TootsMalone

I’ve seen a guy make aluminum jigs for cutting lexan lips on a band saw. The guy was able to cut a stack of identical lips in minutes. Wish i had more insight to share than that but i’ve never made a lipped bait myself.

I personally drill and fill with melted lead. I only have experience with Alumilite White Resin. Use the volume calculators you can find on makelure.com (or alumilite.com, they're both run by alumilite). Once you figure out the volume of your molds you need to convert it to resin. Then i take 9% of the weight of resin needed per mold and add that much of the MB to the mix. You will end up with extra resin the first few times so adjust the mix until you get the least amount of wasted resin and don't forget to redo your MB calculation every time you remove resin. Probably not the "perfect" mix but has been working out well for me so far. I think i got the % MB mix calculations from a Engineered Angler video.

Thanks man. I’ll get a swim video and post it when she’s all finished. Thanks!

Fin slots are all finished and fins are fitted and aligned. Just need to drill the eye pockets and assemble the joints and she’s ready for testing and tuning.

Made some more progress tonight. Broke one of the pectoral fins in the process so i have to re-carve that but otherwise very happy with it so far

Nice! I just got some basswood tonight for when I'm done with this project. I believe you are right. According to wikipedia linden is the european version and basswood is the american version. Thanks! Im still learning the craft. Thanks man!

This one is made of poplar. I’d really like to try bass wood since i hear it carves really nicely. Than Linden you use sounds nice as well

Thanks! The worst part was as soon as i cut the fins off i didnt like the profile at all. so out came the knife and had to carve and sand off almost all of the scales on the back and re-carve them. So happy the scales are finished. Dive right into a jointed bait man. Its so satisfying once you get it swimming right

Thanks Mark!

Thanks man! Me too, this one has taken me forever to get to this point

This one is really starting to take shape

You could definitely make a mold of it and cast copies in resin with microballoons added. BUT, you probably wont get the same action out of it as you do with balsa. You can only add so many microballoons to the resin before it starts affecting the strength and rigidity. Adding ballast is easy and you have a few options there. You could pour in something like bird shot or bb's into the mold while you are pouring the resin, you can drill holes and fill with melted lead, or you can drill holes and insert solid lead or any other heavy metal of your choice. I pour my resin copies with about 9.5% microballoons by weight and it gets the buoyancy right around the poplar i use for carving. My guess is balsa would be closer to 11% or higher but i really don't know. Never made or tried to replicate a balsa crank or any crankbait with resin so im just speculating here. Good luck in your search!! Edit: Listen to vodkaman, he knows his stuff!

Thanks Travis! The pectoral fins are the ones I'm really worried about. With the 90* mounting peg i cant imagine they would be easy to fish out of a one piece mold.

Hey everybody, been reading back through the pages on here looking for an answer to this and after hitting page 80 i give up. I need to make about 6 small fin molds for a bait im working on and wondering if i should do 1 or 2 piece molds for them. They’re small fins with the smallest being less than an inch long. i plan on casting them with an undecided brand of soft casting rubber. Any suggestions or comments on the different casting rubber available would be awesome as well. Thanks in advance!!

Looks really good man nice work!!

That's awesome man! Congrats on the catch.

From what i’ve gathered on my own similar journey, you want the body to be buoyant and then add ballast to the belly to get it to sink at the desired rate. This keeps the bait upright, and the mass towards the pivot point on the body allowing parts like the tail to move more freely. personally, i use poplar. Its plenty buoyant and doesn't take too much lead to sink. Also are you melting lead, or drilling weight holes and inserting solid weights. If solid weights, you could always go with a denser metal like tungsten so you don't have to use as much. I'm no expert by any means so please correct me if I'm wrong. Good luck in your search! Love the baits btw!

Never even opened the DVD but its there if you want to watch it. Alumilite has a sale going right now on the hard bait kit. until the end of the day today.

Alumilite makes a hard bait kit that got me started. Only thing i would add to that kit is some extra silicone depending on the size baits you are making. The directions that come in the kit are very helpful and also includes a dvd by larry dahlberg on lure making.

made the decision today to put soft fins on the 4 piece bass. Just finished cutting the masters for the fins on the band saw and not need to get the shape carved into them.

Thanks Dave! i’ve read so many of your posts on here and stoked you replied to my thread. i moved on from my first bait since it got cleared and finished before i tested it. Did manage to catch a fish on it my first time out on the first cast even. But the action is not what i was hoping for. The mullet was made for inshore fishing here in Jacksonville. The crappie and mullet were made around the same time honestly. Spent a lot more time fishing the crappie than the mullet. Have gotten a ton of big bass follow the crappie but no takers yet. i appreciate the kind words man. And thank you for all of the info you have shared on here.

Thanks man. I appreciate the kind words! Couldn’t have done it without you guys here.

Thanks man! Couldn’t have made it this far without everyone’s input on this forum.

Hey TU! New to making my own baits but have been reading on the forum for a few months now. my first bait was a 2 piece baby bass which did not get enough ballast to sink at all but with the right technique walks really well. Learned from that one to test designs before painting and clearing. second bait was a 2 piece mullet glider. Added much more weight to this one so it sinks and got lucky that it swam fairly well. Put a paintbrush tail on it with silver leaf sides and details painted on the head before clearing. 3rd was a 2 piece Black crappie that i liked enough to try molding it with silicone and pouring resin copies. Have had some decent success with this one, only 3 tries to get a workable resin copy and have made a few extras for other people. my most recent is a 4 piece bass that will also get molded if the wooden swim tests workout well. Finishing up the details after the thanksgiving holiday. Really just wanted to thank everyone here for the amount of knowledge you all have accumulated here. This place is truly amazing. Happy thanks giving everyone!!!!