JD_mudbug

I usually brush a bit of superglue around the seam, nose tie, and hook hangers on unpainted blanks. It just takes a second and dries quickly. Once water gets in the bait, it is difficult to get out.

I just started using DAP Rapid Fuse for sealing wood bodies. So far so good. It is carried by my local Walmart for $4.97 for a 0.85 oz. bottle. I have one bottle that I have been using for 3 months and it has not gone bad yet. https://www.walmart.com/ip/DAP-RapidFuse-All-Purpose-Adhesive/52199544 The baits I make tend to be on the larger size (5" to 12", 1 oz. to 5 oz.). So, I like using a larger bottle superglue.

Yup. Cordell TH' Spot. It is also known as The Hot Spot. I have a couple. The ones I have are floating lipless cranks. One has multiple rattles and the other has a one-knocker. The pic is from Ebay. I was too lazy to get mine (watching football). It is a variant in the Spot product line. There are a few other variants like the Spot Minnow, the Thin Spot, and the Suspending Spot. I think all of the variants have been discontinued, only the regular Super Spot is still made.

Looks like a Yozuri or a knockoff of a Yozuri. The Yozuri Series could be the Crankin Dive, Hardcore Crank, or Magnum Crank. It's tough to tell without the length. Color code looks like GSCL - Ghost Chart.

I think putting the design on computer was the biggest help to me in making lures. If you sketch it, scan the sketch to a file, copy/paste the design, so you have 2, flip one horizontally so you have a template for each side, a top view and bottom view template are also useful. You can just reprint the file and have the body profile, lip shape, hardware attachment points, location of ballast on a piece of paper you can cut into a template. You can put any notes in the file like amount of ballast, wire/screws used. Try to find an easy way to get the same shape and weight ballast every time. Search Mark Poulson's posts about ballast. I don't like pouring lead. Finding a 1/4" diameter lead wire you can cut to a set length greatly speeds up making a bait. I agree with ultimately trying to get to make lures from a resin or even PVC boards (see the pinned post). Wood can vary (grain, density, buoyancy, moisture content) from piece to piece and even within the same the same piece. I wish I had focused more of my early efforts in body materials other than wood. Resins and PVC are less subject to water penetration and expanding/contracting in different temperatures. Expansion/contraction of wood can make the clear coat crack. Making one master to make a mold is easier in the long run. Non-wood bodies are more durable. I also think I focused too much on the paint job at first. Now, I make the lure, seal it, attached hardware, and test before I waste time on painting a dud. Supreglue makes a good quick sealer for testing. Some of my most effective lures are all white or all black If you want to see a reputable handmade lure, look at Mike Shaw's MS Slammer. There are a few models that range on the larger side. I have several and really like them. Last note, never underestimate the importance of safety (eye protection, a good mask, gloves, hearing protection, proper vetilation ). Most people, including myself, lose focus on safety over time. Imagine being in the ER with- a piece of a Dremel disk in your eye, lungs full of sanding dust and paint particles, a missing finger from the saw, burns on your feet from pouring lead in sandals, etc.

Top water walking bait like a spook? White or bone, with just a little orange on the throat. I also like black with a little red on the throat for low light conditions (dawn, dusk, night, heavy overcast clouds).

In the past, I used translucent carbonite for a clear-coat. Unfortunately, I cannot get any more of that since my supplier passed away when he fell into the Pit of Carkoon.

I use the baking soda and superglue as Nathan stated when the lure will have a white belly. Baking soda and superglue dries to an off-white color and doesn't leave a shadowy spot beneath white paint. If I am filling a deeper hole, I fill it partially with baking soda, add the glue, let dry and repeat until I get built up. It dries real quick. I use epoxy on baits that will have a non-white belly. I typically will mix sawdust in with the epoxy. I have a couple of ziplock bags of saw dust of different types of wood collected from when I clean my belt sander. If I have a big hole to fill, say due to moving the ballast to a different spot, I will make a plug out of a small dowel and epoxy or glue it in. Likewise, If I put an screw eye in the wrong place, if will fill that with superglue and a toothpick, trim flush and seal with more superglue.

The big box stores sell small sheets of 0.093 inch thick lexan (8" x 10") for under $6. It is a bit thinner than 1/8, but it's cheap. https://www.homedepot.com/p/LEXAN-10-in-x-8-in-Polycarbonate-Sheet-31-GE-XL-1/202090134 https://www.lowes.com/pd/LEXAN-Clear-Polycarbonate-Sheet/3143465 0.093" may be thick enough for a 6" bait. If the lip will be long, like a deep diving lip, or the lure would be a trolling lure, I would go with 1/8 as the lip will be under extra stress. Pike and lakers can put a lot of stress on a lip with head shakes which would also make me lean to 1/8 thick. I think the weight of the bait is also important as that will determine the impact with the water on casts. If the baits weighs close to 2 ounces or is over 2 ounces, I would definitely go with 1/8th (0.125) lexan which I get from an Ebay supplier that has a bunch of different size sheets in a bunch of thicknesses. A 11.8" by 11.8" sheet of 1/8 thick is $9. https://www.ebay.com/str/sibeautomation https://www.ebay.com/itm/POLYCARBONATE-LEXAN-CLEAR-PLASTIC-SHEET-1-8-VACUUM-FORMING-YOU-PICK-SIZE/281337195022?hash=item418100ea0e:m:mOMkSGJFAGWF0bTPygum3jQ Baits over 4 ounces, I would consider using 3/16th inch . Baits of that size have a jarring impact when they land. I usually cross-pin those thicker lips with a piece of stainless shaft wire or a piece of a small nail. I made a jointed wake rat with a 5" inch body and 4" piece of a zoom trick worm for a tail. It weighed just over 2 oz. The 0.093 thick lip cracked on a cast when the lure hit the water. I make mostly bass and pike lures. I use 1/8 thick lexan on lures 1.75 ounces to 4 ounces. I have yet to break a 1/8 thick lip.

I agree with Mark on a miter saw. I picked up a cheap saw at Lowe's. They had a couple of different ones between $10-15 that came with a plastic miter box. The saw has an extra piece of steel folder over the back opposite the blade. This keeps the blade from flexing during the cut which was always a problem for me with hack saws, coping saws and small razor saws. I use another rectangular block of wood or clamps to pin the lure to the inside of the box. I like the idea of making your own narrow miter box. I might try even just making a wood side fence with pins sticking out of the bottom to fit inside the plastic miter box that way I could adjust the width by putting the pins in the holes in the box. Just remember to not cut through the miter box when you get to the bottom of your cut. The saw blade is wide so I think it would work well with guide blocks too. https://www.lowes.com/pd/CRAFTSMAN-14-in-Blade-x-2-5-in-D-High-Impact-Polypropylene-Miter-Box/1000595083 https://www.lowes.com/pd/Blue-Hawk-14-in-Blade-x-2-25-in-D-Abs-Plastic-Miter-Box/50207359

Yes, I believe he did. When I first started fishing spinnerbaits, I got the 2 spinnerbaits I kept seeing in magazines- the chartruese and white double Indiana Mann's spinnerbait used by Hank Parker and that Strike King one that came in tandem or double colorado. The Strike King blades had ridges on them at that time. When I was younger, I was such a sucker for those magazine pictures of a huge bass with a lure hanging out of its mouth. I did catch a lot of fish on those spinnerbaits. The Helicopter lure - not so much.

I have made some hardbaits and spinnerbaits that are dark blue on top, purple sides (sometime with blue stripes or scales) and a pink belly. They work well in low light conditions and stained water. I was replicating the tequila sunrise color of an old Strike King spinnerbait from the 1990s that had a mix of 40 blue and purple strands and 10 pink strands on the belly. I had alot of success with that bait.

I agree. It looks like a Bomber Jointed Long A. The color could be Bengal Firetiger or Mackerel. The Mackerel had thinner squiggly lines and usually had a fin painted on the side above the front hook hanger. The paint schemes did vary a bit through the years. It looks like the front hanger broke off the lure. I'm guessing the color is Bengal Firetiger and it is really faded. In the pic, there appears to be a little of the yellow still left.

In the States, most of the Fish and Games Departments have pictures of the local fish species somewhere on their websites. They also provide helpful tips on how to distinguish between 2 different fish species that resemble each other. https://wildlife.state.nh.us/fishing/species.html#resident

I don’t know if you do any bait sanding near where you clear coat. You should try to set up your curing rack as far away as possible from where you are doing any sanding. Sanding, especially with a power sander, creates dust which will suspend in air for a while. I think the heat given off during the epoxy curing attracts some dust. I have a white bait that had some tiny reddish brown specks in the clear coat that must have come western red cedar I had sanded the day before. I don’t have a sander with a dust collection setup. I try to sand outside with my sander on a portable work bench. In the winter if it is too cold to sand outside, I sand in the shop doorway with my belt sander pointed outside so most of the dust blows out. You can try to minimize dust by periodic vacuuming of work area surfaces including shelves and walls, or use Swiffer dusters. Make sure your shop-vac has a dust collection filter or bag so you just aren’t blowing dust around the room. I know it's a pain to do cleaning. Maybe try putting a canopy or shelf just above the curing rack to prevent dust falling on it. After sanding, try waiting a few days before clear coating. You could trying mixing a small batch of epoxy in a small plastic container in a clean room, lay something across the top. It won’t be an airtight seal but should keep out dust. This way you could see if the epoxy you have is bad. I have run into epoxy that was bad from the store. I have also ruined a new package of D2T by leaving it in my car on a very cold night. After you clear some baits, pour any excess epoxy into a disposable container and cover like above. Pop the epoxy out of the container when it’s cured. You will have a clear specimen to look at and compare to the lures to see if it is air-borne dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1iVn33inyE An epoxy clear coat that cures in a UV light set up. The UV clear coat part begins around the 5:30 mark of Larry Dahlberg's video titled - Using Scale Pattern Transfer Decals and UV Cure Coatings. I haven't use a UV clear coat myself. I am thinking of trying one.

I have made lures up to 12 inches. I mostly make 6 to 12 inch baits that range from 2 to 7 ounces. You will have enough time to spread superglue. I smear it on a small area with the tip of the superglue bottle and use a cheap brush to spread it out. You can do a 3 to 4 inch section, then move down the bait and smear it on the next area, spread with the same brush. Overlap the sections with brush and they will blend together. I run a fan when coating a big lure to blow any fumes away. It spreads really thin so the superglue does go a long way. Wipe the tip of the bottle off with a paper towel before you cap on or you will be using pliers to get the cap off. The glue is easy to drill through. I have had to add additional weight and had no problems using a forstner bit on it. You can use tape or rubberbands to temporarily attach additional weight for testing. I have never tried temporarily gluing additional weight on, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work. I have tried out different lips in a lure's lip slot. I run the tape down the back off the lip onto the body and then put a piece to tape perpendicular to that on the lure's body to more securely hold it. I don't put any tape on the front of the lip. Painter's tape will last for several casts on a big bait before it starts to peel off. You can also sand off the superglue if you need to modify the shape of a lure. You will only need to re-coat the areas you have modified. I have used spar urethane and don't like the dry time and the residual smell. When I do manage to summon some patience, I use the wood hardener because it penetrates deeper into the wood. I don't know if superglue is the most cost-effective sealer. I do think it is the easiest to use and the quickest to get the bait in the water for testing. Unfortunately, on 10-14" baits you are going to use a lot of any product to seal it.

It looks like a Mirro Lure. Some of those baits are painted on the inside of the body before the halves are put together. You see this sometimes on lures with internal foil inserts. My guess is that water was in the bait for a prolonged period, it broke-down some of the belly paint on the inside and spread it. The lure dried out on its own and the spread out paint turned into powdery residue.

I use superglue, the regular type, not the gel type. I spread it on the lure with a cheap walmart paint brush. You get 30 small brushes for 97 cents. Sometimes I use Miniwax Wood Hardener instead of superglue. You can use a plastic bottle with the top cut off to dunk the lures in. Just make sure the bottle is clean and dry before putting in the wood hardener. The wood hardener will penetrate deeper into the lure than superglue. The draw back to the wood hardener is that it takes a long time to off-gas. It seems to take one day for every hour the lure is dunked to off-gas. If you don't allow enough time to off-gas, you will get bubbles under the paint.

It looks like moisture can get into the lure through the belly hook hanger. How about trying a vacuum with an attachment on the line tie / hook hangers or leaving the lure in some uncooked rice to dry out the inside? I had a fogged-up squarebill with a transparent paint job. There was no scale foil inside. I think it had a tiny leak at the rear hook hanger. The moisture in the lure didn’t dissipate without some help. I used a small shop-vac attachment rigged up to a small rubber hose with duct tape to suck out as much moisture as I could. After that, I left the lure in a sealed Ziploc bag of rice. I forgot about the lure and found my bag of rice a week later. Then, I sealed the 2 hook hangers. It has been clear for a couple of years.

I never tried a wire leader. I think a wire leader on the main line to the camera would be o.k. The problem is there would be a wire leader, camera, normal line, and lure dangling from the the rod when you cast. Even a 6 inch wire leader makes it harder to cast. I was paranoid about having the camera sail off into the distance. I took a few practice casts in a clear lake casting to a sandy beach area in 4-6 feet of water to make sure it was castable. That way if disaster happens you can go for a swim and get the camera or grab it with a long handle net. From the camera to the lure, I went with mono on spinnerbaits and cranks and flouro on jigs and soft plastics that would be fished slower. I think a wire leader would stand out too much in the footage. I was using slightly heavier mono/flouro than I would use normally for a particular type of lure, but the pound test was still way below the main line. I wanted a some extra stiffness in the leader line to the lure to minimize the lure getting caught on line or camera during casting. I never had any tangling. I will try using normal pound test next time. The images are clear and you can see the leader line, especially near the camera. The less visible you can make the line in the footage the better. I think a wire would stand out too much in the shot. Plus, if you somehow get managed to get lure snagged you don't want a chance of the knot/line failure occurring before the camera. You want the weakest point to be after the camera. A lure connected by a wire to to camera would transfer a lot of the shock up the line and to camera harness. If trolling, a wire leader to the lure would be very risky. I used a mono leader for that. It was mesmerizing watching the footage. After a lure change, I was sloppy and left a 1.5 inch tag line on the knot at the lure. I just didn't notice I left it too long. It ruined the shot. You could see this tag line sticking out to the side in front of the lure and the drag from the tag caused the lure to run tilted to one side. I didn't realize it and got about 10 minutes of footage of that.

The vibration from the lures didn't mess up the image. I tried some spinnerbaits, cranks, jigs and got good images from all of them. The tube-shape of the camera keeps it stable. On some lures, I couldn't feel any vibration in the rod. The camera comes in straight and dampens any feel in the rod tip. There were times when a bass slapped at the lure and knocked it to the side a few inches and I had no clue until I saw the footage. When you hook a decent fish, the camera can swing around some during the fight. It makes for some dizzying footage. Just make sure the line to the camera is way stronger than the leader to lure. I used a somewhat of loose drag and didn't hammer home my hook-sets. I was more interested in the footage and wanted to reduce the risk of line/knot failure from a shock/impact. I would use a net or have a partner land the fish. Boat flipping is not a good idea. Using the in-line set up works best. The lure was always in the shot. I also tried casting just the camera weighted to sink to a bed, rock pile, other object and let it sit there. Then, I threw a lure on a second rod to where the camera is. You can make it float and point down and retrieve lures under the camera on a second rod. The 2 rod technique is hit or miss as to whether you get the lure in the shot unless at close range I also just rigged the camera on a pole to see what was under docks and boats. I had it at a 90 degree angle to the pole, held it over the side, and slowly drove down a shore lined with docks to see what was underneath. You do have to get fairly close to the docks ends due to shadows. I would try it first in a clear lake. You will have gauge leader length based on clarity. Make sure you keep track of the leader lengths you use and the conditions so you know what is best to use in a given situation. It's a bit of a learning experience. I did not have much luck using the camera near weeds. The camera seemed to collect a lot of weeds. Long stringy weeds are guaranteed to ruin a shot.

I have used a Water Wolf as well. I throw it on a swimbait rod with 80 lb. braid to the camera. The camera I used weighed a bit over 2 ounces. Off the lens end of the camera, I tied a mono or flour 18-24 inch leader to the bait. The length of the leader depends on water clarity. You have to use heavy gear to cast the camera and to make sure you don't lose the camera. Occasionally, an aggressive fish, like a pike or big pickerel, will pass the lure and strike the camera. It really is something to see. The different ways fish strike a bait is cool to see. It also nice that you get to see fish approach and turn away. It's great to troll a bait on this set up so you can see what the bottom structure looks like.

I had the same thing happen to me once. I had just purchased the D2T in the double plunger tube. It got tacky fast and never fully cured. When I compared that ‘new’ tube to another tube of D2T, I could see that new tube had a slight cloudiness to it. I only noticed it when comparing the 2 tubes under good light. It’s possible the D2T you bought ‘new’ was actually an older tube that had been on the shelf for a while or had sat in some warehouse. Maybe it was exposed to a very high or low temperature at some point? I had a new tube go bad before it was opened because I left it in my car for a day in winter. It turned to a very milky color. It never fully cleared up when stored at room temp. I tried it on a piece of scrap and all I got was a gummy mess. I try to buy my D2T in person and compare all the tubes to see if any are cloudy.

So, true! This past winter, I decided to make some different types of baits I had never made before. I made so many mistakes including some of the epic variety. I even managed to implode a Shop-Vac when attempting to make my first stencil with a vacuum-form stencil box. It was a great learning experience. Note to self: do not use plastic materials of unknown origin. The only reason I knew about the tape was last year I noticed the different day numbers. I had never noticed those before. I was in the store trying to figure out which would be best for lure painting, making the same rationalization as you. One of the employees in the store saw me looking at the different tapes and told me what the numbers meant.