jkustel

Hey guys, I accidently smashed a wakebait from a well known swimbait manufacturer in my rear door in a rush to get to the lake. After laughing at myself for being an idiot a lightbulb went off in my head. I got out the saw and started cutting cross sections of the bait every 1/2" or so. This particular bait has a fishy teardrop profile to it. My main curiousity was to see where this particular bait builder orients his lead ballast in the bait.....well I kept cutting and pretty soon I had about 10 cross sections of the bait and was mystified....NO LEAD???? No inserts...nothing but resin. I thought how the hell does it orient upright in the water??? Upon closer inspection I could see the answer to my mystery....the very bottom 1/4" of the bait had a distinct striation and was clearly darker than the upper section of the bait. My conclusioin is that the bait is poured using a metered amount of heavy resin for the bottom section followed by a lightened resin for the remaining upper section. With the correct ratios the need for lead ballast is eliminated. I guess its relatively simple but I thought it was pretty slick and this particular bait performs AWESOME in the water. I just started building some lipless swimmers and this would eliminate all the surgery of carefully placing ballast weights around hinge pins and protruding screw eyes. I'm sure it will work good with swimmers and perhaps not as well for topwaters that need a lot of weight concentrated in a particular area. Anyone else doing this? John

They make water based acrylic pens that won't react with any top coat. I've done some really detailed trout patterns (tons of spots) and couldn't recall which clear wouldn't react with the sharpie marker and it ruined all my work....run city. I've even had this result with Devcon. Even sharpie makes water based markers in different colors and thicknesses might want to get a few to save you some headaches. JK

I too like bondo. Its a little bit of a pain only because you have to mix the hardener...but its also a benefit because if you add enough hardener to make the mix a dark pink you will have something that dries very fast over even wide deep gaps and holds. I used to have the same issue with having to sand so aggressively that I would score the area around it. (Which is still fixable of course). What I like to do now is let the bondo setup pretty well but not get too hard and then hit it with some 60 grit and it is real easy to sand off the excess without much effort. So far I haven't found anything that holds as well on my test baits that I don't even finish when testing. (Urethane). Oh yeah, get some extra hardener (they sell it seperately), as you will probably go through it pretty fast as everyone I know ups the ratio of hardener quite a bit to get the quick dry times. JK

Thanks for the quick suggestions guys. I think I'm going to try the carbon fiber. These are resin (w/mb's) lures and I'm running a whole lot of joints so I'd rather keep my weight down low in the ballast and not above the center of gravity (they are two pin/two eye joints). I see the rod is pretty inexpensive and readily available through hobby supply places. I'm thinking of going with 2mm which is thicker than the 16 gauge I'm at now. I assume its pretty easy to cut to length. Thanks again for the input. JK

Hey guys, Been playing with some of them multi-jointed swimbaits lately. I am using straight cut joints and screw eye attached to a recessed pin setup for each segment. For my test baits I am using 16 gauge finishing nails for pins. Once everything is aligned I lock em' in with epoxy or super glue. The one issue I see is that apparently when you cast the baits the last joint (tail) really takes a lot of abuses when it hits the water and see that the nail/pin in this last segment is wanting to bend. These are 9" baits in the 3.5 oz range. I am looking for a source for some stronger pins to insure these baits are durable. I would assume guys are using some type of hardened stainless steel pins for this application. I see they have stainless steel finishing nails...might try that if noone has another cost effective solution? Any thoughts? Thanks for any input. JK

Yep, I might try that. For the ones I did today I just filled the holes with mb's and then dropped some superglue. It seemed to work fine for testing. I will use bondo for a lure I'm going to finish properly. The best news for me was that the bait performed like my wood baits in the water....of course with all the benefits of plastic. Again I appreciate all the input guys it definitely helped me arrive at my goal sooner. I really love having absolute control after the bait has been cast to lighten it up using this method because it allows for variances with the casting material that are sometimes out of our control....air infusion, humidity, different batches of resin....I am super pleased to have crossed this hurdle with my sanity intact! It was close! HAHA! I will post some video of the baits as soon as I can comapring a wood bait versus a resin poured bait of the same dimesions and weight and see if anyone can detect which is which in the water. If there are any differences in the action at this point it is really subtle to my eye. Cheers! John

I really like this second idea a lot. What is becoming quite apparent to me is whether its foam or featherlite resin....things like temperature and other environmental factors creep in and change the very thing I'm trying so hard to get a handle on. I think I see the end here with the addition of your suggestion. I could pour my baits with my lightest version of featherlite and mb's w/my ballast weights inserted. Smooth and tough castings. Weigh plug and determine how much material needs to be removed and replaced with foam. Can easily create some simple math to determine diameter/depth of hole to weight savings calculations. The answer has been right in my face with the foam.....I can see that with this system I can absolutely control final weight regardless of any other variables that creep in along the way..... Vodka, thanks so much for your assistance and I don't regret at all getting my feet wet with the expanding foam. It looks like a found a use for it. Obviously I will have to drop down in density to get the weight savings I need using the removal method suggested to me. I feel absolutely confident that this process will work and allow me to get the tight weight tolerances I am after. Do you think 2lb. foam used as a filler is too light or should I opt for the 3 or 4....hahahha...never ends....these details are minor ...I will post my final results on the prototypes... Thanks everyone for their input...I'm mighty close now... John

Thanks for all the input Dave. I really appreciate your consistent, quick feedback. I have thought of much of what your suggesting. I did manage to get one "decent" pour since my last post so I remain hopeful. I was right on target with my weight goals so I will performance test the foam lure tommorrow to verify that my weight distribution ideas are on target. I do own a gram scale which I primarily use to verify lure weight. That is an eye opener to realize that the expansion rate is affected by temperature and how much air is introduced during mixing.......once I get a handle on pouring clean castings I will have to see how much variance temperature and stir method cause in final density. I think I will take your cue and use spreader plates with the silicon mold in conjunction with adding some additional venting and see how that fairs. I try to keep things simple as possible but I will take to heart keeping notes on key variables to keep a better handle on outcomes. I will hopefully have things narrowed down in the next few days. John

Well, after a long wait got my 16lb. foam today. Played around with some junk molds to get a feel for it. The material expands about 4X's its liquid volume and hardens up pretty quick. Right off I could tell the lightness was there...between balsa and basswood is accurate. As far as toughness goes it seems on par with wood thats for sure from just handling it. The challenge....getting a good casting. I prepped my RTV mold and did a pour of approx. 1/4 the volume of the cavity. The material expanded slightly more than 4X's or my calculations were off a little bit' and the expansion literally pushes the mold apart slightly and of course caused the cast to be massively distorted. I tried multi-pours and ended up with voids...The best I got was with a single pour that got close to the exact volume of the cavity but it still seems that no matter what I did the material wants to exert significant pressure on the mold walls thus separating at the mold halves slightly. (Causing distortion). It pretty much seemed liked a certain amount of pressure has to be withstood by the mold in order for it to produce an accurate detailed casting and completely fill the cavity without voids. It pretty much seems like for the foam to work in the confines of a mold cavity the mold itself has to be able to withstand a fair amount of expansion pressure without moving or bending....it seems that silicone doesn't lend itself well to this as it wants to flex which is fine for urethane resin but not so much expanding foam.....learning curves...learning curves....so tempting to return to wood but honestly I am really impressed with the density properties of the foam...its essentially plastic wood....and the other production possibilities that molds open up. So my solution....build a mold from bondo (rigidity)....add more vents to the mold (more avenues for escape).....use clamps instead of rubber bands while casting the foam to withstand the expansion pressure and prevent the mold halves from seperating under the pressure. I feel like I'm in uncharted waters at this point....if anyone has any experience or suggestions please don't hesitate. John

I think your absolutely correct that if your weight is far forward into the nose it will dampen the wobble of the first section....no doubt about that. I am still a little confused about the hook placement theory...no doubt if a fish engulfs the bait it will get hooked regardless of placement. My experience with bass and striped bass using big swimbaits (hard or soft) has been that they most often get attacked at the head area. I have some lures that just use a single hook under the chin and I get solid bone jarring hooksets. A lot of softbait guys will place their hooks on the back just behind the gills with the reasoning that bait gets eaten head first. I know there are exceptions and I have no idea what your application is but even watching video of bass attacking trout they all did the same thing...they grabbed the head right near the gills and held on for a moment before choking the trout down. It would make sense from a predators standpoint that to disable, catch, and eat a large bait you hit hard in the area thats going to most consistently disable the prey....the head. With this said, I assume your dealing with a fish that consistenly short strikes from behind? Just food for thought.... John

This build brought out some real good discussion. I am really enjoying this site. Looking at your original bait again I saw something I didn't notice before. I don't know if its the same on your newer version but the placement of the hook hangers is kind of odd and moving them I think could enhance the action and hookup rate of the bait. Most designs like this you will find the front hook far forward under the head in the first segment and the rear hanger at the rear of the second section. That will free up drag and extra weight on your last two sections and amplify that movement in the rear somewhat. I know its tought to place hangers sometimes with all the ballast in the small sections but I think its something worth considering. John

Cool that you got it resolved so quickly. I know some guys have gone so far as to X-ray baits to see exactly how the ballast is oriented in some of these style of baits. The observation about the head movement is something I've thought about lately as well. It certainly better mimics how a fish propels itself through the water...it definitely appears more like a fish just cruising along in a normal fashion. Of course, I have some lipped head shakers that get smacked real good on the surface because they looked more stunned, panicked or injured. It makes sense that a long front section will slow down the motion and create a longer slower movement. I think as well that the orientation of the ballast weight (being more elongated from front to back as opposed to being tightly centrally located in the segment) will act to minimize the head wobbling. It is interesting because typically jointed baits rely on a transfer of motion from front to back. I can only guess that a portion of the action is caused by the turbulence of the water moving over the progressively lighter joints in the rear....its certainly the most popular design out there right now. I even have a large lipped bait from Mr. Ellis @ 3:16 and the head moves so very subtle...it feels to me like there is a significant amount of weight in the first section thats dampening the wobbling effect. J my 2 cents. John

Welcome, I am by no means a paint expert but I can get you started in your quest. Most guys develop a whole system of coatings from sealer to primer to paint to clear....overwhelmed yet! HA! There are a few brands of band I typically use and I choose the water based acrylics for my own work. Createx falls into this category and I really like the color selection and how they perform. I don't thin it much at all which requires that you spray it at higher pressure...I would recommend not skimping on your compressor...I use a mid-grade Iwata that will give me up to 50lbs of pressure which for me was the only way to spray the Createx paints with best results. You can get away with thinning it but I prefer it unthinned and sprayed at 50lbs. Another brand I like is Tamiya and while I spray it at the same pressure it will spray at much lower pressures and is a little easier to deal with than the createx. I typically use a combination of these paints on a single bait and they get along pretty well. I really like Tamiya for certain colors like their greens which they have a huge selection of. There are a ton of choices out there just make sure you stick to one type for compatibilty. I would say water based acrylics are probably the overall most used. When you get your airbrush setup going just experiment with some scrap...you will have your successes and failures but its the only way to really get a handle on it. Have fun and take your time....if you run some searches on this forum you will find tons of random info on paints, painting, and clears....have fun and make iit custom. Any basic white primer will work as a good undercoat for these paints btw...you don't want to paint over raw wood. Sealing the wood is a search you want to do before you get much deeper into the painting process...it is step one...go for it... John

Ran some trials with the cork today. Way better than the foam tests. You can achieve much more weight reduction than with MB's alone thats for sure. I took a blank thats normally about 2.95 oz using featherlite alone and was able to drop it down to 1.8 using corking additive. The amount I used was obscene and even though I got very close to the weight reduction I'm after it did create a fair amount of voids and air pin holes in the outer core. Kind of a messy solution only because of the massive weight reduction I'm trying to achieve....nearly 50% less than featherlite. However, if your maxed on microballoons and need to pick up another 20 or 30 percent the cork can easily get you there. For me, it just proved that I need to wait (patiently...and I'm not) for my 16 lb. foam to arrive. Anyone have any local sources in So Cal for 16lb foam.....my searches turned up nothing so I'm waiting for a shipment from North Carolina..... Still no foam guys out there? I know some Musky guys are using it which is really encouraging based on the amount of abuse those fish dish out.... John

Good looking mold. While I am somewhat new to the molding process I am familiar with functionality from building wood baits. I agree with Vodka man on this one. There are plenty of similar baits that have the fins protruding out that swim fine. With enough ballast it has to swim upright unless something else is way out of wack and based on how refined that mold looks I doubt thats the problem. I don't make lipless swimmers but I know of some very successful guys that do and they treat eat section independently (ballasting and balancing each one) with the exception of the last segment. When the entire lure is balanced like that all the momentum goes into the swim and doesn't get wasted on pulling and fighting from one section to the other. I disagree with the other two notions: If you make the back taller your going to require more ballast not less....it will have more of a tendency to lay on its side not less. I also disagree with thinning the bottom and rounding the top: Again you are placing more weight above the center of gravity and it will want to roll even harder to its side not less. I'm willing to entertain why this wouldn't be so. With all said, if the density of the lure material comes down and the ballast increases in a balanced fashion it will swim upright-physics dictates it. Most styles of bait I've seen like this have the line tow at the center line or just above but thats going to be easy to determine once the weight distribution is straightened out. Them 3:16 ish joints must have required some work. Keep at it. John

roThanks for keeping an eye on the thread Dave. I am definitely looking forward to my trying the 16lb foam. From the research I've done the main considerations are mixing and pouring quicky as it sets up real fast and starts the expansion process. Also, I've read that there is a potential to blowout your molds if its overfilled and there isn't sufficient venting. I have a few quarter inch vents and my sprew is pretty large-nearly 1/2" so I think I should be ok as long as I don't overdo the volume. I like your suggestion of using a scrap mold to get a feel for it. My source is UPS from North Carolina so I'll have to be patient. My old screw eyes weighed .1 oz each the new ones are .05 so I saved weight. .15 oz between the three that attach to the lure. The strategy with this lure is to have a very light body and heavy fulcrum weighting. 1.7 oz body weight w/ 1.5 oz fulcrum weighting for a total weight of 3.2 oz before paint and hardware. Would love to hear from anyone else with experience using 16lb. foam...... John

I get what your saying and I've considered something similar if I come up empty adding cork to the resin or using straight 16lb. foam. This particular lure doesn't really move in a way that would lend to adding a rattle chamber but the idea of creating a void has definitely crossed my mind. I was thinking I could create an air chamber by placing a hollow plastic tube in the cavity (sealed on both ends)...it could be secured to the ballast weight to keep it in place. I believe it would just be a matter of figuring out the exact size of the tube. I can see at least 3 or 4 routes to go here with the 16lb. foam being the simplest and cleanest solution in theory. Sounds like I will have to be careful with the volume with the foam as it expands 4 times by volume but that shouldn't be hard to calculate knowing that my cavity holds about 5 oz. Thanks for taking the time and nice to know I'm not the only one who's wrestled with these issues. John

Well I ran several trials using the chopped foam today and it was unsuccessful. I did get the mold to pour by mixing the foam in the mix however I ran into other problems. Even with massive amounts of the chopped foam my final weight dropped insignificantly. The only explanation I can arrive at is that the resin is chemically breaking down the foam and collapsing it thereby eliminating much of my weight reduction. Apparently cork seems resistant to this process so I may try the cork as an alternative as I await my shipment of 16lb foam. After thinking it through I can see how the additives can be controlled through using my gram scale (yes it tells me all about my failed attempts!! HA!) I am still confident that with a mix of featherlite and cork or 16lb foam that I will get what I'm after. The good news is that my mold is performing well and showing no signs of wear at this point. I am hopeful the foam solves my density problems. In an ideal world I would love to be able to just insert my ballast weight and pour resin (foam) and be done. I track the weights of the raw blanks before any hardware, ballast, paint and clear and then weigh them again to see how much weight I'm adding by the final product. Your right though, the finest details can change the whole formula....I just switched screw eyes and my new ones weigh half what the old ones do shaving .15 oz off my finished lure- weight that I will have to add back into the equation. Fortunately the lure performs better and better as the ratio of ballast to overall weight increases. I'm shooting for a nearly 50/50 as my target. The action is enhanced with lower density at the ends which seems to cause it to rotate harder at its balance point where I have it weighted. I guess you would call it a fulcrum effect. I got the volume of my mold cavity by filling it with water and then measuring it....it came out to about 5 fluid oz. Its a 7" cigar shaped lure with a greatest diameter of 1.25". Thanks for the input and keep it coming... John

Hey Matt, Thanks for the response, the more input the better. I'm really not sure why my foam experiment failed so miserably....it didn't absorb any moisture but it prevented the mold from pouring completely. I may have let the pot cure up too much and that prevented a good poor. The only problem I have with the idea of putting chopped cork, balsa, or foam in the mold is that I suspect its going to be really difficult to control the finished density down to the tolerances that I'm looking for. I suppose if you have an accurate way to measure the amount of material going in then it could be controlled but the chopping method is creating pieces with semi-random volumes and surface areas so being consistent from bait to bait could be a challenge. If you started with a 1"X2" piece of foam and chopped it, would it still displace the same volume as it did when it was a single piece?? (I'm not sure) I'm going to back of of my MB's a little to increase the flow in my mold and try the foam again just to verfiy what the issue was. I'm already adding MB's to featherlite resin so you can see how far I'm trying to go to get the buoyancy back. Theoretically you could nearly eliminate the MB's (although I like the sanding properties) and rely on your core materials for weight reduction. I wish I was skilled enough to figure out how to create a hollow void where the ballast weight goes that could be accessed with a threaded cap that way the thing could be micro-tuned after the fact to adjust for anglers preference, colder or warmer water, etc. As far as the balsa, I bet it could work with some precautions to seal it just long enough to get through the cure. A quick roll in some 5 minute epoxy. One of my favorite production pencil poppers is the Yozuri surface cruiser. It is obviously a molded bait but they really nailed the proper buoyancy....its super bouncy and light in the front end....and durable. They refer to it as a poly balsa urethane.....sounds like resin over some sort of balsa core to me. I'll keep you updated on my trials and any additional input is always great! Thanks. John

I am staying poised with the molds but I see why some guys go back to wood.....I tried introducing chopped foam into the mold and then poured the resin...what a mess. It created all kinds of voids in the bait-junk. Time to get some 16lb. foam before I throw in the towel. With lightweight poplar and substantial ballast weight at the balance point the design I've prototyped is money and has a super wide slalom action at all speeds including a huge wake at slow speeds. To keep everything happy the weighting on this thing has to be in a pretty tight window no more than 1/10th of an ounce variance....I am trying to get to a point where with careful measurements and precise weighting that the final weight is in that narrow window consistently without any further steps. So instead of trying to super lighten the resin and introduce all kinds of extra steps I'm going to take a stab at the 16lb. foam. If it truly is lighter than basswood and has reasonable durability I should be able to achieve my goal and keep my sanity.... the devil is in the details though so I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch... Thanks for the input vodka man... John

Hey guys, I am relatively new to molds and resin casting baits. I got some wood masters made and the cast molded baits have come out good which is encouraging. I have one particular design that requires exceptional buoyancy to be optimal...somewhere around basswood or very light poplar. I can get moderately close using roughly 50% resin to 50% MB's....I've found that at least with the resin I'm using that I can't really exceed this ratio and still have a consistency that I can pour into the mold. Even at this ratio I need less weight and more buoyancy to hit the numbers I'm looking for. The cast bait using this formula comes to about 2.3 oz. (its a 7" lure) raw blank without hardware. My best wood models (same dimensions) perform best at about 1.75 oz. Based on this I need to lighten my cast resin bait at least .5 oz. to achieve similar performance in the water. I am going to attempt to achieve this weight reduction by placing ground foam pellets (from packing peanuts) into the mix to displace more volume and bring the weight where I need it. My hope is that the urethane won't break down the foam chemically and defeat the purpose. I am considering adding some fiberglass mesh to make up for the loss in strength if necessary.... Please advise if you have any thoughts or better method for bringing the weight down more than microballoons alone will allow for.... John

Thanks for the great input guys. So many options and considerations with these dang clear coats, no wonder its probably the most discussed topic on the forum. I know epoxies give great durable finishes with probably the lowest toxicity but its so tedious to work within the relatively short pot lives. Seems like lots of mixing and disposing of containers and what not if you were trying to do a good size batch of baits. Dipping or spraying seems much more efficient time wise. I will most likely have to test a few systems for efficiency versus end product. I would love to settle on something simple like the DN original formula but I've read so much about the storage issues....some guys say they have it tamed and some guys (even great experienced bait builders) can't seem to get a handle on it so that makes me apprehensive. With good venting in a spray booth would you guys think that a good respirator with organic filter would suffice with auto clear or would I need an air fed mask to safely deal with it? Thanks again for the excellent input. John

I do plan on making a spray booth for certain that vents to the outside. I would imagine IF one were spraying that you would still require a respirator or can you get the flow from the exhaust fans efficient enough to eliminate much of the risk of inhalation? I know my questions are rather tedious on this old subject but I do appreciate the input from guys whom have experience using these CA based chemicals. Like you, I want all the benefits of CA's with the peace of mind that I'm taking reasonable precautions with my health. Appreciate your quick response. John