Crappie Tube Tail Cutter

[swedes67]

Looking for a tool that will cut crappie tube tails. Any ideas would be great!!

[Frank]

Lure craft sell one. I made one out of single edged razor blades. Here is how.

Get about 7or8 blades.

Take the covers off of them but dont throw them away(the covers I mean)

Now slack the blades like this , Blade and a single wrapper, repeat till you have a stack.

Then carefully pick them up and wrap the handles with masking tape very tight keeping all the blades even.

That is it, just use it with something that has a little give on the bottom. Just remember you will have to press very hard to cut through all tha layers.

One other thing you can adjust the space between the blades with more or less of the papers that cover them. Hope this is what you were after. Frank

[mark poulson]

Frank,

Does anyone make a mold for a tube with a flared skirt?

[JSC]

Send Bojon a PM for complete info on a couple of "Tail Cutters" for tubes and any other infor you need to know about them.

Also pull a search on Bojon Posts and you will find a wealth of information on tubes.

Hope that helps a little

JSC

Edited September 15, 2010 by JSC

[Frank]

Frank,

Does anyone make a mold for a tube with a flared skirt?

Not sure what you mean by flared maybe a pic. Frank

[mark poulson]

I was thinking of how the Ika skirts flare out.

[bojon]

Looking for a tool that will cut crappie tube tails. Any ideas would be great!!

There are several ways to cut the tails.Sorta depends on how many you plan to cut during the course of the day.I use two types,A box and rubber mallet type,or a rotary blade cutter.Both do the same job and depends on what your needs are.The rotary is by far more costly.Both are not overly costly if you assemble them yourself.

Bojon

[swedes67]

thanks for the info

[TAE73]

Here is mine made with round cutting wheels from Hobby Lobby and 3" paint roller handle.

[Bass-Boys]

73,

very nice !!

[Bass-Boys]

Yes, Ikas have a fused type skirt..

but if the tube mold bottom half where the skirt is was bigger around than the body,,

it mite flare out?

Hmmm..

[mark poulson]

One of the bait mold manufacturers has a mandrel that does that for a tube. If I recall the mandrel is also grooved for the tentacles. Its a one shot injection with no cutting necessary. Bears maybe. Its not crappie size. Its a larger tube. Bears maybe?

Yep here it is. Maybe he makes a crappie size one?

Bob,

I'm no machinist, just a carpenter, but it seems to me, with the CAD design-driven milling machines out there, a shouldered mandrel and matching cavity should be do-able.

Then, again, I think I can fish, too.

[mark poulson]

The CAD really isn't the problem. The problem is getting round machine surfaces that match well enough not to flash between the cavities. The mandrel is the easy part. If you do it on a fair quality lathe it will be pretty nearly perfectly round. Its machining that matching cavity. You can do it on a 4 axis machine if the 4th axis is "lathe like" in its orientation to the spindle of the mill. I'm working on a homebrewed version of that right now.

A few thousands of backlash or variation is no big deal for a lot of molds, but for this fitted mandrel design it can be tricky. Obviously Bear's is very good at what they do.

I guess that's why the expression arose, "Easier said than done".

[SHK]

One of the bait mold manufacturers has a mandrel that does that for a tube. If I recall the mandrel is also grooved for the tentacles. Its a one shot injection with no cutting necessary. Bears maybe. Its not crappie size. Its a larger tube. Bears maybe?

Yep here it is. Maybe he makes a crappie size one?

He has a 1.75 inch tube mold. Looks like the same design, but the mandrel is not shown in the picture. I would contact him to make sure its the same setup before buying it.

The 1.75" tube mold you see is the body, you can re -configure them with different bodies and tails. you can use the body of the 3.5" and the tails of the 4" to make a 3.75" tube if you wish

[Delw]

Bob,

I'm no machinist, just a carpenter, but it seems to me, with the CAD design-driven milling machines out there, a shouldered mandrel and matching cavity should be do-able.

Then, again, I think I can fish, too.

Its a pretty simple Deal to make, you just use a revolve option in your cad-cam system and it will create the proper radius, or you could write it by hand in just a few lines and loop the program for xxx amount of lines making the length.

The CAD really isn't the problem. The problem is getting round machine surfaces that match well enough not to flash between the cavities. The mandrel is the easy part. If you do it on a fair quality lathe it will be pretty nearly perfectly round. Its machining that matching cavity. You can do it on a 4 axis machine if the 4th axis is "lathe like" in its orientation to the spindle of the mill. I'm working on a homebrewed version of that right now.

A few thousands of backlash or variation is no big deal for a lot of molds, but for this fitted mandrel design it can be tricky. Obviously Bear's is very good at what they do.

Bob were do you come up with this stuff? pull up some You tube vids and see what a 4th axis is and how it works.

Any milling machine that is decent will do it. it can and WILL make a perfect circle with in a few .0001 yes three zeros and a 1 aka tenths roundness.

A 4th axis has NOTHING to do with it nor can it even DO it any better, on a mill it only takes 3 axis's to produce a "perfect" round cavity.

if you think a 4th axis is like a lathe thats not entirly true, a 4th axis will basically hold parts in a horizontial plane LIKE a Lathe.

Most 4th axis's are indexers and not full 4ths meaning its for indexing only, a full 4th axis requires a driver and the proper software in the machine to make it a full 4th. then on top of that you need 4th axis software and a 4th axis code generator. not to be confused with 4th axis indexing.

besides that a mold is generally 2 halfs meaning your only cutting one half of a circle so a 3 axis is perfect. 4th axis in the case( the way you explained it) would spin completely around 360 and cut the other side of the mold.

if your talking about just rocking a 4th axis 180º with a ball endmill in the spindle it would be a oomplete waste of time and money not to mention your set-up would be a pain in the butt. and with backlash at a "few thousanths" you would get a worse finish and roundness out of the part then you would if you did it on 3 axis's.

matter of fact you can cut a perfect circle for mold on a hand lathe using the a ball endmill and only sinking it in half the diameter. ie if you wanted a 1/2 tube you would sink a 1/2" ball endmill .250 deep into the part and you would get a near perfect 1/2" circle when the 2 molds are closed. perfect enough for a mandrell with some cuts outs for skirt legs would set in there and not get any bleed over or flashing. this is how the made tube molds way back when before they had cnc'c and cad-cam, systems. the cavity would be as good as the endmill is round.

remember on a part like above your theroretically using 2 axis and the 3rd axis is just position to the next line to start another ARC.. ie your using your "Z" and your "Y" axis to interpulate the 180º circle or ARC, then you step over the "X" axis depending on the finish you want, and you wouldnt need a cad-cam system to do it either it could be in a sub rountine and just defining a g18 arc then looped x amount of times

Having said that you can and I have done it and seen a 4th axis rotary table used as a lathe, however you wont get any speed, maybe 100rpms tops , then you have to mount a boring bar in a collet and lock your mill spindle down. this is not good to be doing on a cat 40 taper or anything less as it puts a tremendious amount of side pressure on the bearings.

we did it on an acroloc with a 5 3/4" spindle( close to a cat 50) on inconel and it was only taking off .005 with a ceratip insert to give use a specially round part dimensioned to a protrusion out of the round part, that was mainly a mill job but requiered a roundnes at the very front edge.

Back to the 4th axis stuff.

There isnt to many molds that require a 4th axis especially for baits, I would say 99.99% of all the baits I have seen only need a 3 axis machine. the ONLY thing a 4th axis will do for a mold it make it do production faster. and save a set-up or 2. but a indexer will work just as well.

I have a full 4th axis on one of my machines it was a 2k option plus a 9k rotary table, I have full 5th axis drives on the same machine but elected not to get the table cause it was running about 33k, it kick ass and its nice, However in the 1.5 years I owned the machine and literlly running thousands of parts I have only used it 3 times on the full 4th axis and about 4-5 times for indexing hole patterns,.

Delw

[mark poulson]

Dang!

Pictures would sure help.

I live by two axioms I learned as an apprentice:

"If it don't work, get a bigger hammer", and "If it can't be done with a skilsaw, it can't be done".

[Vodkaman]

Dang!

Pictures would sure help.

I live by two axioms I learned as an apprentice:

"If it don't work, get a bigger hammer", and "If it can't be done with a skilsaw, it can't be done".

A CNC skilsaw with a fourth axis hammer control, now there's an idea. We are not going to convert you Mark, are we.

Is this what is technically called "a hijack"?

Dave