age. You should be able to dip lures into this finish and hang. There is not a big problem with saving the finish when the can is opened. It will usually skim over in the can as used. Just gently cut the skim open enough to stick the lure through. Sand between coats with 320 grit paper.

Lure parts on line have unpainted one ounce heads for $1.00 or $1.50 for 2.5 oz. heads. Good heads to work with.

I just drilled a hole in the tips of my vise. Close the vise and drill hole a little smaller than coil so it will tighten around coil when used.

I noticed today that Aaron Martin was using that type eye on his drop shot rod.

The bad thing about kiln dried lumber is it doesn't want to stay that way. If it isn't stored where moisture content of the air is in the 5-8% range, the kiln dried quickly picks up the moisture out of the surrounding air (usually 10-15%) and looses the benefits of being kiln dried. The rule of thumb for green, fresh cut lumber to dry down to as low a moisture content as the surrounding air, is one year per each inch of thickness. A 2X4 should be dried for two years before you consider it dried. Length and width doesn't come into account. They use to recommend Lead base paint or wax on the end grain to keep moisture from escaping through the end grain and causing those long splits at the ends of the boards. You want the moisture to escape through the sides, top and bottom of the boards, that is why it takes so long to correctly air dry lumber. Once it is air dried like that it is about as close in moisture content as kiln dried lumber that has been stored out doors under a shed . They all seek to find the level of the air that surrounds them.

Brick Mold (trim) comes in a thicker dimension that works good for musky lures.

Sounds like you are using the .3 needle with the .55 tip, or does the Talon us the same tip for both needles. If it does use the same tip, then I would think the .3 needle should stick out farther. Good luck

Those big flat sides tend to keep it straight in the water instead of allowing it to roll as much as a more rounded shape. Reminds me of the Cranes, Jakes and Grandma's. Good luck.

If the new hole is going to be in this existing hole then you need to cut a plug of same wood with grain direction going same way as lure. This will help eliminate the new hole from wandering to one side. Cut plugs 1/32" long and touch sand to exact shape. A dowel rod has the grain going the wrong direction and will be harder to sand.

If you had a few of the leaves that came off that wood back in the day, that would help also. Just joking. Good luck.

Dried paint is usually the problem but you just never know when that once in a life time problem happens to you. Good luck, let us know if that fixed the problem.

A little different solution to your problem. I would punch a hole in a piece of masking tape, of the proper size of the eye. I would then spray the white base coat, let dry and spray the fluorescent paint through the tape before I removed the tape. High dollar masking tape from an auto paint supplier has less sticky to it than the cheap tape, thus it doesn't pull paint off as bad as the cheap tape. Good luck. I have best results removing tape by pulling at a sharp angle rather than straight up.

Lure Parts on line catalogue has a chart for sizing all components on spinner baits.This will answer all your questions.