Swim Bait Hing Idea

[ROWINGADUBAY]

Right before falling asleep last night I had a great Idea for a swim bait hinge. If you took a medium sized double crimp used for making leaders and used that for a "buckle" with a piece of wire going in and out of each side and back in the body of the bait it would keep everything straight and would be very strong

Hope I could help

George

[mark poulson]

George,

That's an interesting idea. I think Diemai played around with something like that a while back.

I have done some experimenting, and found that having the pivot point of the hinge in the back of each section, as opposed to the space between the two, or the front of each section, enhances the swimming action.

If you look at the Spro BBZ swimbaits, you'll see that, even with the 4" BBZ shad, which has reverse faces on the joints, the pivot is still in the back of each section.

Bill Siemantel, who designed the BBZ swimbaits, played around for a couple of years with all different hinging systems and joint shapes, and what he came up with really works.

[mark poulson]

George,

That's an interesting idea. I think Diemai played around with something like that a while back.

I have done some experimenting, and found that having the pivot point of the hinge in the back of each section, as opposed to the space between the two, or the front of each section, enhances the swimming action.

If you look at the Spro BBZ swimbaits, you'll see that, even with the 4" BBZ shad, which has reverse faces on the joints, the pivot is still in the back of each section.

Bill Siemantel, who designed the BBZ swimbaits, played around for a couple of years with all different hinging systems and joint shapes, and what he came up with really works.

Correction. The pivot point in the front of each section works the best. I had it ass backwards in my above reply.

In my case, I screw sst screw eyes into the rear of each section, and use a bicycle spoke pin in the front of each section for my hinges.

For really small baits, which only have a hook hanger in the first section, I use very small cotter pins and spinnerbait wire for the hinges, since there is no strain on the hinge other than the swimming motion.

[RayburnGuy]

Never built a swim bait so this is more of a question than an idea, but has anyone ever tried building the hinges out of fiberglass? Not sure if it would be strong enough or stand up to the wear, but seems like it would be easy enough to fold a layer or two of fiberglass cloth over a hinge pin and then apply the resin. It could be sandwiched between two sheets of wax paper and clamped into position until the resin had cured. The hinge pin could then be removed and the separate parts of the hinge could be cut out of the same piece of cured fiberglass. There might even be a more suitable cloth and resin to do this with that would be more wear resistant than fiberglass. Just a thought.

Ben

[RayburnGuy]

Update to my above post. Dave (Vodkaman) informed me that fiberglass resin is not 100% waterproof and that he thought an epoxy could be used in it's place to make the hinges I was talking about.

[diemai]

@ mark poulson

It wasn't me , Mark , ........it was one of our Romanian members !

If I remember correctly , he had made an oval wire coil and reinforced it with solder , to act as what paintsniffer named a "buckle" .

This part would be the connecting piece between two lure sections held by two wire frames epoxied into either opposing end of the sections .

I have been making experiments on homemade hinges of stainless steel sheet and also a wire coil epoxied into one sections end acting as the pivot point of the joint !

@ paintsniffer

But nevertheless a great idea about using a double sleeve for sucha hinge construction , ....thanks for sharing !

greetz , diemai

[mark poulson]

A note about hinging systems.

One of the most important feature of a swimbait hinge, at least for me, is the ability to adjust it after assembly, to fine tune the swimming action.

Sst screw eyes with removable sst hinge pins are the only system I've found that lets me do that.

It's amazing how one complete revolution, either in or out, can affect the swimming action of a lure.

I'm sure jigs can be to allow the installation of hinge components that are fixed at the optimum gap for swimming, but I'm lazy, and the screw eye/hinge pin system is so easy, it's hard for me to stray from it.

Using PVC, which is completely waterproof, for my lure bodies lets me have the freedom to do this easily.