All Eyes

Yes. I buy it at Pat Katans.

My advice would be to very lightly lay down some gold pearl mixed with a drop or two of transparent brown. Then go over it with transparent green mixed with a little transparent brown. Add a very small drop of black to that and hit the darkest areas. The lighter you spray the better.

To make a not so bold prediction, you are going to be producing some exceptional baits in short order. A person can only get better at this, and your new stuff already looks dynamite. I'm really looking forward to watching your progress.

All common problems Mark, and ones that you will learn to resolve before long. First off, like others have said, try the thinner made for the airbrush. For water based paint, I use Auto Air 4011 reducer. The consistency you want is like 2% milk. You learn to get an eye for it. Some paints and colors require more, and others may not need any at all. Opaque white, for example, is one that I find needs more thinner to flow just right. If you are experiencing splatter or chunks with sporadic paint flow, your nozzle and needle probably need cleaned. Nozzles can get a film built up on them even with constant flushing. A great way to practice is to get an inch or so away from the surface, and write your name or whatever with as thin a line as possible. Keep doing that in different colors and experiment with PSI and ratios of reducer. At that close distance, you will learn to control the amount of both paint and air so you aren't blowing pools of paint all over the place. Judging by your baits, I'm a bit surprised that you are struggling with it at all. Looks to me like you have a very nice touch with your fades and detail.

Glad to hear it was salvageable. Those baits look very nice.

TY! Good stuff guys. I have used the twisted wire method on a limited basis in the past, and went back to the way I learned from the start. Like Rayburn Guy said, there are a lot of different ways to skin a cat. Any tunable line tie that's durable and lets the bait move freely is a good one in my book. After that it's just personal preference. I also drill a small hole thru the back of the lip and rough up the material to help the epoxy bond to it. My line tie hole and lip slot are drilled and cut on the small side, so that it takes a bit of pressure to fit them into place. I use 2 ton epoxy, and shove a lot of it into the hole with a piece of wire before installing them. After testing on some mock ups to the breaking point, I am positive that no fish out there is going to pull the lips out. Especially before the line snaps or the hooks fail. That epoxy is no joke.

Hope it helps. Here is what the end result looks like. I like to drill the hole for the line tie before cutting the lip slot. Too hard to drill that close to the slot without blowing it out. My line ties are usually longer than the one shown in the picture. I also like to put a slight bend at the very ends of them to grab a bit better.

As Jigginpig pointed out, symmetrical profile is very important. Even good eyes can be fooled. One way to check during the shaping process is with templates that you can make in different sizes. Some use C-shaped templates that check one side at a time. The way I go about is is to fold a piece of plastic masking film, or cardboard, etc. in half and cut out half of an oval (on an oval shaped bait) so that when you unfold it, you have a hole that is perfectly even on both sides. Slide your bait into the hole you cut and line the top and bottom centerline up to the fold in your template. (Hope this is making sense- I'm terrible at explaining things sometimes) With different sized templates, you can check the bait from head to tail. What you are looking for is daylight on one side but not the other. It's just easier to tell where more material needs taken off.

Thanks a lot for the kind words Mark! Your baits are looking great also. Very clean work.

First off, your baits look fantastic! Jigginpig summed it all up rather nicely. Lots of trial and error. Lip size, shape and angle, wood type and bait shape/size, ballast and line tie placement all work together to create a specific action. Sometimes just adding a bit more ballast will stabilize a bait enough to keep it from blowing out. Easy enough to test by adhering weight before drilling into them.