Crankie221 Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Got 5 pike in 1 hour Biggest only about 8lb and the bait i made with Devcon is looking fiarly hammered teeth marks and hook rash.whats the best topcoat for these toothy critters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodieb8 Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Crankie. this depends upon the basis, wood or plastic lure?. for toothy critters here in canada we use epoxys such as circa nu lustre 55, or envirotex.. fishing muskellinge here baits do get shredded.. be happy your getting action lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 I used to use epoxy, but only used the D2T for coating the insides of my swimbait joint, before I assembled them and coated the exterior faces with either Etex or NuLustre 55. That was when I was building my swimbaits from wood. Switch to PVC decking for building, and your baits will last until a big one takes it away from you. It is both hard and waterproof, so the top coat is just to protect the paint job. When I build swimbaits for the salt, where our SoCal toothy critters roam, I use an exterior urethane over the PVC lures, and they hold up fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crankie221 Posted March 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Thanks for the comments im using balsa and the reason i ask is that eventually i would hope to sell lures and if the pike do that much damage so quickly i dont think it would go down to well with buyers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Man, you picked a tough material to build from for sale. When I built from wood, I used poplar and still had headaches from failed baits due to water intrusion, no matter how well I sealed the wood before painting. Jointed baits have too many places for water to get in and swell the wood, causing paint and top coat failure. I do still have some old wooden one piece walking baits that I painted with rattle can paints, and they are still usable, so maybe yours will be okay. Just seal the heck out of them before you paint them. I switched to AZEK PVC decking, and then their trimboard, because I didn't want any warranty issues with the lures I sold. I stood behind the lures, but told people the paint would get scratched, hopefully by lots of big fishes teeth. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeking 56 Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 I like the way you say it was only a 8lb LoL! If you anticipate catching larger pike you're going to have to consider another type of wood. A big pike, like the muskies we have up here will crush balsa regardless of what kind of topcoat you use. Consider this, balsa has a hardness rating of 100 lb-f vs cedar that has 900 lb-f. s54 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayburnGuy Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 If the main reason your building your bait out of balsa is for it's high degree of buoyancy you might consider trying some built out of paulownia. It's almost as buoyant as balsa, but is much tougher. Or you can do like Mark suggested and build them out of PVC trim board. I'm told the trim board has about the same buoyancy as balsa. I have just started using the PVC (thanks Mark) and so far I love it. There are different types of the PVC for different applications. The trim board is the lightest and the decking is heavier. You can choose which PVC to use based on what your building your lure to do. Shallow cranks and top waters can be built out of the trim board. Deep diving cranks can be built out of the heavier decking. One thing I learned real quick when starting out building baits is that you can run out of room to put everything (hook hangers, line tie, ballast, rattle's) real quick. Using a heavier product to build the body means you don't have to add as much ballast which saves room. Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crankie221 Posted March 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Thanks for the info on the musky s54 I guess the only reason i said it was only 8 lb is that i have had days when my son and i have caught upto 30 pike in a day on a brown trout 70ml countdown upto 18lb on this tiny lure made of balsa and at the end of the day it had a quite a few teeth marks / scuffs but these lures are not covered in a large amount of epoxy which i had hoped would hold up better Aestheticcaly. As for the balsa i do intend on making a mould of my carved lures and using a more suitable material as a base but at the moment i have no idea what Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crankie221 Posted March 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Hello ben good comment this may be a stupid question but is it possible to melt the trim board and pour into a mould Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayburnGuy Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 I don't think that would be possible Crankie. I'm no chemist so I can't be 100% positive, but I think that by the time you got PVC hot enough to turn it into a pourable liquid it would probably catch fire. And you definitely wouldn't want to be breathing the fumes from melted PVC anyway. There are some really nasty chemicals in it. There are resins and foams that are specifically designed for making molded lures. Alumilite is one that comes to mind and it seems to be fairly popular among lure builders. Check out the Larry Dahlberg videos on YouTube. He's affiliated with Alumilite now and has several videos showing how to use their products to make molded lures. Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
