eastman03

Very good point slowFISH. My badger patriot came default with a .5mm tip and it is a good all around workhorse. It does ok for smallish details. It handles basically all the paints just fine. I bought the extra fine conversion kit I think Badger calls it, which is a .3mm tip and nozzle. I really like the .3mm once I get to fins and gill details and that stuff. The paint needs to be a bit thinner, but you can get finer lines. The .5mm worked for me on it's own for quite a long time.

Sounds like lots of great advice already! It is a fun hobby for sure. I use a Badger Patriot 105 airbrush and I really like it. It is a bit less expensive than some of the other options I think. The Iwata Eclipse hp-cs I believe is the gold standard of airbrushes for lures. I completely agree with Travis, when you are starting buy acrylic based airbrush specific paints. It takes the problematic issues of diluting cheap paints to try to make them work. createx - createx wicked - testors aztek paint - golden hi-flow There are a number of quality choices, I have a mix and match of the ones that I like. Airbrush specific cleaner and reducer when you start off as well probably helps eliminate problems. SOME of the paints seem to need reducing, especially if you are trying for fine details. createx 4012 works for me for thinning paint, and It lasts a very long time (for me anyway). Welcome here, tons of great topics covered in the past. My best advice is just practice practice practice! It is fun. Get a color wheel and learn what works together. Lots of little things you will collect as you dive into it. Keep an eye out for cool looking scale mesh at grocery stores. Make your own stencils to start, you can order cool looking stencils online as well now. I could keep going. Good luck!

@fishordie79 Shoot I was hoping I was wrong for your sake, but I feared that would happen. Oh well, still good wood that has many uses. I saw all these guys online carving scale detail and whatnot, and I couldn't carve a freaking gill plate lol. No one ever mentioned that wood like that is very difficult to carve because of the different densities. I tried a piece of maple, and it is harder wood, but leaves much much more clean details! If you want a soft buoyant wood that carves like a dream, try basswood. That is like a block of butter.

I use epoxy, specifically Alumilite clear cast epoxy to finish my lures. I make large musky lures, and only a few at a time, so it is the finish that makes sense for me. There are a number of different options, each has its merits. Lots of info and discussion on the forum here in the past about finishes.

I think the main problem with carving details into wood like Douglas fir would be the difference of density in the growth rings compared to the wood between the darker rings. I may be wrong, as I haven't carved fir myself, but I think it is similar to cedar that way. I think it would work ok overall as a lure, as it has buoyancy properties similar to pine/cedar I believe. Carving small details into cedar is super annoying as the growth ring (darker parts) is super hard and you knife tends to jump between the rings. Sanding out the details also leaves the softer wood in between, kind of scalloped as the sandpaper takes out the soft wood first. I totally may depend on the exact piece of wood you got. I may be totally fine. Like LHL said, carving soft woods with fine detail can be very frustrating. Hardwoods can allow you to have greater detail. I don't think the glue joint will be a problem. It may be act kind of like a growth ring and just be a bit more difficult to carve.

You are totally correct. Ideally I would joint one side so it is flat. Then plane it so it is parallel. I don't have a planer and over my 8-12" lures, I've never seen it to be a problem. I'll joint one side so it's flat, then scribe a line parallel with a caliper to the desired thickness. Then i'll use the jointer to work down to that line. Ideally you would plane it down to that thickness, but I've never come across a piece that I couldn't get pretty much bang on with my sander or jointer. Yea a planer would be nice if I was making batches of 100! There certainly is a market for custom musky lures. Guys have no problem paying 50+ bucks for a custom lure. When I used to guide more, I was often selling lures right out of my tackle box that I made for myself. lol I'm not even in the market to sell specifically, I just like making stuff and experimenting with ideas that I have in my head to trick those muskies.

Probably can easily get by with the tools that you currently have. I have all that stuff, plus an old jointer (all my tools are 1940's era stuff). So you can find small jointers for pretty cheap. I do like the jointer to work my way down to the thickness that I want. I see your lures you posted are larger flat sided musky lures, so if you make a lot of 8-12 inch flat sided lures, maybe a jointer planer combo might come in handy. I like to make all kinds of shapes and types of lures, so I haven't really missed out on the use of a planer. As soon as you make a lure that has a "3d" shape with contours on the top and side, it is probably unnecessary to start with a perfectly flat/square piece. Lets be real though, more tools is always better no?

Honestly, it sounds like you are pretty well prepared and educated as far as clear coating with epoxy goes. I also make muskie lures, and have been doing so for about 5 years (wow, I still feel like a newbie lol). Your lures look great by the way! Here were my initial thoughts. - compresser spraying water/oil, but it sounds like that should not be an issue. - paint not fully cured. Sounds like that should not be an issue. - I have had cheap rubber gloves with some powder on it that I think was an issue. Same with cheap syringes that had some oil or something that contaminated my lures. - temp/humidity. Honestly etex is a fickle b***. I used it exclusively for the first two years, and every time I though I got it down pat, one of my lures would have a drip or a fish eye. It is frustrating. Warming etex seems to help, and really brush it on well everywhere, but warming it also speeds up cure time a bit. Here is my checklist that I often repost for a good finish. Also check out engineered angler and his steps on a perfect finish on youtube. I got the idea spraying with a mid coat to help achieve a perfect finish from him. That has really helped consistency. I do exactly what he said, and slightly dilute polycrilic, and airbrush it on. Honestly, I like etex when the finish ends up being perfect, but it was just so finicky that I have ditched it for another epoxy with a long working time. I really like alumilite clear cast, it seems to be way way more forgiving and consistency gives me good finishes. There are others that are also good from what I have heard, but that does not really solve your problem right now lol. More than any epoxy, people (myself included) seem to have issues with etex. I wish I could pinpoint your problem. Hope some of this info helps. Keep us informed about how it goes.

I would love to have a source of foil that is thin and shiny. I have tried a few different brands of hardware store HVAC tape, and it all works, but I think I may be going in the wrong direction. I bought the more 'expensive' brands at the store, and yea they are thicker, which is probably good for most uses except mine lol. I have also found some brands kinda get tarnished and lose their shininess when I handle them. Perhaps a cheaper foil would be thinner on average. One foil that has been recommended on this forum, and I can not find myself is 3m venture tape. Man that stuff looks amazing. Different sizes, thicknesses, and strong, but still soft and pliable. I can't find it anywhere to try it out here in Canada (for a reasonable price I should add). https://www.3mcanada.ca/3M/en_CA/company-ca/all-3m-products/~/3M-Venture-Tape-Aluminum-Foil-Tape-1520CW/?N=5002385+3293084283&rt=rud Candy foil is a neat suggestion as well RPM. I'll keep my eyes open for some of that stuff too.

Yup darice metallic mesh. https://www.amazon.ca/Darice-2913-103-Metallic-Mesh-Silver/dp/B01MTLK35Z Just an example, I'm sure you can find it in most craft stores or online. Check our Jekyll Productions on youtube, she has a lot of videos about painting lures. And she has a few where she talks about how to use this mesh to get a really good result.

Yea the application of the waterslide paper really opens the door to all kinds of things! Interesting idea with the silicone layer. So the eye sitting on the silicone has enough surface tension on its own I guess to make a little bubble, just like on the screw. Do you ever have issues with extra epoxy kinda forming a strange shaped eye, because it cant kinda fall off like if it were on the screw? Anyway, for the few eyes I'm making for myself at the moment, this will do just fine! Thanks again, just adds another level of customization.

This really works well! Thanks again. The eyes pop like crazy once you get epoxy on them. Here are a few from my first batch. I need to sharpen up the cheap leather punch I got for this as it kinda was tearing it off. I think I need a harder backing material to punch the eyes out cleanly. More experimenting will happen yet.

Sounds good to me!

Do you mean the 39 hours show from Uncut Angling? That series in so intense! Those are all my buddies that I guided with years ago. I'm very spoiled to have all the fishing resources around here that I do. Thanks for all the help.

Welcome here, lots of great resources. I've used a lathe for a few of the lures I make. Most of them are not symmetrical/cylindrical so I don't use it all the time. It is a great tool to have. Make sure to wear eye protection!

Yea I'd take all the help I can get. I don't own photoshop, and I wasn't sure I wanted to buy it, so I used an open source program called GIMP. It is similar, it allows me to play with layers and most of the same things as photoshop. That was probably the most difficult thing in this process lol. I've never used any program quite like this. I also see how much of the background comes through despite the eyes printing red. I'll have to play around with it, it is a fun challenge! I just received a leather punch set that I ordered, so I will be able to start punching out some eyes and getting them finished. I'm also kinda waiting for it to get cold enough to fire up my wood boiler so I can heat the shop. We are starting to get winter here in Manitoba, so that means less fishing and more lure making.

I hate to always be the wet blanket when it comes to screw wire vs thru wire, but in my opinion, if you are making a premium lure for muskies or pike, it should always be thru wire. Screw eyes are plenty strong when new, but after fishing with a lure for a year or two, almost no amount of finish will be able to withstand rocks and fish. If there is any moisture ingress or if the threads 'crack' loose from the glue that's holding the screw, it can pull out. Sorry, it just bugs me seeing musky lures that go for 100+$ dollars, and they have screw in hardware. This is the result. A lost lure and possibly a dead fish. This was from a big pike that crushed the lure boat side. Set the hook and out came the large screw eye. Hopefully the fish chucked the lure. This is from a 'well made' well known lure manufacturer (I won't name names or anything). This is the second time that it has happened to me, so I can only imagine with all the people fishing, how many times this may happen. This would not happen with thru wire. I'm tough on equipment, I fish a lot, and if there is a weakness, musky fishermen tend to find it. I'm headed out this weekend, freezing temps, and lakes icing up to go bash some other lures around on the Canadian shield hoping for another hog.

Cool effect. I believe I've had this happen before to a similar effect. I seem to have this happen with a few of my paints that I did not shake well enough. So similar problem as to over thinning, basically not enough pigment. It happened to my orange paint, a pearl white and a black as well. Was super watery and dried splotchy like that (I was going for a nice smooth finish). When I tried to actually stir the paint with a stir stick, turns out I had a bunch of the pigment clumped up and stuck to the jar. Especially orange, I have had lots of trouble with oranges lol.

@fishordie79 so it's been a while, but I have almost all the right parts to make my own eyes! Learned a bit about photoshop, and waterslide paper during the whole process! Waiting for a leather punch kit to punch the eyes out. Now only my own creativity can hold me back! Thanks for the tutorial!

I like cedar for it's buoyancy, and natural water/rot resistant properties. I'm not exactly sure what kind of cedar they grow in California but i'm sure it will do. However, for carving fine details, it can be frustrating. The grain that is there is much harder than the wood between the grain if that makes any sense. So I can make for a difficult process to carve details. I prefer bass wood if I want to add any fine details, that stuff carves like a block of butter, it is amazing.

I use western red cedar mostly. I will use white cedar if I can get it as well. I have a friend that operates a sawmill, and he saves me cutoffs of western red cedar that have no knots and relatively straight grain. If I need really consistent straight clear pieces, I will go and actually buy a 2x8 of clear straight grain cedar from Windsor plywood. I don't like doing that because it gets pretty pricey per foot.

It sorta depends on how complex you want to get. I usually only make a dozen baits at a time, so I often just do the vice grips method to make the loop at one end. But you can make yourself jigs to get repeatable bends. Kinda like this: It helps to get yourself a good pair of round nose pliers that are strong enough to bed thicker wire, I use anywhere from .051 to .092" wire. Knipex makes excellent tools.

I have used polyurethane to seal wood, then primed and painted with acrylic paints overtop. It seemed to work alright, however I did not use the polyurethane on the top of the paint. I finished these lures with epoxy, so I cant say how that would work over top of the paint. To seal the wood, I dipped the lures in polyurethane and sanded after it was dry, twice just to seal the pours and get a smooth surface to work with.

Check out our member submitted tutorials! @fishordie79 has a cool tutorial on how to make lure eyes. I'm hoping to try this soon.

That looks like it has excellent action! Nice work