Lee Sisson Cranks Swim Terribly!

[nedyarb]

I bought 3 cranks off ebay that were supposedly Sissons. All three swim horribly. So i decided to examin one of them. There is no belly weight! Ive never seen a crank without a weight of some sort. It appears to be cedar. Any thoughts?

[Travis]

If they are Sisson stuff sold at Wal Mart (I bought them several  years ago) they were all garbage.  I had to take a lighter to all the lips and bend/twist them to get them to work and that was essentially as a wake bait.  

[BobP]

Sisson built a lot of his brand baits with jelutong wood, and that one looks like it to me.  It's about 50% heavier than cedar and has almost no visible grain, unlike cedar.

 

I'd consider drilling a belly hanger hole and putting in a ballast/belly hanger.  The problem may be that jelutong is quite dense at 28 lbs/sq ft, so it won't take much ballast to make the bait a sinker.  I'd try 2 grams of ballast max.

[mark poulson]

Bob is right, a weighted belly hanger will make your bait more stable.

Here's how I find out how heavy a belly weight to use.

I would reseal the wood temporarily with crazy glue, reinstall the hook hangers and hooks, and float test to see how much ballast was needed to get it to hang down at about 45 degrees.  I use split shot and egg sinkers, added to the tines of the belly treble, to see exactly how much ballast weight I need.  Then weigh all of the weights to get an exact amount, find a weighted belly hanger of that weight, shave off .3 grams for the weight of you paint and topcoat, and then do like Bob says.

That way you're sure you don't overweight it, and wind up having to drill out some of your ballast lead.