Spinnerbait Blade Will Not Turn

[timturr]

Hey guys,

I need help. The blade on the arm of my spinnerbait will not turn. Not even if I jerk the line hard to get it started and burn it back. The spinnerbait in question is a 1/4 ounce ultra minnow on .035 wire. The blade on the arm is a #3.5 willow. The blade on the swivel is a #4 willow. Both blades are Lakeland premium finish nickel. The bearing is from Worth Co. and spins freely. The beads used for spacing are solid brass, nickel plated from Worth Co. The clevis is from Worth Co. and it spins free on the shaft out of the water. I have done everything that I know to do. I cannot figure out what the problem is. I have included a couple of pictures and can take more if that would help diagnose the problem.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tim

[dannyp]

Hey guys,

I need help. The blade on the arm of my spinnerbait will not turn. Not even if I jerk the line hard to get it started and burn it back. The spinnerbait in question is a 1/4 ounce ultra minnow on .035 wire. The blade on the arm is a #3.5 willow. The blade on the swivel is a #4 willow. Both blades are Lakeland premium finish nickel. The bearing is from Worth Co. and spins freely. The beads used for spacing are solid brass, nickel plated from Worth Co. The clevis is from Worth Co. and it spins free on the shaft out of the water. I have done everything that I know to do. I cannot figure out what the problem is. I have included a couple of pictures and can take more if that would help diagnose the problem.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tim

You do have the front/arm blade, cup, towards the shaft arm correct? Hard for me to tell from the pic. Nice looking bait otherwise. I will say I have read 3.5 are hard to turn if slowrolling and are best suited for medium to fast retireves.

[basshunter5]

I think that is the problem Ive done it myself a few times you have to flip that blade the other way on the clevice I can almost garentee that is your problem.

[Ric670]

flip the smaller blade.....real nice bait though.

[timturr]

Thanks guys for the compliments and suggestions. The blade is turned with the concave side toward the wire arm. Could it be that the 3.5 is too small and will not rotate around the shaft?

Any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tim

[smalljaw]

Those size blades are perfect for a 1/4oz bait but I think I know what you problem is. If the blade is on right the problem lies with the frame, did you make the wire form yourself or did you get them pre-bent? The reason I'm asking is if you look in the gallery, I have a pic of a 1/4oz spinnerbait in there that is purpledecent in color, it has the same size blades and the same wire diameter but look how far the wire is in front of the head and where the blades fall, .035 is a good diameter but a small framed bait with small blades needs to flex in order to make the bottom blade rotate around the shaft so what is happening to your bait is when the bait is moving the water passing by the bottom blade is getting displaced by the head because it is so close to the blade, so now the water is getting enough force to make the blade rotate, it sounds stupid but it is what I believe is happening. If you make the blade arm another 1/2" longer and remove one of your spacer beads it should fix it or make the wire form a tad longer so the wire is further from the head, that should work too. I almost forgot to ask about the clevis size, I use a #3, a #2 will work on .035 but you're better off with the bigger one and a size 4 will be too big for that size blade. If you want that bait that is already made to work, grab the wire and bend it slightly right were the wire goes into the head, bend it up maybe 1/2" and take a spacer bead off and try that, it may help.

[Vodkaman]

This exact subject was discussed just over a year ago: http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/16547-blades-not-spinning-frustration/page__p__125553__hl__blade__fromsearch__1#entry125553

Worth reading.

Dave

[TTDuckman]

I agree with Smalljaw 100%. Assuming the blade is on correctly, it is a spacing issue. All the spinnerbaits I make are compact framed baits. The shaft blade has to be closer to the end loop on a small framed bait.

Tim

[Musky Glenn]

The front blade should spin even if it overlaps the back blade. I don't believe there is a void of water between the head and the front blade. I have cured this problem a few times by making sure the legs of the clevis are paralle to each other. If you look at the photo on the right you can see they are splayed open. You can get them to spin in air, but they won't in water, they spin at different angles, which puts pressure differently on the shaft. This is a great web site, I really enjoy the information shared. Musky Glenn

[timturr]

Thanks guys for all of the suggestions.

All of you make good points and with all of your suggestions, I think we have solved the problem. This is what I did. I changed the clevis from a #2 to a #3. I made sure that the clevis was good and square. I removed one spacer bead leaving three 5/32 solid brass beads. I bent the frame making the bait more compact to change the angle the blades run in the water. The blades do spin now but it is still not a slow moving bait. It will still take a moderate retrieve to keep the blade spinning.

I went back and read the previous posts as suggested. What I took from the old posts and this one is that there are many different opinions about what works. I don't know which suggestion fixed my problem because I implemented all of them at once. This could be an experiment for the future.

I want to thank all of you that responded and helped me. This is what makes this site the best tackle builder site out there. I am sorry that I don't have a picture to post showing all the changes.

Thanks again,

Tim