canuck

knipex has several sizes of round nose pliers which handle small jewellery taper upwards to .050. Check out there web site. Good german made steel.. strong box joint which keeps the pliers straight under pressure of bending wire. Note each model will allow a minimun round diameter bend . Match that to the tackle you are wanting to make. Hope this helps.

Since I have had no feed back on this by members I contacted do-it directly and had my questions / curiosity quenched. The 2190 will not work for me. A pic from do-it showing the hook in mold really put that question to rest. Thanks to all and a shout out to the staff at do-it. Great customer service. Yours in fishing and lure building. Canuck

Hi guys. Was wondering if I could use the eagle claw 2190 hooks with my Gary Yamamoto swim jig mold as a cheaper alternative to the Gamakatsu 474 v eye hook? Any wire gauge difference between the two? Would there be enough shank to accommodate the bait keeper lead before the bend? Any one tried this yet . pros and cons Any ideas about hook set ratio change from the bent shank hook section. In pics they look relatively close other than the bend? Thanks to all for any info and feed back. Canuck

Thanks for sharing guys. I like both of your mods/ ideas. The trimmed tail idea is nice and should allow for larger bodied baits to snug up to the head without to much compression making a better fit. Keep thinking outside the box. Cheers

August bait fish should be fairly full grown. Ask your buddy what kind of natural forage is in the area you intend to fish. How big are your target species.. Water depth and clarity? Going for trophies or eating fish? Match the bait weight and Finnish accordingly. If you spinner bait for bass down south you know that variations of blade combos make a difference under different water and weather conditions. I like using double blade combos in 1/2- 5/8-3/4oz head size on .031 to .040 wire frames. I like hook sizes from 4/0 to 6/0 and blades up to #7s. Silver,nickel, gold or polished brass anything with a big flash for pike. Pickeral can be more picky and may require smaller presentations using coloured blades if flash dosen't produce. Colors to start with black, white,chartreuse,red, yellow, orange. I like to dress my spinner baits with a trailer grub usually a 5" single tail color matching head and skirt or contrasting or give a three color total presentation. You can also try to match color to baitfish in area eg blue gill, shad, shinner etc. Stinger hooks are optional for late biters. But can be more trouble than there worth at times. Don't forget to take some jigs and grubs for bottom fishing walleyes. Trolling bottom bouncer rigs with thin fin / rapala type minnow baits are deadly in some areas around rocky shoals etc. To get more specific local info I would try an internet search on local game and fish sites and see if anyone can put you on to what is working in that area. As Canada is as huge an area as is USA a lot changes as you go north , east and west. Hope this helps you out. Cheers

Points to consider if planning on using bathroom exhaust fan. They are designed to move moisture ladden or stale air using a plastic fan blade and a cheap open or synchronous motor. Not sure how long either will last if you are using a fuel source burner to melt your lead. It will see much higher air over motor temps than designed for. Also motors used in them are not very strong to push heated air through a duct system nor do they generate a lot of pull or suction to draw air into your cabinet or hood and force it out of your area. I would suggest using a range hood system with metal squirrel cage fans and variable or multi speed motor. It would also give you some lighting depending on the style of range hood used. Another bonus with using a range hood is they come equipped with a flapper or back flow louver to stop outside air pushing back into your hood on windy days. If you are just using electrics to melt with you may be ok. Just some things to think about before you design your go if you have not already thought about them already. People upgrade and throw out perfectly good kitchen exhausters when doing renos. I picked mine up at the side of the road and built my hood around it. Added variable lighting up to 200 watts using ceramic bulb fixtures for higher heat application. Hope this helps

Sorry guys I missed the original intent of the question on a quick read. I didnt see any raw blades on site at MTO but they have showing blade attachments in sizes #7 to #11 for$11:99 to $12:99. Nothing smaller than that. I search it as I had not ever heard of them before and was curious. They seam simple enough in design. Sorry again for the mix up

I did a google search for them. Muskie Tackle Online sells them. - don't know what inventory they have but it may be a place to start.

Here in Canada the use of lead weights and jigs are banned from use in national parks and designated wildlife areas. All other water ways subject to provincial guidelines. So far no restrictions for the fishing tackle industry. Bird shot has been lead free for years now. All motivated to protect water foul( ducks geese and loons) from ingesting lead pellets and lost jigs.

The first picture looks more air brushed to me not laminated.

In winter here in ontario the inside air relative humidity drops off causing static, If you don't add moisture to your heated furnace air. Have you tried a portable humidifier in your work area? May eliminate the hassle of wetting materials before tie in. Relative humidity should be between 35% and 55% depending on outdoor temp. Condensate on the inside window glass is a good indicator if you are adding too much moisture for the outdoor low temps. Adjust accordingly. Just a thought. Cheers

Have you concidered using some sort of shallow screw rig for soft plastic which could incorporate your 10/0 hook and add any size weight clip on to the line tie point. Check out you tube videos on the subject. Lots of applications used for rigging big swim baits for big pike etc. just thinking outside the box a little.

You might consider modifying the poison swing tail jig for an underspin .It goes smallest at 1/8 and 1/4 oz Maybe use the larger stw 155wire form to carry your 10/0 hook rated for up to 8/0. May be customize a drop wire for the swivel or use the swivel part of a heavey wire leader to carry the blade. Just some ideas to consider . Ive been thinking about using the bullet nose jig for a conversion underspin but have not had the time to play with it yet. Good luck in your search.

Do it has a herring head underspin mold model HHU-4LA up to 1-1/2 oz and using up to 7/0 hook. The title said big underspins? 1/4oz is hardly big- the 10/0 is definitely big. I would wonder if 1/4oz of lead would even cover the eye of a hook that size never mind give it any stability to drag a blade behind it as an underspin?

Landry...Impressive set of high quality baits. Your finishes look very realistic and intriguing. Love the perch detail- looks like solid cheeks and internal vertical striping through op ache body scales. Would love to see them in the water so will send you an email. I hope that you have success in catching the big ones with your awesome collection. Hats off for sharing your journey and to your dedication to the craft. Cheers

Thanks everyone for your important and valuable feed back. I especially appreciate that this topic generated responses from all levels of experienced makers. When I started on this sight I was a little apprehensive about having any accurate input of value so just read everything of interest and limited myself to asking questions about my experiences and snags. It is an amazing site that connects novice to tackle building greats. It would be great to actually meet some of you all but I guess geographics seperates where electronics brings us all together. Any way of getting localized builders/members locations to see if meeting up would be an added experience for this community? Probably should put this up as a different topic. Thanks again to everyone.

I own this mold as well. Got it as one of the first in my collection. I had it modified to allow a wire form on the 1/2oz head to do spinnerbaits with it. As I was new to pouring and had no experience other than hours of reading from this site, I had a bit of a learning curve with it in all cavities. Smoked each one with a candle,preheated the mold really hot, pre heated the hooks and wire form eventually got a high percentage of good pours. Since that time last year I have learned to flux my lead using parafin wax,and customized the lip on my poring laddle to direct the lead pour more accurately and fluidly into the center of the sprue without side interference or disturbance. Laddle skill is important. I was and am still using soft lead heated on a gas burner which I keep my laddle in submersed while not pouring. If you try all of these things and still have difficulty I would suggest using drop out spray or bees wax candles for smudging the mold. I have also just started using a graphite spray for release agent but did not like how it was working. So went back to candle smudging. It was not drop out spray but a high temp graphite lubricant . I am interested in getting back into pouring this mold again with my new found knowledge and experience. Hope this helps. It makes a great looking keel spinnerbait.

Thanks Mark for the feed back. I have experienced first hand the tacky stick to other baits effect already.. I was using a small toaster oven with a home made rack set up. Found it too small for a larger amount of baits. 12 at a time was just taking to long at 30min a load. I was fortunate to come upon a convection isotherm industrial drying oven that was slated for the dumpster and repaired it. Beauty two shelf system with four concealed heating elements . Customized some new racks for it and now I can run around 60 large spinnerbaits at once. It is not as light and portable as the toaster oven is but it is definitely purpose designed for the task. Still plenty of fishing time this fall so the playing and testing will most likely happen after the snow starts to fly. Thanks again for your input.

Thank you gentlemen for all your much appreciated feed back and experience. Over the years of reading and sharing on this site I have picked up a lot of invaluable wisdom coming from hours of your hands on experience. Some of which included a list of suggested color curing times and temps. It seamed at the time a very intensive volume of critical information which made me believe that paint curing needs to be very precise to avoid paint burning color degradation ,bleed etc. I did not how ever refer to this large volume of information before selecting my choice of temps and times for this batch...... Something to be learned here ! for my own experimental experience. Nothing like learning by trial and error to hone the skills of our craft. At this point it would take to much effort to tear down and strip all of the heads but I will definitely try two and repaint at a higher temp plus verify the accuracy of my oven temp controller. One of the colors that I was using was ruby slipper. It has a metallic red flake in it which I would not want to decay or burn/ruin the luster of the Finnish. Trial and error. Thanks again for all the feed back. Cheers

Thanks for your feed back smallmouthaholic. the strange thing was the castings looked perfect ,maybe a little hard looking like it had some kind of hard alloy mixed in for tensle strength not just pure soft lead. No residual or dust just a weird hard polished look. I just deducted that that could be a cause. Have you on any one else ever seen powder paint flake off in 1/4 inch sections before after baking at 325

Hello fellow tackle makers. I have just experienced on a batch of spinerbait heads having the baked on powder paint coming off easily. Some in large flakes and others chipping without a lot of use. I had received an order of guppy spins that were beauty, looked like spin cast molded. Perfect castings with a dull almost aged lead (raw unpainted ) look. I heated the heads using my heat gun and tap method dropped powder paint on to each one and applied additional heat from the gun to get that high gloss luster before putting them in my baking oven for 35 minutes at 325. They looked great coming out of the oven and I thought that they had cured well. My question is should I be prepping the lead heads for oxides removal prior to heating to get a better bond with the powder paint ? The temp of the lead head was hot enough to melt the paint on contact and only required a small reheat time to even out the finish and coverage before oven curing. What should I use to clean prep the heads before to ensure not having this frustrating recurrence. If that was what it was oxides.. Fortunately I just make them for myself so suffered no real damage to my quality reputation ... Still a huge time waster and a bit disappointing. A point of note this was happening on several baits while using different colors of paint so it was not a bad paint batch scenario. Appreciate greatly your feed back and advice. Canuck.

If its just for your own creative collection I would suggest try cutting your own. A set of right ,left and straight cut tin snips and some thin hobby shop sheet metal. Copy a pattern from suppliers catalogue and increase size on your printer. Glue it on to your base material and cut away. The shaft guide holes may require a jig and a punch to form but with practice can produce good results. I have made a few blades just because supply is very limited here in Ontario without ordering all the time. Would not want to make a large amount for selling unless results proved worthwhile AKA catching a ton of fish with one. . Good luck

Thanks Diemai, lots of great tips and technics using basic supplies. I hope to apply some of your ideas to my pike fishing/lure building this spring.

Just in case your not aware . A 15 amp circuit breaker will only carry 80% of that rated current and stay closed. with out tripping. So at 12 amps total current draw on that feed to your garage the breaker if working properly will protect the 14-2 wire from heating up and causing a fire. Most heat guns are rated at 10 to 12 amp draw or 1000/1200 watts. A little ohms law applied shows 1000watts /115volts = 8.7 amps just for that appliance. if your running lighting of that one circuit as well you are close to the limit for that breaker. Run a larger heat gun at say 1200 watts. /115= 10.5amps...leaves only 1.5 amps for your current limit before heating up the breaker to tripping point. Lighting may already account for that if you only have the one dedicated circuit. Toaster ovens are a high current device and usually rated at a full 12amps at 115volts . Check the rating on the name plate. and add up the total current draws for all the equipment that you want to run to do your painting. It sounds like you will have to run an extension cord from another power outlet to meet your demands. Then you can stick with painting the way you are comfortable with. Just make sure the chord length and rating matched or exceeds the current that you intend to use it on. Hope this helps

Just another option for applying powder other than brush tapping is by using a plastic sample bottle and lid from the dollar store. A film container will work also. Just drill single or multiple holes in the lid and shake or tap the powder out over your pre heated project. Not a fine detail delivery but very nice blended color effects can be attained. Experimenting with hole size and numbers give you a lot of options. Again re heating the jig head as it cools to set the paint before oven curing