CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 I have played with chambers inside wood cranks, but this Japanese made wood lure takes another step... [/img] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 By the way, my name is Herman and even though I have dropped in and read here for over a year, just found time to contribute. Another way to add somewhat of a moving balancer to your cranks is to drill your belly weight hole at a 45 degree angle or so toward the nose of the bait about an inch or more deep depending on size of lure ofcourse... then go get some bearings, Walmart sells wristrocket slingshot ammo, these work great. pick up two sizes, one slightly smaller than the largest which will be the size you drill the hole. insert the smaller one into the chamber, then press the larger in and epoxy over. I know you lose the belly hook attachment and will have to drill a seperare hole, but gain a really new action. As the crank dives the smaller bearing works it way forward, untill it forces the bait off balance, the lure violently jumps out of track, and forces bearing back to bottom causing a loud clack as they strike together, then returns to running normal, over and over throught the retrieve. The only way I can describe the action gained is to say the bait does an hiccup almost as if it has deflected off something, and we all know what that action can do for you while it is cranked near fish. This weighting method works best on 2 to 3 inch medium to deep diving cranks. Especially desired effects in flatsided cranks with coffin type bills. Though most everything I do is in Western red cedar, I am sure other you could gain these effects with any materials. Key word is experiment, but carefully measure all vairables and document so that when you hit just the balance spot to drill and depth and angle, you can go back and reproduce same desired actions in future cranks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 CC..First let me welcome you to the board.I'm glad you decided to post.Those are some beautiful baits you have pictured.Those wrist rocket bearings work great.I've used them in channels on the inside of my baits to aid in casting long baits...the channel allows the bearing to shift front/back like you described. I see you live in northern Cal....I grew up in Modesto,Ca....Nathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 hmm.. no comments on above balancers? anyone else playing with the internal mechanics of weighting ? Just curious, seems that in my passion to design crankbaits, I have become more obsessed with the action and manipulating the mechanics rather than finish. I have hundreds of natural cedar clear coat lures and many are just white. And they still catch fish. My observation is action speaks louder than a pretty paint job. basic color tones catch fish when matched with than perfect action for given water clarity and temp. For those who have played with all else, try this! now I havent perfected this yet, and am just going to throw the basics at you, PLEASE if you try this let me know your results and input. This one is very important to take precise measurments and weight the components for later reference. In striving to come up with a perpetual motion type lure that actually has qualities of quivering at rest here is what I have toyed with. You will need some magnets, cylindrical refgerator magnets work well, keep in mind all have different strengths so you want a source you can duplicate. You will need .50 BRASS wire and brass bead with hole diameter larger so it slides freely on brass wire shaft. Now is where all the experimentation come in. you want to get magnets that fit into the belly hole you drill in your lure about an inch and a half deep into the cavity at 90 degrees to the centerline. then drill a small pilot hole at top of cavity to accept end of brass wire shaft. carefull drill very clean holes through both magnets. The bottom magnet will be fixed and glued in place at bottom of one end of the brass wire shaft, the second magnet is placed above in reverse polarity on the brass shaft, and a heavy brass bead is placed above that to cause the two magnets to struggle. The second magnet and brass bead must be able to slide freely inside the cavity drilled. This whole assembly is then slid into the belly cavity, making sure to guide the upper end of the shaft into the pilot hole drilled at top inside of cavity. Carefully glue bottom magnet in place at bottom of belly cavity opening making sure not to let any glue run inside or get on shaft. cut off excess brass shaft protruding thru magnet and epoxy over for smoooth finish. Hope everyone sorta followed that... Now like I said it is all up to you to find materials and experiment with how to put them together best, but when done right, you get an incredible action that has to be seen to be believed! Those who try this please contribute your findings. Enjoy, and good fishing! Herman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 You do very nice work yourself, Thanks for the welcome too! I grew up on the St Croix river in Minnesota, but have lived in Northern Cali in Clear Creek (near Mt Lassen Nat Park) for 20 years now As for the bearings, I too started using them to aid in casting distance, but found that in crankbaits they had better qualities when used for shifting balancers to change swim patern action in deep diving cranks. I have been working with crankbaits and designing prototypes since I was about 11 and damn.. that was nearly 30 years ago! I have worked with a few companies, mostly giving away my ideas for free... Thought you guys here might be more appreciative of some of my trials and errors... and believe me, I have learned much from you guys myelf from what I have read here in the past year, felt it was time to try and give back a little. I will be the first to admit I need to learn some more skills when it comes to finish and airbrush work, Its a true art in itself, and as I have said I have spent so much time on design and concepts, finish has been neglected some. Herman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
out2llunge Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Welcome Herman, You raise some VERY interesting and thought provoking concepts (no pun intended). I would be quite interested to learn more about the shifting balancers and particularly the multi magnet system. Maybe it's just me, but I was struggling a bit with the magnet scheme. I got lost about half way through. Could you maybe post a pic illustrating this system? In my head I've already got ideas swirling around about potential uses and baits. I make a variety of muskie baits (6 - 13") in cranks, jerks and gliders. I have to agree that "action" speaks louder than "colours or paint schemes", with the latter complimenting the former. I would like to add such features to my muskie size baits. Any quick tips for following your weight chamber for LARGER sized baits? Many thanks, o2l Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coley Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Although I haven't fooled around with moving weight, the blank looks very familiar to me. Wonder why??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 O2L, When I get a little time I will try and draw a diagram (this eve) of how the magnetic balancer works, again, its all in the hands of the person experimenting with it... I described vertical applications, it also has horizontal applications, and is at its best in larger scale lures like BIG jerkbaits, see my big crank below, it has both vertical and horizontal balancers, which at rest cause it to become unstable and want to push the center of gravity to exceed the lateral line of the bait, which means when you stop ripping it and deadstick it, it quivers, moves on its own.. Has taken two tropy pike over 25 lbs. Havent had the fortune to educate a musky with it yet. There are other things you can adapt to big lures because of the room inside to attain interesting results.. think about those funny little kids toys, like the tumble beads and jumping bean kinda things... Taking it to the next level is what it is all about. Coley, what are we looking at in that blank? what is encased in the black chamber above the center of bait? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coley Posted February 13, 2004 Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 That is a rattle thats normally used on spinnerbaits. Modified to fit inside my bait. Coley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2004 Coley, little did you know, you have fooled with moving balancers in a sense. With where you locate the rattle so high in the baits center of gravity, in essence your rattle sliding back and fourth in the chamber is is giving it the exact characteristics of a moving balancer. There are many ways to attain subtle balance shift internally , and they are all directly related to the baits center of gravity, and influence of of lip to cause a shift against its gravity, thus briefly running out of "true" before shifting again to correct itself. Think earlier posts refered to this action in a sense as "hunting" and it is a attribute you can program into a lure by using moving balancers. Simple shifting or rolling balancers can be positioned vertically, horizontally or laterally in the plane of the lure, or as in the simple hole drilled at a 45 degree angle, covers 2 planes. How and where you locate your blancers and what weight and distance of travel you use is all dependant on the attitude of the lure you are working with and where you have the fixed weight placed, how it sits at rest in the water and what forces your diving lip imparts on the bait. I am sure there are some great physics involved here, but for me, trial and error has yielded a basic understanding, but believe me, I am constantly learning and refining the systems myself. The magnetic balancer and the force the magnet energy pushing the weight (center of gravity) imparts on the lure adds another dimension to the whole system and I am just starting to explore its qualities and uses in my cranks. We all know that fish will strike a crank rythymically moving through the water column sometimes, but think about how much more your strike ratio goes up when your bait glances off of an object. Well, with moving balancers correctly placed in a crank you can get that effect programed in, like a cycle, it will as I said earlier "hiccup" a number of times throught the retrieve. My friend called it "bucking" cause he could feel some of my lures do that thru his rod even though we were in open water. There are some early plastic lures with big metal lips that unknowingly captured this essence, but over the years designers in effort to make every bait run perfectly true fixed the weights inside and essentially headed in the direction of a perfect, very programed swim patern. The Japanese, in effort to enhance casting distance have toyed with moving balance, and are now realizing it enhances much more than just casting. Look at the trend in cranks as of late and you will see the influence. Just another variable to toy with, and you thought you had your cranks almost perfected! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiverMan Posted February 14, 2004 Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 Hi Herman, Some interesting concepts and some great looking lures! That crayfish pattern you have is amazing! I have yet to try some of the ideas you are discussing but certainly agree with your promotion of "experimentation". I have tried without success to put math to baits and have found too much variance for certainty. Each time I test them it seems there is another surprise, part of the fun I guess. Looking forward to your participation in this board. Jed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 Jed, Thanks for the compliments, I agree with math as applied to the dynamics of the action of a crankbait in the water, sometimes the most I want to understand is a action taken by me is going to produce a reaction when pulled thru the water, Hopefully a positive one! Me and the puter arent getting along well tonite as the software I did the scetches on isnt loading the pics on this site. so... Please stand by... and for your viewing enjoyment, a little more show and tell on one of my crankbait designs. from cutting them out with jigsaw to shaping on a belt sander I can keep them under 5 minutes per body... Not too bad for a tapering rounded style blank. Most important part is scribing a center line around the top and bottom sides to be consistant on material removed, the rest is all done by eye and a fast eating sanding belt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiverMan Posted February 14, 2004 Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 Some more good-looking baits Herman. Thanks to others here showing me "the error of my ways" I can now put together a tapered rounded body in a short amount of time as well....probably 15 minutes or so per bait. I taper the bait bodies at the head and tail with the wheel sander and then use a file for all of the rounding. I have tried to do more of the work with the sander but usually end up taking too much off here or there......which at times also includes part of a finger. I find the body work to be by far the easiest and the most fun. It's the weighting and tow-point part I least enjoy as I have yet to come up with a consistent method of determing these factors. Jed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiverMan Posted February 14, 2004 Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 Some more good-looking baits Herman. Thanks to others here showing me "the error of my ways" I can now put together a tapered rounded body in a short amount of time as well....probably 15 minutes or so per bait. I taper the bait bodies at the head and tail with the wheel sander and then use a file for all of the rounding. I have tried to do more of the work with the sander but usually end up taking too much off here or there......which at times also includes part of a finger. I find the body work to be by far the easiest and the most fun. It's the weighting and tow-point part I least enjoy as I have yet to come up with a consistent method of determing these factors. Jed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatchingConcepts Posted February 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 I have picked up some great tips to apply from these guys at this board, it truly is the best resourse I have found... I use a high speed belt sander that uses 60 or 80 grit 1.5 or so inch belts. The floppy wheel sander is great for contouring and rounding the underside curve area. I just got a good laugh about fingers! by the time I am done with a bin of 50 or so blanks shaped out I usually have atleast three fingers taped up! I love all the steps involved in making cranks, but really do enjoy watching a concept take shape and actually become a working design. I do it in steps. First I chose a shape and size. Then work up about 20 blanks, all as exact as possible including being from the same piece of wood and having same density and characteristics. I fine sand the blanks and seal coat them all leaving the natural finish. then as they are drying, I decide on a lip style and cut them out of lexan sheets. After doing so many I can almost guess where the pull point should be, yet I make up 5 different groups of 4 varying the line tie position progressivly closer to the lure end of the lip. When the blanks are dry, I take them in groups of four and choose where to drill the weighting point and epoxy in the weight I chose. I then cut lip slots in all and apply the different lips to the corespondingly different blanks, numbering each one and keeping all in a notebook. At this point I just predrill small pilot holes and apply screw eyes and hooks of correct size. Later I usualy rather opt for a cleaner brass or SS wire hanger style rather than the screw eyes. Now its time to go out and throw them, make notes and keep throwing the ones that feel better in a seperate pile, rating them each time until I find the sweet ones, then I go back and duplicate them and retest sometimes combining attributes of the best two or three into one lure. I end up with piles of "not so good" ones, they all will catch fish, but to get it just right takes getting it wrong too... The numbered runs of blanks that didnt quite make it adorn my shop hanging by the hundreds... They work well to impress visitors, and remind me od all the hours of enjoyment I have spent on a particular design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiverMan Posted February 14, 2004 Report Share Posted February 14, 2004 I am essentially doing the same thing Herman only at a smaller scale than yourself. I have only been building cranks for maybe 3 months from wood, have made many others in the past year with molds and various foam-like products. I started out throwing the "misfit wooden plugs" into a small box in one part of a spare bedroom, that has since filled up and now there are plugs literally everywhere about my shop and house for that matter. Yesterday I watched our labrador walk past me with a wooden crank body in his mouth, lol. I could not have ever built a wooden crank if it were not for those folks at this board, that's a fact. It used to literally blow my mind that someone could shape something like a lure from wood, now it seems quite easy. I think your approach is the best we have at this point. Ultimately it would be great to have software that would allow us to predict and model the action of the bait prior to construction...wouldn't this be cool? This would of course take away some from the "nostalgia" we bait-makers have with our simple tools and approaches so maybe it's best the way it is. Also, those who put in the effort will be rewarded, software would make it easy, probably too easy. I am a bit surprised that most here seem to prefer the SS wire over the screw eyes. I have tried both and much prefer the screw eyes, they look cleaner to me and are so much more predictable and consistent. I may change my mind but right now that is what I have been using. The biggest problem I have now (besides the fact that I am a spaz) is finding a place to test baits. I have been using the bathtub which leaves much to be desired as most all of our ponds here are frozen and the rivers are high. Been thinking about a long tank of some kind that I could fit in the back yard, maybe swim a few laps after checking the baits, or perhaps a simulated current of some-kind in a fish tank. This would save me much time in determining proper plug design. So little time.... Jed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soupysayso Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 This is a very late response, almost a year later, but I am posting because this was exactly what I've posted on the old site...a perpetual motion type bait where magnets are used, fighting each other on a wire. I tried it on some of my baits but wasn't happy with the results. I'm guessing my magnets bound on the wire since reverse polarity doesn't guarantee that they will fight each other in exactly opposite directions. So I'll share my next bright idea! What if you made a hollow chamber, installed several small magnetic disks instead of shot? These disks would all fight each other, and after a cast, be in a different formation each time. My very first thought about a magnet was the possibility of playing with electrical charge. Being a former athlete, I used to receive "stim treatments" on sore muscles and injuries. I asked the trainer what the purpose was and he described that injuries have a certain electrical charge; this was in addition to the fact that 'stim' will generate muscle contraction and move the old blood. Point is, I figured an injured baitfish had a certain electrical charge. If you can figure out how to measure it, you should have a PH.D and you WILL be a very rich man! Having watched fish with an Aqua-vu a couple of times I realize they are curious of the camera. However, is it the light or is it the charge it puts off? Several downrigger fisherman swear by measuring the polarity of their boat. I'm fairly clueless about all of this, just some food for thought. If you've perfected your perpetual motion baits, I'd be interested in swapping more ideas with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Brush Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Soupy, Ya. It works. I have a working prototype. I created a webpage for it that I hadn't plugged into my website yet pending uhh..... a patent? guess I don't need one now. lol Here's how I did it. As you mentioned place the magnets in as a ballast in reverse polarity to put out a larger field of stimulas. http://www.artbrushlabs.com/lures/files/dynamag.htm Great minds think alike eh? Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soupysayso Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Shawn, love the page! I have been keeping that kind of work under my hat for a long time, figured it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to get a patent because it would eventually be thought of and patented by a big corp. Fishing tournaments all the time keeps me from tinkering enough to perfect my ideas. Winter comes and it's a mad scramble to work on last year's idea. You can mark it down, somebody will figure out how to measure the "energy" of a wounded baitfish. Rattletrap is already marketing their "liv-n-sound" concept. I have a ton of ideas about how to obtain a positive or negative charge in a bait, just no way to measure it with any reliability, and no data to compare against as far as baitfish are concerned. I knew I should have paid closer attention in physics class! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Brush Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Soupy, If they hadn't thought of it I'm sure they got it now. The big tackle makers should be here browsing if they aren't already. This is the industries greatest research and development team ever. Every aspect of what anglers want or need or are using can be found here. As far as measuring the signals of wounded fish?...well thats probably overkill. The rattle trap is supposed to mimic this thru sound vibration. When you crank a ratlle trap they are loud. The vibrations of the rattles are much greater than the signals created by muscle contractions yet they catch fish. The strikes on rattle traps are more of an agressive reaction strike though as I've also seen the lures spook fish away. My theory in the dynamag is that fish will be drawn to the signals of the magnetic waves. It is proven. I reseached for months about such techniques and found a study that used magnets in nets. The nets with magnets caught 70% to 90% more fish than nets without the magnets. The tests were conducted on several lakes in several locations and time after time the results were more than conclusive. Magnets are drawing fish to the nets. There have also been university studies where a group of muskies were blinded to test their lateral line locating powers. After a short period of swimming with white canes they were able to hit their targets 9 times outta 10. The lateral line helped them to determin locatation and the sensors on the jaw plates are the main drive for targeting. The only company I have found that is doing anything close to magnetic ballasts is YO-ZURI. But their design is for staighter casts and not a lateral stimulas. Using a dynamag ballast in a suspending jerkbait or glider will keep the stimulas in range for a better presentation. In combination with rattles and flash, I see it as a surefire lure that will outfish all others. I'll post pics of fish caught on my prototypes when they come in. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtrs5kprs Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Herman...very informative posts. Thanks for joining us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshfishingmi Posted February 25, 2021 Report Share Posted February 25, 2021 great information here even with it being so old Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
