Glidebait problem

[Glideb8]

Hey everybody.

 

So a few months ago I made an 8" glide out of resin and a small amount of microbubbles.  I got it to slow sink level and it looked great, but I had to take it out to test.  For some reason, when I would quarter turn my reel handle(like with all 2 piece gliders like a Deps 250 for example), my bait would glide just fine to my left(it's right).  Then I would 1/4 turn my reel handle again and it would start to glide the other way for a split second, then glide back to its right.  I kept trying this over and and over with different casts and weighting, but the same thing kept happening.

My bait mold has a spout on the top(where the bait's back would be) just so that the microbubbles can rise to the top of the bait.

After over a month of experimenting, I scrapped that design and sculpted a new one that was maybe 1/2" thinner(Going to be around 8.5" with a plastic tail) because I thought it would help with less water resistance.

The mold finally got poured the other day and I made a resin cast this morning.  I placed weights(4) and taped them to the belly when when it was 1 solid piece and it was perfect.  It sank so slow that it was practically suspending and it glided left to right like a dream.   Feeling great about this, I cut the bait where I wanted the pin joint/screw eye connection and left the weights exactly where I had them when it was one piece and they were centered on the belly.  Added screw eyes, but no split rings or hooks yet and threw it into my pool.  As I started the retrieve, it did the same thing as the previous glide!  It would glide 2-3 feet to its right, come back left for a split second, then glide back to its right.  I tried messing with the weighting, changed the placement of the front line tie so that it was a little higher than the centerline of the screw eyes and it kept doing the same thing.  I tried messing with it for maybe another hour and there would be too much weight in the head or too little. 

 

Any suggestions or I'm sure somebody has had this happen before.  I just can't figure out how to solve the puzzle.  Don't have a picture right now.  I was outside so long messing with this thing that my phone died.

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[Glideb8]

I forgot to mention that if I don't swim it like a glidebait with quarter turns and just reel with a slow or fast constant retrieve, it swims fantastic.

[woodieb8]

this sounds silly. what snap are you using on the line?. is it rounded to let the bait work side to side?

[Glideb8]

No snap at all on this new one.  I tried the old glide with and without, but it kept doing the same thing.  

 

Few pics below.  The rear sections swings back and forth with no resistance.  There's just some temp wire in there now, but as I said above-on a constant retrieve, it swims nice.  I just need it to be able to glide.  I was thinking about completely rounding out the back section where the cut was, but it's not hitting the front section, so I just left it for the time being.

[Musky Glenn]

I would also be happy to hear some comments or suggestions as I had a glide bait 2 years ago that never would glide but to one side. Thank you.

[mark poulson]

I made several glide baits a while back that were modeled after the S waver, and carved out of PVC.

I think the shape of your joint may make it more finicky.

I made the joint, a V joint with the back of the front section the indentation and the front of the rear section the V shaped point, and adjusted my screw eyes to have the bait bend at the same angle as the original.  I found that this joint, as opposed to square faces or rounded faces, started the swimming action at lower speeds than any other joint shape.  Vodkaman Dave said it was the vortices action on the sides of the bait not being interrupted by the larger joint as the rolled down the side of the bait.

I also found, thanks to the TU members, that the key for a good glide movement was to get both segments, tested individually, to fall at the same rate, and exactly horizontal, so there was minimal friction in the hinge joint.

I tested them unpainted, and then painted and top coated them.

I found that, with the biggest bait, the addition of the paint and topcoat interfered with the glide movement.  I pulled the hinge pin out and opened the joint a half turn each on the screw eyes,  and the glide was restored.

A glide bait is, by far, the most challenging bait I've ever made, so keep plugging away and you'll get it.

Edited June 4, 2017 by mark poulson

[AZ Fisher]

  Great info Mark as always. I also found a whole bunch of info on glides here as well as a glidebait vid on Makelure.com.   I agree with Mark about both sections sinking at the same rate, make for a nice glide. I would cut your bait first and then ballast both sections seperatly with all the hardware attached some how.

  I put the two hook hangers in first, then hung all the hardware: hooks, split rings, front line tie, and the hinge hardware from the hook hangers, then ballasted each section like in the Romanmade video.   I spent a ton of time ballasting this bait to get it right. Way more time ballasting  than building. This bait is patterned after a Roman Made Mother and  was made from alder wood. I used an eyescrew to eyescrew hinge, like a Romanmade.  I made a V- joint like Mark described and got a killer glide.  3 to 3 1/2 feet to each side on a slow reel.   1/4 turns  on the reel do about a foot each side. 

  To Glideb8, I will start with I have never made a resin bait, so no experience there.  As Woodieb8 said try a snap on the bait or your line. That eliminates  the issue of the line hanging up on the line tie and allows it to move freely.

  Does the bait list from side to side, or to one side when it glides?  I ask because maybe the micro balloons wound up settling to one side of the top of the bait, causing it to lean or want to glide better that direction or to the opposite side. Again, no experience with resin, so just thinking out loud.

  My first thought when I read your post was you had a hinge screw that was off a little or hanging up some.  Assuming you have the weights and hardware all aligned with your centerline and  below your horizontal axis.  But if you made a second bait and it does the same thing, that would make me look elsewhere for the problem.

  I learned a lot from Makelure's vid and one from Roman made as well as an article on Tackle Tour about cutting open a $400 bait. I'll see if I can find them and post a link.  Like Mark said "Glides are challanging" and I think that's an understatement.  I got lucky with the first one I made, it swam killer.  Made a batch of shad/gill glides that didn't swim/glide so well.  So back to the drawing board!! Keep trying, it'll be worth it.

 

http://www.tackletour.com/autopsyromanmademotherpg3.html

http://www.makelure.com/store/pg/54-How-To-Videos.aspx#prettyPhoto/7/

 

  

Edited June 4, 2017 by AZ Fisher

[mark poulson]

Great post AZ!

I use sst screw eyes and hinge pins so I can adjust the size of the hinge joint if I need to when I'm tuning the bait.

[Glideb8]

Thanks for the replies and info!

I watched that Roman Made video when it first came out and countless times since..haha

I finally got more time to refine it today although it's still raining.  I cut/sanded the back section to come to a point and I also cut a V into the first section so that the back section can almost tuck in.  I also shortened the screw eye distance just to see what it would do and how it would effect the action.

I think one of the problems was that my front line tie was a hair off and at an angle, going to the bait's right side(the way it kept turning), so it was running sort of like a crankbait that had the line tie turned one way.  I know this because when I was messing with the line tie, I had adjusted it and it kept swimming to its left instead of right.

I actually searched the forum the first time that I had this problem and saw Mark reply to somebody several years ago about making sure both sides fall at the same rate and they both do.

I was testing it today with a split ring.

 

I kept the ballasts in the same exact place as when it was 1 piece because it was gliding and swimming so well.  I thought it would be able to translate over to a 2 piece, but definitely wrong there.  I want to get this thing done ASAP because I'm going on a trip and might be able to get into some striper and bluefish, so I might do a version that's one piece.  I'm going to have to fill up the holes that I drilled and try to reposition the ballasts.

AZ, yesterday before I made all of the changes today, it was only listing to its right.  I was testing with 1/4 turns and it would go right, start to go left for like 1/2 a second, then come back right.  A constant retrieve was perfectly fine and swam nice, but it's not like it had a wide glide to it.  It swam more like a multi piece swimbait.

After fixing the front line tie problem, it started doing this weird, inconsistent glide when I was messing with the weighting.  It might glide to the left, glide right, then glide right again before going left.  I'm going to cast another blank, recut the joint and all of that and add more microbubbles and see if this version that i have now is too dense or if it's something else.  In the current blank I'm testing, I have 5% microbubbles.  I don't want to mess up and make resin paste because I've done that once.  Mixed too much resin A and microbubbles together and it pasted up real fast when it was around 80 degrees outside.  I tried the SST screw eye to screw eye, but I couldn't get the open eyes to snap into the closed ones...lol.  I was only able to get the top or the bottom, not both and there was plenty of space to do so.

 

Thanks for the wisdom and I'm sure I'll have more questions!

[Glideb8]

53 minutes ago, mark poulson said:

Great post AZ!

I use sst screw eyes and hinge pins so I can adjust the size of the hinge joint if I need to when I'm tuning the bait.

Cool

[gliders]

Glideb8 ,though I make 1 piece gliders I'm sure the some basic rules apply ,I was going to suggest screw eye placement,everything including tow point and density/ballast has to be as centred as possible or a glider will favour gliding to one side or other. Apart from the anything else make sure your tow point is dead centre and eliminate that, symmetry of shape also helps consistent left/right action. Certainly with 1 piece gliders I find this crucial. Being 2 piece ,as others have said ,there's other issues to consider ! Good luck and keep us posted......glider

[Glideb8]

gliders, thanks!

 

I made another blank Sunday night.  This one had 10% microballoons and I'm not sure that I like it having 10%.  Obviously it's going to be way more buoyant than the other 2 that I've made and I've had to add much more weight(about an ounce and a half of lead) to get it to sink very slowly or suspend.  It's a big bait and about 3/4" thick at its thickest point.

 

My trip is coming up too quickly, so I'll have to put the 2 piece on hold for now.  I made a 1 piece and it glides nice.  Just need to paint it up and test it out on my trip!  This one is going to be close to 7oz after I add the split rings and hooks.  Using owner hyperwires #7 or #8(haven't decided yet) and owner ST 66 trebles.

[Anglinarcher]

19 hours ago, gliders said:

.............I was going to suggest screw eye placement,everything including tow point and density/ballast has to be as centred as possible or a glider will favour gliding to one side or other. ..........make sure your tow point is dead center,,,,,,,,,, symmetry of shape also helps consistent left/right action. ................glider

You have taken a hand carved bait and made a master, and it looks great.  But, as gliders suggested, symmetry is critical on jointed glide baits.  It is very difficult to get hand carved baits perfectly symmetrical, but if you are going to do the jointed glide baits, they either  need to be much simpler, or dead on perfect.

Of course the screw eye placement/tow point/ballast is critical as well.

I guess there is a reason that two piece glide baits are more the exception then the rule.

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but when you have time, take some extra care to make sure that symmetry is perfect.

Gliding to one side, but swimming correctly, is almost always an indication of a control surface of out whack or a cadence problem with the retrieve.  I can take a Zara Spook or a Dahlberg Wide Glide and "swim" them around trees, logs, rocks, etc., by adjust my cadence to allow them to swim more to one side or the other, so it only goes to show how hard it is to make a glide bait stable. (sometimes unstable is a good thing)

Good luck, and sometimes it helps to just place the bait on the back burner for a time and think on it.

 

[Vodkaman]

GlideB8 – what you have described in your original post, seems to me like a vortex problem.

Even though glide-baits are lipless, they still generate vortices which alternate from one side then the other. The alternating period (speed) is controlled by the feature that is causing the vortex and the speed of the retrieval.

What seems to be happening; is that the ‘1/4 turn’ pull is just too long, and is allowing the 2^nd vortex to form. You explained that on a constant retrieve, the bait swims nicely with a side-to-side action, which is good.

But, because the 2^nd vortex has already formed, the next pull will initiate the 3^rd vortex, and so on, giving the lure a limp biased to one side.

As for solutions; you could stop the pull a split second sooner, to prevent the 2^nd vortex, or pull long enough to get through vortices 1, 2 and half way through the 3^rd and then pause.

The build solution would be to alter the feature that causes the vortices, to slow the period down a tad. The speed of the vortex period is controlled by width; a wide lip produces a slow waggle, a narrow lip causes a fast waggle. It is the same for glide-baits.

I know this is bad news for you, as you have already made the mold. Also, this is all theory and I admit that I have never made a glide-bait.

Before altering the mold or creating a new one, I suggest that you do some testing;

1 - Experiment with the retrieve, that I suggested above, to see if my prediction for the behaviour works.

2 – make a new cast, and modify the front of the head to make it wide/blunter, using Bondo filler or something similar. Even molding some soft clay would work, allowing you to try several shapes and forms while at the water’s edge. This will slow the period down, and the glide will happen before the 2^nd vortex forms.

Once you have a better understanding and feel for what works and what doesn’t, you can then design a new master, modify your original master, or make one of the pours your new master.

Gliders are on my list, and I will get around to building a few one day, just so that I can understand them better – good luck with the project, and don’t forget to report back, be it good or bad.

Dave

[Anglinarcher]

I don't think that I have ever disagreed with Dave, and I am not sure I am now.  I would like to think that I am just clarifying a little.

The branch of mathematics called Chaos Theory tells us that the direction the lure starts to move on the first crank/twitch should be totally random, assuming the lure is perfectly symmetrical.  This means that the lure should start to move right half the time and left half the time.

Once the initial direction is determined, then Dave's point of 1st and 2nd vortices is perfectly valid.  What concerns me is that we are told that the lure always glides/favors to one side. 

To make myself clear, physics and the language of physics, mathematics, tells us that if the lure is cast and the first 1/4 crank is done, it should be totally random on moving left or right.  Then, once it has a direction determined then it would favor that one direction if the 2nd vortices had formed.  If the numerous micro variances involved had caused the lure to start in the other direction, then  it would favor that other direction.

I still think that there are symmetry issues, but consideration of the vortices if critical to the final control of the lure.

[uncustered]

Man I learn a bunch reading posts like this.

 

Ya'll are a national treasure....

[Vodkaman]

Anglinarcher - of course you are correct; the first direction should be random, assuming perfect symmetry. But, no matter how good the build, perfect symmetry is unattainable, we can only do our best. On a scale of improving symmetry, there will come a point when the start direction heads towards random. The question is; where on that scale is this build.

Just to qualify: just because the lure starts in the same direction everytime, does not make the lure bad. We aim for perfection, but rarely get close.

Dave

[gliders]

I think dave and anglingarcher are both correct, you can never make everything perfectly symmetrical. However if the glider obviously and consistently favours one way or the other then I think its not symmetrical enough, either the water facing surface shape (front) or tow point,or density /ballast ,or a combination of the three. I have seen this happen on 1 piece gliders with each of the above . Gliders are dead easy !  So I've heard........glider

[Anglinarcher]

Dave is also correct, perfect symmetry is not possible, but like gliders suggested, not symmetrical enough.

Building lures can be complex.  Some types are so simple that it is obvious why they have been around for so many decades.  Sometimes I take a design I am having problems with and put it in my "I'll deal with it later" box.  Funny how often that hard design seems easy when I rethink it several months later.

Good luck and I hope it comes easy for you later.

[Glideb8]

Thanks for the replies, so much help and knowledge-it's amazing!

 

I tried a  few things and something funny happened that was totally unintended.

I had yet to mold and pour the plastic tails that I wanted on the glide.  As soon as I did that, it glided so much better and almost consistent left to right now.  I'm still going to try to fix the problem without the tail, but I guess it was some sort of stabilization problem.  Again, I don't really know.

 

I was wondering about something and symmetry.  I was thinking that if I really wanted perfect symmetry since I'm making a resin bait-Why can't I:

1-Carve one half from wood, do a 1 piece mold with the flat side on a flat surface(like pouring flat backed plastic baits)

2-When that mold of the one half is cured, pour 2 resin halves and epoxy them together and then do a 2 piece mold from that. 

That would be perfect symmetry if both resin pours went flawlessly.

Has anybody ever tried that?  I know.....a lot of work, but if I truly wanted perfect symmetry, that's one way. 

 

Thanks again for the help!

[Vodkaman]

Glideb8 - Glad you managed to fix the problem. Always test with the baits assembled, including hooks. Everything makes a difference.

As for the symmetry thing, you need to think about that; you carve a left side, make a mold and pour it. You now have two left sides. Don't sweat the symmetry thing, just do the best you can, knowing that it is important.

Dave

[jonister]

OK now that all the lure engineers have chimed in.. I agree whole heartedly that weighting has to be perfect. I myself have felt the pain of that one sided glide thing. I don't remember if someone said this already.. but a few things that I have done to positively alter or fix the problem, Tune it like a crank bait, or add a feathered treble hook. I think a rear feathered hook adds resistance which helps. Glad you figured it out though!

[Glideb8]

On 6/11/2017 at 1:18 AM, Vodkaman said:

Glideb8 - Glad you managed to fix the problem. Always test with the baits assembled, including hooks. Everything makes a difference.

As for the symmetry thing, you need to think about that; you carve a left side, make a mold and pour it. You now have two left sides. Don't sweat the symmetry thing, just do the best you can, knowing that it is important.

Dave

 

Man,  I was so tired that I didn;t even notice that I didn't think about that...lol

 

Good catch

[Glideb8]

On 6/11/2017 at 2:36 AM, jonister said:

OK now that all the lure engineers have chimed in.. I agree whole heartedly that weighting has to be perfect. I myself have felt the pain of that one sided glide thing. I don't remember if someone said this already.. but a few things that I have done to positively alter or fix the problem, Tune it like a crank bait, or add a feathered treble hook. I think a rear feathered hook adds resistance which helps. Glad you figured it out though!

Yeah, that thing was making me really mad when I kept trying different ballast positions for weeks and nothing was working.  lol

[Anglinarcher]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 11:01 PM, Glideb8 said:

gliders, thanks!

 

I made another blank Sunday night.  This one had 10% microballoons and I'm not sure that I like it having 10%.  Obviously it's going to be way more buoyant than the other 2 that I've made ......

 

I should have attached this a long time ago. 

Notice that adding equal volume of microballons to equal volume of Alumilite is considered 100% on this graph, so I am not sure how your 10% is measured (by volume or weight).

I hope this graph helps you out.