AZ Fisher

I use the 30 min D2T, 5 min can turn brittle, IMO and isn't waterproof. Prior to installation, I drill a couple small holes thru the lip where it's inserted in the lure. The epoxy will envelope the lip and flow thru the holes and make a more secure connection. Hope this helps...

While I haven't made baits that small, I tend to use 3/16 SS welding rod for the pin. I run the screw eyes into the back end of each section and the pin thru the corresponding front section. If I'm using a 3/16 pin, I use the same size drill bit and open the hole just a hair, 1/4 bit was just too large of a hole for me. I have some 1/16 welding rod that would probably work for your sized bait, I would use a 1/16- 1/8 drill bit for that size. Be careful drilling the pin's hole to make sure it is centered well. I would be concerned about how close your lip slot is to the nose of the bait and you still need to predrill and to add a line tie there. That has the potential to be a very weak spot and break when a lip is that close to the front. I would predrill the line tie hole at an upward angle and add a long .072 screw eye that could get to reach far into the the nose section. Both PVC and Redwood are very buoyant and will probably need some bottom ballast weighting. Keep that in mind when you are placing your bottom joint screw eyes and/or the receiving slot/pocket and hook hangers. You can run out of room in the bottom of a small bait real quick. Hope this helps...

This is what has worked for me. I wrap the joint hardware with 1/8-1/4 inch wide rubber bands, wrap it tight enough it'll pin the joint and the body segments won't move. Try and spread the bands out to cover while wrapping Some small paint/clear touch up may be needed if the rubber band covers any part of the bait body near the hardware. After it's dried/cured, just cut the bands with an exacto and dig out them out with forceps or tweezers. I'm spraying auto clear now, but have dipped 2 pc baits, half a bait at a time and put on a turner with decent results, 4 oz baits and under with the dipping. When dipping I kept the product off the hardware/bands as much as possible, even using a small brush to fill in tight spots. Hope this helps...

I use this stuff, works well for what I need. Just squeeze out what you need and start spreading or filling. I've used it on both wood and resin. I use a small square of very thin plastic to spread it, like stencil plastic material from Hobby Lobby. Sands easy but can clog sandpaper up pretty well tho. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bondo-Glazing-and-Spot-Putty-00907ES-4-5-oz-1-Tube/16927984?fulfillmentIntent=Shipping

Glad it helped, clear coats can be a PITA!

I know you're using an AB, but I thought some of this might help. I use a similar 2K auto clear, but I don't use an air brush. I use the spray gun. I had some orange peel issues when I started using the HVLP spray gun. It was pretty much a matter of getting the atomization of the droplets to the right consistency and the orange peel was minimized. This is easier with the HVLP gun than an AB IMHO. Can we press down and pull back exactly the same, each time with an air brush? The trigger on the HVLP gun is pretty much on/off, not like an AB with the pressure increasing as you pull back the trigger. Easier to maintain consistent air pressure/clear volume @ 29psi for correct atomization. I also found that putting a very, very light tack coat on first and letting it flash off for 15 min before applying the second coat helped also. After the 15 min flash off time, I will apply a heavier 2nd coat followed by 15 min of flash off and then a 3rd coat quite heavy. Depending on what bait I'm clearing, maybe a 4th and 5th coat. I have about one of the cheapest HVLP guns available but I can still get great results with it. I use the small hobby gun pictured here. https://www.harborfreight.com/professional-automotive-hvlp-spray-gun-kit-94572.html I like having a pressure regulator inline just before the gun helped get me dialed in on maintaining the right consistent air pressure @29psi . Should you go this route with an HVLP gun, and clearing a higher volume of baits, an airbrush compressor even with a tank won't be able to supply a large enough volume of air consistently without waiting for the comp to catch up. Hope some of this helps... so that's what a clean work space looks like, nice!

The best wake I've ever fished was/is the CL8 baits Baby Possum. It has a wide, flat bottom, a mostly flat top and a reverse cut joint that is fairly tight. It's lip depth below the bait is about equal to the baits heighth and the lip is very close to the front of the bait. It sits pretty low in the water, with just the top 3/16 inch sticking out of the water. The waking version weighs right at 4 oz's but fishes extremely heavy, like it weighs 6 oz and can wear you out even with the right rod. It seems to be a small compact package that is very dense. I've had great luck with the fish just crushing the bait, especially around wood. My wake making experience has been primarily with resin baits. When making a 2 pc bait, I use the 60/40 guideline, 60 being the front section. 50/30/20 for a 3 pc bait, with a short tail. When I draw out a design, I always include a drawn in tail, This will help me judge the size the tail section will wind up being and the overall shape of the bait. I've made a couple the with even shorter tail section on a two pc and the tail section will slap pretty hard back and forth. Also take into account for the length of the joint cut itself. Cutting certain angle joints can have the effect of shortening the front section while lenghtening the second section, creating unbalanced proportions. You want the front section and the lip to drive the back section with it's movement, not have the back section hump the front. See a lot of new glides out there with a longer tail section than front, makes for a weird swim. I've made a couple myself. I use 1/8 Lexan/Poly for lips, never needed anything bigger, even on 10-12 inch wakes. I have a tablesaw blade that cuts a 1/8th inch kerf so the lips will slip right in the slot. When testing, I'll cut different shaped and length lips and wrap with blue painters tape around the inserted section to keep the test lip tight. In a wake I want a hard back and forth slap not a rolling type swim. Taller wakes don't make for great bait IMHO, I think they tend to roll more and that kills some of the tail action. Different if you have a rat type tail, they tend to create good action behind most style baits. Wakes can act dramatically different if the linetie is on the nose or under the nose towards the lip like a squarebill CB. I think a guy needs to try both positions to see how it affects your bait. AZsouth helped me troubleshoot a wake bait I was making. Made a bunch of adjustments. We moved the lipslot forward, the linetie back and I moved the joint spacing back and forth. We finally found right combination of those factors the bait came alive and had a great consistant swim. You just have to work to find the right combo for your particular bait. It was like the timing of the sections and the tail movements were finally right and moved in unison and made great sounds. That one looked like a Frankenbait but swam good. Make sure each section floats level with each other, independent of each other, so the joint{s} won't bind. *90 lip will help keep the bait waking and on the surface. Kick the lip out some and it will start to crank down. I make a couple resin wakes with no added weights in the bottom. Just some solid resin in the bottom and the hardware, MB mix up top. I would think that wood wakes will need some lead ballasting. This had been some of my experiences, hope it helps...

I built a small vacuum table/box out of one of the plastic shoebox storage containers and a 1 gal shop vac. I put my small scale on top of the vac table while on and squirt/squeeze the MB's into a small cup on the scale and any excess migrant MB's are sucked into the vac. I'll also place the cup with resin on the vac table and stir in the MB's over that and it's almost eliminated any airbourne MB's. The scale on the vac table is surprisingly accurate if placed consistantly in the center.

I've had some of the same issues with Smooth On resins when they get old and have absorbed some humidity. Then I had the some similar issues with some newer resin and was told to check that the MB's hadn't absorbed humidity. Recommended to put on a cookie sheet or a sheet tray and dry the in the oven and store in an airtight container. I keep the 5 gal bucket of MB's in my shed outside and funnel fill a 32 empty ketchup with the MB's so I can just squeeze/pour out what I need when pouring. The bottle is probably allowing in the moisture. That was a mess drying in the oven and repackaging them, had em everywhere.

The fins were actually about 1/4 inch wide and 3/8's high, but where they came to a point in the top of the mold l always trapped a some bubbles that would leave a weak spot in them, even when it was vented. Some pours I would do what you had mentioned about pouring on an angle or propping up a corner to help vent to get a complete pour.

Thank you for the recipe info, I really appreciate it. I'll have to get some Alumilite to try. I have done a lot of venting also. I did a couple with resin fins on top, had to vent each finpoint and still struggled to get complete pours and the ones that did pour complete were weak and broke rather easy. I put more thought into the initial design now.

Preach it!! I'm guessing I pour my swimbaits the same way you do and have probably oriented my molds similar to yours. While using the SEARCH FUNCTION one day on glide bait info, I found a post on weighting glides without ballast weights. It was like a little gem that I found, so worth searching for, buried some 20-30 pages deep. It shaved a ton of my glide learning curve and I'm really thankful that man decided to share, because I learned a lot from his post and his experiences. My experience has been that I can get resin baits to do all sorts of things that wood can't even come close to, especially with glides. I like wood for topwaters and masters, but not much else. When I cast out a larger sized wood glide bait, whether it's mine or a RM Neg or Mom, they tend to land flat on the water with a loud smack and takes a couple seconds to orient itself, then you need to impart action with a rod or reel bump. Wood tends to plow through the water more when swimming, that's been my experience. On the other hand the resin baits with solid resin in the bottom, or with additional ballast weights will usually hit the water upright. Upon hitting the water the resin bait can dart very fast to one side or the other like a baitfish that a bird just dropped and is trying to get away. Especially if you tighten the line just as the bait hits the water, it will give the bait the energy to begin it's gliding action with a jolt. I've gotten bit on splashdown on resin baits by far higher numbers than wood. I personally like a slow methodic glide with a stable swim not a jerky rolling action like an HPH, although that action has it's place. By pouring solid resin in the bottom and a bouyant mixture on top, getting as much weight equally across the bottom had helped my swim stability quite a bit. You can almost eliminate the head or shoulder roll you can get with wood glides because of the wood's denisity at the top of the lure is so much more dense vs resin. I found when I added additional weights in the bottom of the bait, within the solid resin of the lure that it really got the baits to cut nicely while turning and yet staying upright, AZSouth gets them to do 360's. It can also eliminate some of the rocking front to back that can be common with glides, especially shorter ones, depending on additional ballast placement within the lure. I pour with my weights already placed in the lure mold so I don't have to drill and fill. I do however have a nightmarish amount of surface bubbles in the top of the lure to contend with, being as I use Smooth-on and a high MB mix in the top. Mr VooDoo, Thanks for the info you've shared. May I ask, do your recipe's stay the same with both brands or do you have to adjust the ratio { A+B+MB} for each brand? I have used Smooth On because it's available close by and have wanted to try Alumilite White to see if I can reduce some bubble issues, but have been afraid that the recipes won't transfer and I'd have to re-formulate each recipe and wasn't looking forward to that. These comments are my opinions and experiences from actually designing, building, testing, failing and trying again, then eventually succeeding with getting them to swim how I want, fishing the baits and catching fish on them. Not just regurgitating a bunch of nonsense I saw in a video somewhere...

I have no experience using heat to apply foils. The foils you refered to in the little canisters from China are probably fingernail foils and they use a special glue to apply it. I have used the glue to apply hot stamp foils themselves but never with heat. Maybe @AZsouth has an idea, he's done some hot stamping, Welcome to TU...

Did you heat set each layer of paint after spraying or lay the paint on thick? I've had that exact same thing happen from not having the paint completely dry and it happened to be on that same blank ironically. It seemed like the paint was dry to the touch, but apparently I hadn't dried the first few layers completely and when the KBS started curing it pulled up the undried layers.

Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails, clear finger nail polish, brush a little into the chips, let it dry and you're good to go, should be less than $5 at Wallyworld, keep the bottle in your T box or boat with you, comes in handy, my .02

I would suggest moving your line tie a little higher on the nose and try that before changing lip location. Personally I think your lip needs to be moved forward some also. I've had to move a lip forward before to get a bait to wake better. I had to remove the old lip, fill the slot and cut a newer slot a fair amount forward. We called it the Frankenbait, as it had been cut apart and glued back together in various places, but it worked afterward. As Dave and JD above stated, try a shorter, wider lip. I've found those tend to get a taller profile bait like a gill, to wake better. The lip you're showing will want to make the bait dive or crank down, IMHO. Depending on how you have the bait ballasted, how low it floats in the water will also effect how it swims. Mine worked best as a very low float, barely floating with the back just out of the water, throws a great dual wake. The lip and nose create the big V wake and the tail will create swirling vortiscies{sp} to each side, inside the V wake. I would move the front hook hanger back a hair also, looks like the front treble will hang up on the lip when casting. That's a great looking bait, nice carving and paint, get er' waking and she will get crushed!! Here are a couple pics of a gill wake I made after moving all the components to get it to wake nice. This is a resin bait BTW, 6 inch long and just under 5 oz. Good luck moving forward with this bait and Happy Holidays to all!

How sad to hear, Ben always had lots of great info to share. Condolences to the family...

Youtube is your friend here, lots of lure painting and airbrush videos out there

Just for reference on the drying subject, this is what I had happened on some 2.5's from several years ago. I sprayed the silver very heavy and hit it with the hair dryer, the surface paint dried but was still wet underneath apparently. It was dry enough the apply a stencil to the side of the bait and spray the stripes without messing up the silver base. After I dipped them in KBS they wrinkled as seen . I sprayed some other colorways at the same time that had less paint that didn't wrinkle. I make sure each layer is dry now and haven't had this issue since.

Heat set each color(Layer) before the next unless you're applying very light coats. Paint will look dry until you clearcoat then you get an unpleasant surprise. I have a hair dryer next to the paint station, hit it with some hot air and you can see the paint turn opaque, ready for the next layer. I only intercoat over foil to protection the foil finish from future handling when adding paint colors. Hope this helps...

It looks like one of these, I wouldn't know about the weighting of them though. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Cup-Washers_2