exx1976

Oh trust me, I've made a LOT of mistakes thus far. Unfortunately, none of them were good. LOL

Update: Got the table saw crosscut sled back together, and installed a Freud 60T thin kerf fine crosscut blade. Rearranged the shop to make processes flow a bit better. Kicked out a dozen blanks tonight, should be able to start paint tomorrow. I'll do a video of my current shop setup and the tooling that I'm using this weekend perhaps.

IMO, it depends on what hooks you're planning to use. I like the Mustad 35656. It is stronger, and larger, than typical trebles that are sized larger on the package (For example, the 3/0 35656 is larger than a standard Mustad 4/0). It also has a shorter shank, which not only helps to increase strength, but prevents tangles when using multiple hooks on a lure. My minnowbait is ~7.75" and is using 3 hooks. Also, .062 sounds nice, but I think is overkill. Bucktail/spinnerbaits are built using .051 - and the only supporting feature is the wire - straight from one end to the other. You might try that to both save some effort, and some money.

Yep, we've been catching musky on large Ned rigs here in the WI Northwoods for a bit now.

I have a jig to use a planer as a jointer. Basically it's a long piece of MDF that you put a non-flat board on and use shims under the high spots, then a couple dabs of hot glue to hold the works in place. One or two passes through the planer and you're all fixed up, then pop it loose and run the other side through as normal. As much as I'd love both a jointer and a planer, I cannot justify the cost, nor the floor space. Rightly or wrongly, planer was what I chose at the time, so I've learned to make it do what I need.

Removing the wobble depends on the quality of the saw in the first place. Since I'm sick and tired of spending money on tooling (even though now it feels good to finally have them all - I think), the first thing I did was research how to take the wobble out of a saw. MAN, am I glad I didn't go to all that work when the thing died the next day! LOL Anyhow..... There are some videos out there if you google. It basically amounts to lots of work with a dial indicator to determine the source of said wobble. If the arbor is slightly out of round, that can be polished/honed true. If it's one of the blade washers that not perfectly flat, the same can be done there. It can also be that the blade itself has a wobble in it, and may just need replacing. In any event, after realizing the amount of time that it would take, as well as investing in stones and tooling to hold them at precise angles and all that - and STILL running the risk of screwing it up since I'm not a machinist, I instead opted to purchase the miter saw. A friend uses them to cut his lip slots, with great success. It has worked very, very well for me also. Now, on the other hand, if I had some nice, big, expensive cabinet saw, I likely would have gotten out the proverbial phone book and found someone that would make a house call to true up the saw. But when I looked up the model of saw I had (remember, I bought it for $50), and saw online that the current generation of it was $148 brand new, I quickly deduced the build quality was not of such caliber as to really be as precise as I needed it to be anyway. I'm not familiar with Radial Arm Saws, but my understanding is they are somewhat similar to the sliding miter saw that I purchased. My only advice there is if buying used, take some material and try to make the cuts you're going to need to make to check to see if the machine is capable of doing so. Just like when buying a lathe, you want to turn something down with it or cut some threads prior to forking over the $.

A fair point, Dave. I suppose we all have our buttons. I figure it to be common courtesy that if someone takes the time to write something, someone who is replying should take the time to read it. You and I both know that had that conversation taken place in person, everyone at the table would have sat slack-jawed at that first response. "Did you even hear what he said?" This is nothing more than the digital equivalent.

Yeah... Turns out I did NOT have all the tools yet. The day after I bought that fancy chopsaw, the $50 table saw died. So I just bought a nice Bosch jobsite saw since there's no way I'm getting a cabinet saw into my basement. Just finished building a stand for it (The stand it comes with is on wheels), and plan to get it bolted up and set in place then get some bed. I have to redo the miter slots on the outfeed table, and move the tracks on the bottom of the crosscut sled. Also ordered a nice Freud 60T crosscut blade. Should have my first batch of baits off the new machines by Sunday night to take to the pool again. They will be thru-wire, and if they swim how I want, they are going up for sale right away. Nothing really left to tweak at this point. LOL

Perhaps you should try reading the entire post prior to replying.

Can't remember how much of this I've already shared, so a brief recap to where I am today: First, I tried to get my holes for hook hangers centered +/- .004" using a digital caliper. What a fiasco. Made a jig to mark the absolute center with a pencil, still couldn't freehand the drill press well enough, so then I made a jig to hold the blanks. Should have just done that in the first place. Wanted all the lures rounded over precisely, so I bought a router. Wanted all the lures shaped precisely, so I made a jig and bought a flush trim bit. Was worried about flat, parallel wood, so I bought an $800 planer. Wanted a more accurate sander than the 4" bench sander, so I bought a 1" belt sander. Last week when testing new lures with thicker lips, I noticed that my band saw was not up to the task of widening the lip slots. The blade had too much deflection, and the widening cuts were not perfectly perpendicular to the table. This resulted in crooked lip slots, which resulted in crooked lips, which resulted in baits that swim to one side. Of course I didn't notice any of this until the lures swam sideways in the pool. Ugh. So I ordered a pile of stuff online. Found a $200 saw blade with a .061" kerf. Thin as a dime! Also ordered some Kreg top track and stops. Built a crosscut sled with an amazing fence. It cuts perfect 90s every time. So then I made a jig to cut the lip slots using the fancy new blade. Turns out, the $50 used table saw I bought has too much wobble in it, so the lip slots were NOT .061" wide. In fact, since the wobble is more apparent the farther you are away from the center of the blade, the lip slots are somewhat triangular shaped, with the edge of the bait being the narrowest. No bueno. Glad I was testing with scrap. So yesterday evening I went and picked up a Dewalt dual bevel sliding miter saw. I just got done assembling everything and swapping the factory blade for the new fancy one I have. This was not an inexpensive way to go, but my pursuit for perfection (and just as important - efficiency) knows no bounds. Do I have all the tools yet?

Not sure that I've been much help, but if you'd like to include any of my (witty?) banter, please feel free to do so.

Not entirely sure, but I leave it sit at least 24 hours just to make sure the VoCs are all cured out. Due to my work schedule with my day job and other goings on in life, there's typically 18-20 hours between each step I perform during the week.

We'll see if I catch anything on it this season first. If I do, then you might be onto something. Either way, it doesn't matter. This bait wouldn't be for sale until next season at the earliest. I really need to sort out my 8" minnow bait and get some of those for sale prior to taking on another model. This was more just my impatience, and having some time (and materials) to kill. The practice with the thru-wire was nice, though.

Well, it was..... Interesting. It didn't really have much "wobble" to speak of, but what it DID do was pretty cool - it swung WAY out to one side, wobbled a little bit, then swung WAY out to the other side, wobbled a bit, and did that for a while, with seemingly no pattern. Every once in a while it would come back and run true. Kind of a weird, almost lifelike behavior, save for almost no wobble. I hung 7/0 hooks on it, and there's no way they could reach the end of the lip. I superglue sealed it, shot some paint on it quick, and then covered it in clearcoat so it would survive the chlorine. I think I'm going to epoxy it and fish with it some this year. I really like the odd "hunting" behavior it has. Definitely not an action I'd consider sale-worthy though. A local guy told me if I move the line tie down more, closer to the lip, I'd get a better wobble out of it. Maybe that will be V2. In other news tonight, I figured out that my band saw does not cut lip slots thicker than the blade in anything resembling a straight/perpendicular line. All three baits I took to the pool tonight to test lip slot depth - all three were crooked. Ugh. Ordered a $200 table saw blade to fix this problem. Also need to build a crosscut sled and a jig now. It never ends... Not looking like I'm going to make my goal of having lures for sale by March 1. I guess we'll see??

Just whipped this up quick in the shop. Sealed the lip slot with baking soda and superglue, which was surprisingly fast. I may just do that on the smaller baits. Sanding went MUCH better with a 320 belt, too.. Didn't accidentally eat anything. Anyhow.. 12" from nose to tail, not including lip. The lip on this one is Aluminum. If it makes it to production, the lip will be pinned. This one will just be superglued. Planning to superglue seal it and take it to the pool tonight. Any guesses as to depth or if it'll swim?

Yes, I posted about it some weeks/months back. It happened to me, also with a black. Specifically, Created Wicked Pearl Black. I sprayed many coats of it to get the deep, shimmering, pearl black look that I wanted. The end result was a surface that was so slick that the epoxy had difficulty adhering to it. A quick shot of rustoleum x2 clear coat on future uses of that color has eliminated the problem.

I'm not sure that I'm the right person to be giving advice on lure assembly seeing as many people on here seem to have figured out much more expedient ways of doing things, but... Lip is the last thing that gets installed in my lure before top coat. I drill a few holes in the lip with a #44 drill bit, then I scuff up the lip with some 120, and then paint some epoxy on, being sure to fill those holes. Jam it in the lip slot, make sure it's all nice and centered up, and then hang the lure by the line tie. The excess epoxy runs down the side of the lures, so I come back down an hour or two later and brush it out so there's not a big glob of a drip. Then when I do the topcoat, that little bit that was brushed out is covered by the top coat. I've gotten better at it now, so that perhaps only 1 or 2 out of 8 needs brushed out. Keep in mind that I'm using a non-standard lip material, so there are some other obstacles I've had to work around as well to get it all sorted.

A RAS or table saw wouldn't be able to do the lip slots in my baits. Blades are too large, and wouldn't be able to make the internal contours necessary to avoid the hazards of the way I'm producing my lures. That is to say, I may be overly complex, but for now, my convoluted method is getting it done. LOL I don't have a RAS yet, but I plan to get one. Not just for this work, but for home improvement projects as well.

That was my suspicion. Some type of solid, air-free substrate (gas proof, as you called it) that you are adhering the foil/tape/vinyl onto. Now we are back to epoxy basecoat, and installing lips prior to paint, which I just addressed in my thru-wire thread. Oh well. Perhaps something I can utilize on glide baits. At least I'm learning! @fishordie79 - let us know how you get on!

Ah, yes. I was using a 4" bench sander. You are correct, any type of "detail work" was challenging at best. However, the speed of the bench sander was much slower than the 1" belt sander, so 180 grit didn't EAT wood like the 1" belt sander does. I have some 240 and 320 grit belts now, but haven't had opportunity to try them out yet. I'm hoping that minimizes the damages caused by any "mistakes" since material won't be removed so fast. And yes, I've been using an x-acto knife to remove epoxy around hook hangers, and sanding the larger areas. Still working on sorting it out, but I suspect most of the issues will be solved with practice. Prior to any of that, though, I need to get that jig worked out for the slots. Been busy with work and other house stuff the past several days. Always a distraction, it seems... I'm not in TOO much of a hurry anyway, still waiting on some feedback re: the last round of prototypes sent to my testers. We'll see. re: epoxy base coat, I really see no value in that aside from providing that flat surface for paint. It greatly lengthens the time it takes to produce a bait since you have to wait for TWO layers of epoxy to fully cure( the base coat, then the top coat), and it doesn't do anything for the structural integrity of the bait that putting that same number of coats (base + top) on all as top coats would. Further, shifting all the coats to the top protects the paint that much better, and as we've all agreed - catching fishermen is just as important as catching fish, so protecting the appearance of the lure should be every bit as important. Lastly, the addition of an epoxy basecoat would be INCREDIBLY challenging without having the lip already set, and that is one part of my process I am as-yet unwilling to compromise on: My lips are paint-free, so they are added and set AFTER paint. If I had to include them due to an epoxy base coat, keeping them paint-free would be far more challenging (read: would add more time to the process, which I am trying to speed up, not lengthen).

Wow, that little finger sander is pricey! Pneumatic, too. I don't have any air tools, so I'd also need a compressor. *sigh* @Big Epp - cleaning up the wire slot? How do you mean?

Also following to see if there's a solution. I recently started messing with automotive vinyl, the color-shift stuff. Had this crazy idea that I could wrap a lure, then paint some bars and gills on, and epoxy it. After fighting for several hours to get that first one done, and try to figure the process out, I had heat shrunk, and done all manner of nonsense. Went upstairs to eat, came back down to the shop to find the vinyl was no longer flat. I suspect that it is pulling air out of the wood itself, but am not certain. If and when I make my next attempt, I may put down a layer of epoxy to seal the wood airtight and give me a completely flat, solid surface to adhere the vinyl to. That is, unless there are better ideas presented in this thread?

That depends on the components you're using. https://www.sgrlaw.com/when-is-it-okay-to-label-my-product-as-made-in-usa/ The only components I'm unsure of are the epoxy and the raw G10 used to craft my lips. In any event, Liv - I know you're new here, so I'll forgive you for not getting up to speed by reading all the threads, but I already have everything done that you mention. This isn't my first rodeo.

I was wondering that as well. Many "production" lures have an attractive wobble on the fall.

At some point in the future I may do that, but with the quantity of this stuff that is in a 15 oz can, I should be good for a bit.