Swimbait On Its Side.

[vikingbear8]

Hey guys I am having trouble getting my swimbaits to stand upright and not lay on their sides. My initial one floated and rolled on either side. After adding a good bit of weight to the belly it now sinks but still rolls on either side. The second one I made the top with microballoons to float but poured the bottom solid hoping that would help but it has the same problem. I attached a picture so you can see what kind of lure I am working with. Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks.

[RayburnGuy]

Mark? Where you at? This man needs some help with his swimbait.

[Travis]

I would say it has to deal with the design and most of the bait being above the line tie.  You have tried to already compensate this fact by adding as much weight as you can to "force" it to be balanced.  I would look at different casting medium  and potentially a redesign of the bait.  I don't think micro balloons are going to help the situation.  You can attempt to add the weight even lower, for example what happens if you add the weight onto the hook.  Can you get it to sit upright then? Don't weight the bait just the hook and see if it will right itself.  

 

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[vikingbear8]

I would say it has to deal with the design and most of the bait being above the line tie.  You have tried to already compensate this fact by adding as much weight as you can to "force" it to be balanced.  I would look at different casting medium  and potentially a redesign of the bait.  I don't think micro balloons are going to help the situation.  You can attempt to add the weight even lower, for example what happens if you add the weight onto the hook.  Can you get it to sit upright then? Don't weight the bait just the hook and see if it will right itself.  

 

I

It will actually straighten out a little bit at a very fast swim, it is when it stops that it rolls. As far as the weight on the hooks that is what I initially did to see how much weight I would need and It would sit a lot better with the weight on the hook. What kind of alternative casting materials are there?

[RayburnGuy]

Something that Mark does is to make the bottom of the bait narrower than the top. This naturally makes the top more buoyant than the bottom. If your bait sat upright when the weight was placed on the hooks, and your now using the same amount of weight placed into the body, then that tells me your ballast needs to be lower than where it is now. Mark can tell you much more about this than I can. He can give you specific degrees of cut, how high up the sides the cut goes and things like this. I wouldn't scrap the bait and start over until he chimes in. You may be able to save this one and then make allowances for any future builds.

 

Ben

[Griffond]

Silly question but if you sink test it... and add weight to the bottom how much weight does it take to make it stand up right and start a slow sink perhaps... start with that... you can always use dieters idea of sheet lead or pencil lead to get more in if needed... 

[Nathan]

Those hooks look really small for that bait...more substantial hooks might help...also..the bait looks very "tall"...that can add to it being unstable..Like Ben said..Cut down on the thickness of the belly of the bait and leave the top of the bait alone..This will make the top more buoyant and may stabilize it a bit...Al least that's what I've found with wood..Nathan

[mark poulson]

Something that Mark does is to make the bottom of the bait narrower than the top. This naturally makes the top more buoyant than the bottom. If your bait sat upright when the weight was placed on the hooks, and your now using the same amount of weight placed into the body, then that tells me your ballast needs to be lower than where it is now. Mark can tell you much more about this than I can. He can give you specific degrees of cut, how high up the sides the cut goes and things like this. I wouldn't scrap the bait and start over until he chimes in. You may be able to save this one and then make allowances for any future builds.

 

Ben

 

Man Ben, you set the bar high!  hahaha

First of all, vikingbear8, that is a beautiful lure.

I have never poured a resin bait, so I can't speak to microballons.

But I agree with the others here that your bait has a ballast problem.

Does you bait float with no ballast?  If not, you're fighting an uphill battle, because it already has so much weight in the building material that you're going to have to add lots of ballast to overcome that built-in weight.

There have been quite a few threads here about trying to make resin baits more buoyant.

When I've added too much ballast and want to lighten a bait I drill through holes from side to side high in the back of the bait, cap them with discs cut from aluminum cans to make air chambers, and then seal them with crazy glue and bondo.

I have a single hole punch that cuts 5/16" discs, so I drill a very small through pilot hole, then use a 5/16" Forstner bit to drill a 1/16"+- deep counter sink, and then drill a 1/4" though hole from both sides, using the tiny pilot hole to line up the two larger holes.  

I added all that verbiage because I've had to learn how to fix mistakes, since I make them a bunch!

For me, any lure should be upright at rest, whether it's a floater or a sinker, unless you're making a specialty topwater.

That  makes it much easier to tune.

Assuming your lure floats with no ballast added, I'd suggest you do a float test once you have it poured and have added the hooks.  Use the tines of the front treble to add 1/8 oz egg sinkers symmetrically until, first, your bait floats upright, and then add more until you get the sink rate you want.

And keep the ballast as low as you can.  I drill mine up into the belly, so it's actually even with the bottom of the lure, with just a slight dent for bondo to let me reshape the belly after it's added.

And keep you ballast in the head if possible.  I've found that helps my baits swim horizontal, instead of tail down, since the PVC I use is naturally buoyant and holds the tail section(s) horizontal on the retrieve.  They fall slightly head first, but immediately go to horizontal (level) once the retrieve is started.

I'm afraid you're going to have to experiment some until you figure it out.

Let us know how you do.

And maybe someone who pours resin baits can chime in about the microballoons.

[RayburnGuy]

Man Ben, you set the bar high!  hahaha

 

That's because I've got faith in ya buddy.

[A-Mac]

+1 on great looking lure.

From my experience with casting densities, I try to acquire the lightest lure possible and then add weight.  Higher lure density resists a lures movement in water.  However, you can always increase ballast ( to a point).  I normally only reduce density in swimbaits until I can use enough weight to make it sink.  Sorry to say, this normally is dependent on the lure design.

 

The lure rolling on its side may be a result of the mouth of the lure being open.  Get some modeling clay and fill in the mouth, then see if the lure behaves differently.  This is an easy and fast way to test the hydrodynamics of individual parts of the lure to hunt down the problem.  The large mouth area may be generating lift in some way at low speeds, but forms a pocket at high speeds which would allow the lure to straighten out.  

 

Also, I agree with Nathan, put some larger hooks on it (try this first) because this will certainly help to keep the lure from rolling.

[Travis]

Larger hooks are going to help because it will put more weight lower but based on his description on performance it isn't going to change the outcome.   Vikingbear take all the advice and hit the drawing board again.  All these will help and definitely get a bait that is slightly off running right but I think based on the design and your description you are further from ideal than can be corrected with the methods mentioned.

[mark poulson]

vikingbear8,

Don't leave us hanging, let us know what you're up to, inquiring minds want to know.....

The more I think about your lure, the more convinced I am that it can't be a floater, or you could correct the attitude with ballast, but I'm waiting to hear from you for confirmation.

What I'm doing when I drill out the holes and cap them is making air pockets, in effect hollowing out the bait after it's already been shaped.  If you use bondo to fill the air pocket holes, you can redo your scale patterns afterwards.

In looking at your photo more closely, it looks like your hook hangers, line tie, and hinge screw eyes are a very heavy gauge.  I use .91 sst screw eyes on my bigger swimbaits, and .72 on my smaller swimbaits.

I mention this because lighter hardware is one way you can lighten your bait without drilling holes in it, but I doubt it will make enough difference.  It's just a thought (yes, I do have them, occasionally).  Hahaha

[Tree_Fish]

I have been working hard on a couple of swimbaits as well, there's some good advice above and speaking from recent experience there are a number of variables that can cause your bait to roll. I won't hit on the issues already covered but I will add that  how you place your ballast in the bait can also influence roll to happen. On a single jointed bait especially, if you look at the weight placement in the S-waver the weight is mostly in the front laid along the edge of the belly. There is a small amount of weight just behind the hook hanger. As Mark said you want to keep the majority of your weight in the head. I take a hammer and beat my lead to a long rectangular shape and place it along the edge of the belly. This helped reduce the amount of roll I was getting. One other thing, it looks as though the back end of your bait is a tad shorter than the front half, in my experience its better to get your joint location as close to halfway as you can. I have been using a 35 degree cut for the front half and a 25 degree cut for the back half of the joint and it seems to be working pretty well for me, I get a nice wide S action. I assume you are going for the S-waver style of action, if you aren't please disregard my advice. That's a very nice looking bait !

[Travis]

The more I think about your lure, the more convinced I am that it can't be a floater, or you could correct the attitude with ballast, but I'm waiting to hear from you for confirmation.

 

Maybe I am not following his account of what happens or swim baits have a different lingo....  but it would appear bait one floated and once weighted (too much weight) it would indeed stay righted but sunk and then roll onto the side once it was reeled in.  Second bait he poured with micro bubbles (top) half thinking it would act like a cork and force the bait to right itself but it didn't and after weighting it performs the same as the first.   (sinks and rolls)

 

 

Hey guys I am having trouble getting my swimbaits to stand upright and not lay on their sides. My initial one floated and rolled on either side. After adding a good bit of weight to the belly it now sinks but still rolls on either side. The second one I made the top with microballoons to float but poured the bottom solid hoping that would help but it has the same problem. I attached a picture so you can see what kind of lure I am working with. Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Travis

[vikingbear8]

Hey guys sorry for the delay in getting back I have been pretty busy and also wanted to try a few things before I responded. First of all thanks to everyone for so much help and advice. To clear things up, I have not even begun to tackle making them swim haha. I am just trying to get them to sit upright. When I do move on to swimming I will definitely take into consideration a lot of what has been said. I did the open mouth kind of based on some of Rago's stuff but looking closer at his stuff not only is it a lot less open he also usually has the line tie on the upper side.

Mark, I really appreciate such a long write up and helpful tips, I actually was drilling holes in it as I saw you posted that because I came to the same idea of making the top float even more. I did that, thinned out the belly a lot, and changed the front hook to a 1/0. All of that so far has got it ALMOST wanting to sit right haha. You guys have been a wealth of knowledge so much so this is the first time I actually had to post and ask something! I usually pour soft stuff so there is a big learning curve with this hard bait stuff. I have not given up yet, I am definitely considering redesign though. I didn't even notice how tall this was until you guys pointed it out. It is a good bit taller than anything else I have even an 8" 3:16 Freestyle and a Deps 250. 

[mark poulson]

Doh!!!  I guess I should actually think about what I read before I write!  Hahaha

It's easy for me to say, since I'm not the one pouring the baits, but I would pour another lure, and add as much microballon lightener as possible to it without making it weak.  Hopefully that will get you a very buoyant lure, and then you can try to ballast it temporarily with egg sinkers on the treble tines to get it to float upright.  

If it still has trouble, you may have to play with the actual shape of the bait and see if that helps.

I hope you don't have to go that far.  Your bait is beautiful, just the way it is.

[RAswimmers]

Hi vikingbear8,

Your bait looks great!I'm new to making baits but from my experience Mark nailed it on the head with adding as much microballons as structurally possible. I've been using 40/60 micro to resin respectively by volume and for me this seem to work well but this will all depend on how deep you are setting the pin into the bait. Another problem that I ran into with the microballon and resin ration is that the bait may float vertical and look amazing but once it begins to swim in goes into a side to side pendulum effect that will change with your speed of retrieve. Making a light resin / microballon ration with heavy ballast weights helped reduce this in the baits I've been making. Just from you photos I would guess that if you make the bait with a 40 / 60 ration (which is a lot of microballons) you need about 30-35 grams of weight to make it sink slowly. The lure I've have been working on is about 2/3 the volume of yours and I have been using 21 grams for a slow sinker. 

 

Also, are you carving a master to make your molds or are you using another process for making them?

 

Pete