nedyarb Posted June 4, 2014 Report Share Posted June 4, 2014 Great video....and nice lures! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffond Posted June 6, 2014 Report Share Posted June 6, 2014 pretty neat seeing the whole process Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sac neal Posted March 1, 2021 Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 what is the cost for your molds i can send you a photo to start thanks sac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodkaman Posted March 1, 2021 Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 I must have missed this video, first time I have seen it. The video highlights a few problems for the CAD designer in that you have to be aware of the milling process and the tool radii required. You can start with a very pretty CAD model, but after the machining process you end up with an unrecognizable mush. It would be a lot more interesting to see a video of the complete CAD design process that people use with the different CAD systems. Dave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark poulson Posted March 1, 2021 Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 3 hours ago, sac neal said: what is the cost for your molds i can send you a photo to start thanks sac sac neal, that thread/video is from 2014, so the maker may not be around anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodkaman Posted March 1, 2021 Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 Such poor quality, certainly not around, or infinitely better now Dave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish pirate Posted March 1, 2021 Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 What primer do you use for foam? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bogdan_alex Posted March 2, 2021 Report Share Posted March 2, 2021 Great lures. I also had some experiences with cnc molding but didn't go as far as aluminum. ( that's maybe why the lures got stuck into the mold regularly although I used release agent ) The Urethane foams are regularly setting pretty quick. What kind do you use to have time to fill all the cavities and close the mold in time? I've played with Altropol Neukadur PU RF 150 but the results where half rewarding and didn't managed to do more than 2 cavities at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 On 3/1/2021 at 11:41 AM, Vodkaman said: I must have missed this video, first time I have seen it. The video highlights a few problems for the CAD designer in that you have to be aware of the milling process and the tool radii required. You can start with a very pretty CAD model, but after the machining process you end up with an unrecognizable mush. It would be a lot more interesting to see a video of the complete CAD design process that people use with the different CAD systems. Dave I am in the trial and error stages of digital crankbait making. This may be my first post on here, but your contributions to this site have provided answers to most of the questions I’ve had preventing the need to ask a bunch of questions. As far as I can tell, no one has documented the end to end process of building a lure with a CNC machine. I picked up a micro mill CNC off Craigslist last fall that was built in the late 90’s for very little cost. Using information from the internet, I have been able to get the machine, a cnc’d sherline mill operational on modern software. It’s stunningly precise in its movements for something like this I plan to make the attached crankbait on the attached CNC micro mill from the attached photo of the CAD design. I almost had the 1/8 inch thick aluminum lip cut last night but The depth of cut and feed rate was too aggressive and the bit started chattering and messed it up. The OP was running a very powerful, very rigid higher end CNC in my opinion. Probably a machine costing 10k+. if you’re truly interested, I’ll document the process and post on YouTube. This is going to be hard maple hollowed such that it floats with center of gravity in lower front third of the lure. The ‘software stack’ I have chosen is Fusion 360 for CAD, vCarve Desktop for 2d CAD/CAM and CAM of 3d profiles designed in Fusion 360 and Mach3 for machine control. I see the following benefits to building lures digitally: 1) Ability to control where the center of gravity is without trial and error. 2) Ability to make exact fit airbrush templates on 3d printer 3) Consistency. Once I have the basics down, I’ll be able to replicate the design and develop trolling depth charts for the lure (I’m a troller) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodkaman Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 (edited) DGFidler - good project. The CAD model of the flat sided body is as simple and uncomplicated as it gets. I only see one issue with the design and that is the eye socket. If you intend to use a ball-end cutter or a cutter with a radius then this result is not possible. Secondly, be careful regarding the calculation of the COG using the CAD software. The COG only takes into account the downward forces of the body material, the ballast, hooks, lip and other hardware. The buoyancy forces are not considered, and for a lure that actually floats, the center of buoyancy (COB), the sum of the upward forces is actually greater than the COG which is the sum of the downward forces. The COF or Center Of Forces will be about half way between the COG and COB. This is a complex idea that is going to hurt a lot of heads and burst some balloons regarding understanding COG. This detail will likely not be important to your bait, but when the lure is static in the water, the center of forces, the sum of the upward AND downward forces is not the same as the COG. The problem arises if the two forces are too close together, again most unlikely otherwise this would have been discussed before. The beauty of knowing the COG and the COB is that you can then accurately predict the float angle, the attitude that the lure sits in the water, be it nose up, nose down or level. It is then possible to alter the position of the hooks and ballast at the CAD design stage to control the float angle. I will write in more detail about this one day and try to make it clearer. But, the information is only of advantage to CAD designers, manual designers will have to use the 'suck it and see' method. Dave Edited March 3, 2021 by Vodkaman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 The software I use to generate the tool paths allow you to pick a ‘vector’, in this case the circle defining the eye socket, and choose the tool. I’ll use a flat bottomed end mill. The whole thing is much more manual than I thought it’d be when I first started reading about it. I expected the software to allow me to tell it what tools are available and it’d figure out the optimal way to mill it. Maybe that’s the next generation of CAM. The reality is you have to decide what tools to use and the software will generate tool paths to remove the most material given your choice. My educational background was computer science which included basic physics classes. Much of that coursework revolved around ‘mass’, however the effect of the air (or in this case water and air) were mostly ignored. Maybe some limited study of coefficient of friction and the fact that friction on a moving object through the air is exponential, etc. Anyway, the concept of buoyancy was not covered and I completely overlooked it. I’d guess it’s related to the material’s relative density as compared to water. It does kind of ‘bust my bubble’ that COG is not the end all measure. I’m sure there is some software that would incorporate this concept, but certainly not for free! In software development, when you start working with a new language, the first project is customarily a simple process to output the words ‘hello world’ on the screen, printed page, in the file, or whatever the output medium is. This is my ‘hello world’ project. It starts at the level I had moderate success in my own lure making. Once I started trying to do more complex shapes, my lack of carving skills and left hand/right hand bias created lures that were asymmetric; they float at odd angles, dive to the right, dive to the left. Once I have worked out the workflow and build process in this simple design, I intend to make crankbaits that I actually fish with. One of the main ‘problems’ I hope to solve is during the summer, we take off the shelf floating deep diving crankbaits and troll them behind 300 feet of monel wire to get them to run at 50 feet down. I hate the wire. My kids backlash the reels, it kinks; in general it takes the fun out of our fishing, but it’s highly effective so we do it. Some people believe the wire gives a unique vertical presentation, but I hope to design and build a box of crankbaits that dive to 50 feet with 10lb mono line with 300 feet or less of line out. My first experiments will be to determine whether it’s possible to build a ‘heavy’, non floating deep diver. Why do we need a floating lure if our intention is to fish it 50 down? I think we don’t, but that’s what they sell. This is what motivates me to build my own lures - to obtain something that’s not for sale. Even if it’s still trial and error, the machines will let me experiment with test lures having less variance. The worst type of variance is variance you’re not aware of; carving the left side less than the right because you’re right handed for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodkaman Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 You have made a solid start. Plainly, you understand the eye socket issue, and you will be applying these cutter thoughts to your future designs. As for the 2nd part, the buoyancy thing, I can see your line of thought because I went down that line myself, but wrong. The upward buoyancy forces are all about Archimedes, volume displacement of water. The total external volume of the lure generates an upward force of 1 gram for every cm³ of volume. The CAD COG of this uniform density volume will give you the COB. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robalo01 Posted March 14, 2021 Report Share Posted March 14, 2021 On 8/20/2013 at 1:45 PM, ArdentAngler said: Very nice, I asked a machine shop who specializes in making lure molds....they told me $2000-$6000 for a two piece lure mold! Guess it takes many hours to draw up a lure on the computer that's what drives the price. I bet print-a-lure (facebook) could do that for you for a fraction. He does custom soft-plastic moldes for a coupld hundred $ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted February 25, 2023 Report Share Posted February 25, 2023 I have had some success with my CNC lure making. I ultimately found the little Sherline based CNC mill had too small of a work envelope. Then I went down a rabbit hole. I decided I needed CNC Router and wanted a 2 x 3 ft XY range so I could use it for woodworking also. To keep costs down, I built my own from a kit called Gatton CNC. Here’s the machine I built. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted February 25, 2023 Report Share Posted February 25, 2023 The key to making lures on your hobby CNC machine lies in precise and repeatable work holding. I started having success once I drilled some alignment dowels into my spoilboard that are used to align a fixture plate that I screw the stock down on. The screws holding the stock are aligned on the Y axis and it’s extremely important these are perfectly aligned with the axis or the two pieces don’t align once the milling is complete. This seven inch lure is going to be a cold water walleye crankbait. I am going through a trial and error process to balance it and get it very slightly under suspending weight. I want to be able to stop reeling and have the lure just sit there level. I will inject a small amount of epoxy into one of the upper cavities and then let that epoxy heal or plug the hole. That’s my plan at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted February 25, 2023 Report Share Posted February 25, 2023 I’m doing some interesting stuff with the lip where it gets locked in when you glue the two halves together. I think it’s cool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dgfidler Posted February 25, 2023 Report Share Posted February 25, 2023 While I’m no hard bait expert, I have mastered the technical details of going from a CAD design in Fusion 360 to CAM Toolpaths and can produce a lure I can experiment with. I think the repeatable nature of this will allow me to ‘fiddle’ with this design until it performs exactly like I want. It takes 22 minutes of machine time to produce the lure I posted. Is anyone here interested in me starting a YouTube channel where I document this process and future projects? Here are the lures I have planned: Small 3-5 -4 inch Muskie crankbait 5 inch Shad Muskie bait with aluminum lip that’s balanced for that lip crappie crankbait set like bandit 100/200/300 but my own design Shad Rap 5 &7 like but my own design Perfectly Balanced Muskie Glide Bait perfectly balanced jointed swim bait (I realized how a CNC built bait can be perfectly balanced/tuned with resin injection when Nate Marling cut a Roman Mother on two on a YouTube video he pondered why it had internal pockets with resin) a big deep diving crankbait that can be trolled 10-20mph to use for wahoo Is there interest in seeing this on YouTube? It took me two years of my spare time to figure this out. Now it seems simple to me, but there’s really very little information out there. The best info I found focused on electric guitar body building on the CNC. A simple fishing lure might be more complex than the woodwork for an electric guitar I might argue 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
