Hardware Sizing - Need Help Figuring Out What To Order

[aulrich]

So I am new to all this and I am working through a book I found “How to make wood fishing lures” one thing the book is not to clear on is the size of the diving bill, for any one of the lures. Or are they essentially all applicable (within reason) and the size is matched to how deep you want them to run.

I will be making typical walleye pike type plugs 3”-6” but the two patterns I am playing with now are a 3” shad and a 5” minnow.

[diemai]

So I am new to all this and I am working through a book I found “How to make wood fishing lures” one thing the book is not to clear on is the size of the diving bill, for any one of the lures. Or are they essentially all applicable (within reason) and the size is matched to how deep you want them to run.

I will be making typical walleye pike type plugs 3”-6” but the two patterns I am playing with now are a 3” shad and a 5” minnow.

Off course differently sized , shaped or angled diving lips make up for different swimming actions , might even render your lure not to wiggle at all or on the other hand to blow out !

 

Impossible to tell on a distance , which lips would match your lures , you might at least provide some pictures to figure out better .

 

Just took that book off my shelf , ...indeed there are no specs about the lips , ........probably you could use the scale and measurements given in the sketches there to determine about the size of lips .

 

Just thumbed through , seems like there are only these screw-on metal lips required to accomplish the lures described , no lexan lips ?

 

As far as I'm concerned , there are very few standard lips of this kind available in various component stores , so it would not be that hard to find them .

 

 

 

But I just read now , that you've upscaled the given designs , so nothing left to do but making your own lips of approbiate , larger size , if you fairly want to keep the original design and swimming action .

 

But I'm pretty much sure , that these lures might also perform with a few different lips and line tie configurations as stated in that book , ...only their action would get different to the author's originals .

 

Please tell me about which lures you're making from that book(book page of lure sketch) , maybe I could give you some more hints , ...I'll keep the book next to my computer so far .

 

Greetz , diemai

[aulrich]

The swimming minnow, project 5 maybe (the book is at home I am at work) it's a standard looking rapala/rebel minnow bait.

The shad body was out of the bonus patterns in the back, I have two sizes of those because another pattern on the page needed to be photocopied at 120% and I liked the larger profile as well as the 100% profile. The swimming minnow is to spec for now.

I considering a couple of different options

1. Get a hardware "sampler pack" at least one of the on-line vendors has a kit that make 10ish different sorts of lures. and just use up the parts. and focus after that.

2. Buy a couple of different packs of lips that come close to what I have in my tackle box.

3. Convert them to Lexan lips.

I am leaning towards option 2, mostly because the hardware is reusable I figure the first hurdle will be learning how to carve a usable body. I figure when(not if) I mess up I can just reuse the most of the bits on the next try if I use metal screw on.

The sample kit is nice and would push me to try different styles, but I do sort of know where I do want to focus and what should be most useful my tackle box.

Hand built Lexan lips sounds more like a thing to try later, unless I follow a pattern like those on the Grandmas lure's thread. and it would allow me to "tune" to my conditions, but I got to get good at making bodies first before I can get fancy with the different lip configurations.

I could just stick to lipless plugs (the small sinking lipless lure 8 or 9 from the book)

Edited May 6, 2014 by aulrich

[diemai]

@ aulrich

 

OK , ...I've found these two patterns , I guess , ......and they're pretty much versatile in terms of attaching different lips .

 

Both styles of lips , downward pointing lexan lips mounted in a slot for shallow runners or screwed on metal lips for deep runners are possible to assemble , ...but with the latter you'd have to take the weight of the lip into consideration , also these would require a line tie on the lip .

 

I figure out , that you've never started out on carving , so first thing you should do is to cut the lipslot while your blank is still square , as it gets pretty much difficult to cut a lipslot accurately on a readily shaped and rounded blank , ......same counts for screw-on metal lips .

 

BUT , ......since such lips available in shops are often quite large and heavy , made of stainless steel , these might not match your fairly small and slender lures , as often they are designed for bigger musky lures and just add too much weight and render smaller lures nose-heavy ,.......good for diving performance but yet not for proper distance casting .

 

Therefore I'm making my metal lips out of aluminium sheet , these are fairly ligther in weight and I never had issues with these for pike and zander(European walleye).

 

Here is a Swedish discribtion on a simple pike lure sporting sucha homemade aluminium screw-on lip :

 

http://realiserad.netai.net/Artiklar/pnkid.php

 

......and my own downscaled adaptions of this lure model :

 

 

 

If you want to install such lips to these book designs , you'd need to furnish some kind of a plane and angled scoop on the chin of the lure , also whilst the blank is still in square , ...it is required to have a plane base to mount the lip onto , ......it works , I've made similar lure this was before .

 

I do not want to persuade you out of your plans on which lure components to buy , but with homemade stuff you can just get more versatile in my opinion , ...all you need are differently sized screw eyes and some lexan sheet , at least for shallow divers , ...lip templates are accessible in the internet :

 

http://www.mt-lures.de/uploads/1/7/5/6/17565369/tauchschaufeln_i.pdf

 

http://www.mt-lures.de/uploads/1/7/5/6/17565369/tauchschaufeln_ii.pdf

 

http://www.mt-lures.de/uploads/1/7/5/6/17565369/tauchschaufeln_iii.pdf

 

 

 

For deep divers you might want use metal sheet lips or also lexan sheet , but in the latter case it would be approbiate to assemble the lure with a through wire harness , not screw eyes ,  as deep divers do require the line tie to be located on the lip , ....just like these ones :

 

 

But in my opinion the book's lure patterns are not that much suited for installing such deep diving lips of lexan , simply because the nose tip of these lure patterns sits too high .

 

 

Regarding lipless plugs , ...I find these to be more tricky sometimes(unless you work after proven patterns) , as do not have a chance to tinker on the lip, just in case , .....as a lexan lip could be shaved and a screw-on metal lip could be bent to a different angle or entirely substituted , if your lure should not perform .

 

Also plugs with such intergrated diving vanes most likely wiggle at lower frequencies and don't dive as deep compared to lures sporting lexan -, or metal lips .

 

And if you're concerned about having wasted you components in case your lure won't swim , .....just seal your sheer timber blank , pre-assemble all parts without glue and test your lure in a bath tub or fish tank , etc. , at this stage you might also experiment with the ballast amount and location , .......if you'd get it to swim , that's fine and you can assemble all parts permanently to get your lure ready for painting , ...and , ...well ,...if not , ...you have only wasted your wood and working time , ......and saved on painting -, and topcoating efforts !

 

Good luck , ......greetz , diemai

[aulrich]

Thanks for the goldmine of information! and I think I will look at making my own lips, it beats having to order stuff, especially during vacation this summer when I will be 4hr round trip away from a mailbox.

 

Here are the patterns I am attempting to make.

 

http://www.myhostedpics.com/images/aulrich/lipless.jpg

 

http://www.myhostedpics.com/images/aulrich/minnow.jpg

 

http://www.myhostedpics.com/images/aulrich/shad.jpg

[aulrich]

Has anyone ever 3d printed a diving lip?

[diemai]

@ aulrich

 

I knew , that you've meant these particular lures  .

 

There was a thread about 3D printing in here , ....utilize the search bar in the hardbaits topic typing in "3D printing" , you might come up with some results .

 

BTW , ...lots of more luremaking videos on YouTube , utilize their search bar as well , ........here is a particular good one , that might lead you on the way :

 

 

 

 

Good luck , Dieter

[Griffond]

Oh those videos from Paul are great and I would have to agree to try aluminum... after working with it for the grandma lures I will find it hard to work with other material and the good news is its super easy to find in many thicknesses at your local Home Depot or Lowes or local hardware store for that matter... and its CHEAP! and super easy to cut... I used shears to nip the corners off and just rounded it out with a file and cleaned up the edges with sand paper. I have a few smaller Phox style minnows I cut out of balsa that I need to finish but the aluminum I bought for the grandmas is to thick so back to the Home Depot for me to get thinner stuff... the other advantage I can see with the aluminum is if you cut your lip angle just a touch off you can just tweak the lip the way it needs to be... and if you were really handy you could even put a curve in a lip if you wanted without to much effort I am guessing... I think I know the book your talking about as well it has a bass on the cover? 

If your looking for lip sizes to fit your lures the one thing I figured out to try was to download this link http://luremaking.com/catalogue/download/making_crankbait_lips.pdf  which has a bunch of lip patterns on it and either adjust size with printer or adjust the size on the screen and gently trace them out with a pencil on a white sheet of paper right over your screen (dont push hard) it allows you to make them a little more custom size to your lure... just my two cents anyway good luck and post some pics on your progress 

[aulrich]

Aluminum is on the list for the next time I visit the borg. I was mucking around with my band saw last night trying to see if I could use it for cutting slots. Getting the angle would be easy with a simple jig, but the kerf is too small for 1.5mm Lexan, but it should hold 1mm aluminum just fine.

I'll still end up with a slot cutter like Paul's videos, but part of this is figuring out what I can do with what I already have.

[Griffond]

I actually just used a wide thick sawsall blade with my hand to cut the slots in the grandma lures that just seem to work really good for me just another thought to try... you do have to make sure to keep the blade flat and not tip it more one way then the other thou

[aulrich]

I played with one of those too, but all I had on hand was a general destruction blade, I have a metal blade somewhere that should work better

[aulrich]

So I am progressing, slowly. so to date I have found out

1) 2 hacksaw blades cuts a slot that strikes me as being just right for 1.5 mm Lexan

2) My hack saw handle can hold 2 blades at a time.

3) Even with a block I can't cut a square bill slot , close, but not quite. maybe it's just practice , but usually I am better at executing.

Also the lipped plugs attached have no angle mentioned, what are the typical angles at this point I had picked 25deg up from a line perpendicular to the lure body.

[mark poulson]

If you have a bandsaw, you can cut your lip slots while the blank is still rectangular, or at least flat on two sides after you cut out your profile.  

Doing it like that is the best insurance that the slot is square to the blank, and that the back of the slot is square, too, so you have something to push your lip against to keep it square to the blank when you are installing it.

You want a slip fit, so there is room for your epoxy to coat both sides of the lip and slot.  I drill some shallow holes in the top and bottom of the part of the lip that's hidden in the bait, and put some epoxy in them before I slide the lip in.  I keep a salsa cup of denatured alcohol handy to wide off the epoxy that squeezes out.  In gluing anything, a little too much is messy, but it's way better than a glue starved joint, which won't hold.  I use the squeeze out and alcohol to coat the rest of the lure with the thinned epoxy as I'm installing the lip.

Make the first cut the top of your lip slot, and cut it carefully to keep it in line.  Make additional cuts toward the bottom to widen the slot to accept your lexan bills.  Keep a piece of lexan to test the slot until you get it right.  If you make it a little loose, you will have the accurate top cut to wedge the bill against until the epoxy sets, but after a couple of tries you'll get the hang of cutting the slot close.  I usually cut it a little tight, and then put the blade all the way into the cut and draw it out against the bottom of the slot to widen it slowly if it needs it.

I use a fine wood cutting blade, so it doesn't cut too aggressively, and I can control how much matl. I remove more easily.

I hope this helps.

Edited May 15, 2014 by mark poulson