Finally got some 3d printed proto types

[aulrich]

So after way too long I finally got some lures modeled and printed. Oddly enough the lure profiles are out of the book Making wooden fishing lures. The little one is a sinking lip-less , a 4" floating diver and an 8" version. At this point I think I have probably over printed them (the big one too nine hours to print) but we will see, there is still the option of making a mold and just casting them but  we will see. A resin printer is in my future but not in the budget right now. But a resin printer is the way to go long term it is better for lure making so it will happen. So while I find 2k or so in the budget( the printer, resin and extras) my 300$ FDM will have to do

The issue I am dealing with right now is lip design, and it is all the basic questions.

1. is the a general rule of thumb  for length and width based on the lure profile 1-1.5* lure width or similar

2. how far into the body should it be.

3. And the lip angle differences between jerkbait, crankbait and wakebait 

Another general design question I have is there also a rule of thumb where the thickest part of the lure is in relation to the length. With the minnows I  have the thickest part of the lure about 1/3rd from the nose.

As for construction at this point I am shooting for one piece print. I had given a quick try to printing them in halves but it was a little too finicky.  I am using screw eyes for these first lures but I will likely work out a way for thru wire. The simplest my be how the salt water guys do theirs just a hole through the whole bait and a hole to capture the belly hooks. I can also model them with a belly slot that is just big enough to take the thru-wire just like if you had sawn a slot into a wooden bait.

Painting them will be about the same as wood, seal with at least CA glue but probably one layer of thinned etex as well to get rid of some of the layer lines.

Youtube channels I should give credit to

https://www.youtube.com/c/GulfStreamOutdoors

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYG9GiKTixJbbJ_777nNJXQ

[RiverSmallieGuy]

I know that I wrote a book here, but thats what you wanted, but here I go. What I do to find the ideal thickness of a lure is use scale factors. I know that the ideal thickness for a 12" lure is 1.5". Then you can take 12" divided by the length of the lure you are doing. For example, if you are making a 7" bait, you do 12/7. Then, you take that number, which is roughly 1.71", then divide 1.5 by the number we got above, which is 1.71 and you get roughly .9". Of course, the number that you get at the end of this calculation is just a guideline for the thickness of your lure. Another thing I may add here is that the taper of your baits matter a lot too, with lipped lures. If you don't taper your bait and keep the sides flat, your lure will have a much tighter, quicker action because it interacts with the vortices produced by the lip much more severely. If you taper the lure, your bait will have a slower, wider wobble. When I say slower, I don't mean the lure barely moves, I mean that the wobble is slightly slower than that of a flat sided lure. One thing about lips, the thinner the lip, the less durable it is, but the better the action is and vice versa for thicker lips. Water flows around a thin object better than around a thick object. Onto the question you had about lips. Based on the look of the lipped lures that you showed, I am going to guess that they are a jerkbait/twitchbait style lure. With jerkbaits, you generally want a thinner material lip to increase the action and to make it more erratic. I bring up erraticness because if you look at lures like the Megabass Vision 110, one big reason why the lure is so erratic is because the lip flexes when you twitch it. So, if you look at very thin .06" Lexan sheets, it is very flexible, yet very strong. You want to use Lexan if you use a polycarbonate lip, because Lexan is the strongest option out there. Another great option for a durable, thin lip is to use circuit board materials for your lip. As for lip depth into your bait, that just depends on how strong you want you lip to be. The deeper your lip slot, the more durable it is going to be. Remember, that Lexan sinks pretty hard, so don't put it way up above the center line of the lure, or it may tip it off balance. At the same time though, that may make it more erratic, but as with everything in lure making, design is a compromise. The difference in lip angles in crankbaits, is a big topic. As a rule, the steeper the lip angle, the shallower the lure is going to dive. A, 75 degree angle lip is not going to dive as deep as say a 45 degree lip. A 20 degree lip will dive far deeper than the 75 and 45. The thing about a 20 degree lip, your lip is generally going to be longer. When you have a longer lip, you generally need to put your line tie onto the lip. If you don't do this, your lure wont work very well at all. This is a good segway into line tie position. As a rule, the further away from the lip the line tie is, the less action the lure is going to be. The closer it is to the base of the lip, the more pronounced the wobble will be. Now for wakebaits, with a wakebait, your lip is not going to be shallower than about 60 degrees. Generally, with a wakebait, you are looking at about 75-90 degrees. The same principle applies here as with crankbaits. The steeper the lip, the shallower it will dive. The shallower, the deeper it will dive. Lip length on all lipped lures has a huge effect as well. The longer the lip, the deeper it will dive, and the shorter the shallower. Once your lips get too long, you will need to put your line tie onto the lip. Then for a jerkbait, a lot of the same principles apply. With a jerkbait though, the lip is generally narrower. It is not like a fat bodied squarebill crankbait where the lip will flare out and be very wide to aid in deflections and erraticness. There are a lot more factors when it comes to making lipped lure work well as well. You also have to take into consideration how buoyant your material is that you are making the lures from, how heavy your hooks are, and where you place the lead. Generally with crankbaits, you can't go wrong with placing the weight in the lowest part of the belly. Then you have to think about lead hole size and depth. If you are making a 3" flat sided 3/4" thick crankbait from cedar, if you drill a super deep 1/4" hole and fill it all the way up, your lure will be more erratic than if you drill a shallow 1/2 inch hole and fill it all the way up. Also, don't forget to consider castability with your bait. If you are making a super long 6" jerkbait and you put all of the weight right in the lowest part of the belly (which is generally farther toward the head of the lure), your lure will be really hard to cast well. Especially if you are making it out of a light wood like balsa. If you are using a brush on epoxy clear coat, epoxy sinks hard, so you will need to take that into consideration while ballasting your lure. You can also substitute lead for tungsten while weighing your lures. Tungsten is far smaller and denser than lead, so you can get a very low center of gravity. Another thing to consider would be the material your line ties and hook hangers are made of. If you are using stainless steel twist wires or screw eyes, stainless steel has some weight to it, so if you are planning to build suspending jerkbaits, definitely consider that. If pike and musky are present, or if you plan to sell these, you would want to thru wire the lures. If you can't thru wire these lures for some reason, you must glue in you screw eyes and twist wires with 5 minute epoxy. You can also consider the angle that the line ties and hook hangers come out from, and could use the hooks as more ballast. I am going to stop now. I know that this was a lot to read, and the way I organized it isn't perfect, but this is what I have that I can offer. 

 

Braden

[RiverSmallieGuy]

Good looking baits though!

[Fishermanbt]

I was going to recommend Gulf Stream Outdoors but you beat me to it. I’ve been watching his tutorials over the past few weeks and learned a lot. I’m still in the R&D of this myself. I have an Anycubic i3 printer. What are you running?

[RiverSmallieGuy]

6 hours ago, RiverSmallieGuy said:

I know that I wrote a book here, but thats what you wanted, but here I go. What I do to find the ideal thickness of a lure is use scale factors. I know that the ideal thickness for a 12" lure is 1.5". Then you can take 12" divided by the length of the lure you are doing. For example, if you are making a 7" bait, you do 12/7. Then, you take that number, which is roughly 1.71", then divide 1.5 by the number we got above, which is 1.71 and you get roughly .9". Of course, the number that you get at the end of this calculation is just a guideline for the thickness of your lure. Another thing I may add here is that the taper of your baits matter a lot too, with lipped lures. If you don't taper your bait and keep the sides flat, your lure will have a much tighter, quicker action because it interacts with the vortices produced by the lip much more severely. If you taper the lure, your bait will have a slower, wider wobble. When I say slower, I don't mean the lure barely moves, I mean that the wobble is slightly slower than that of a flat sided lure. One thing about lips, the thinner the lip, the less durable it is, but the better the action is and vice versa for thicker lips. Water flows around a thin object better than around a thick object. Onto the question you had about lips. Based on the look of the lipped lures that you showed, I am going to guess that they are a jerkbait/twitchbait style lure. With jerkbaits, you generally want a thinner material lip to increase the action and to make it more erratic. I bring up erraticness because if you look at lures like the Megabass Vision 110, one big reason why the lure is so erratic is because the lip flexes when you twitch it. So, if you look at very thin .06" Lexan sheets, it is very flexible, yet very strong. You want to use Lexan if you use a polycarbonate lip, because Lexan is the strongest option out there. Another great option for a durable, thin lip is to use circuit board materials for your lip. As for lip depth into your bait, that just depends on how strong you want you lip to be. The deeper your lip slot, the more durable it is going to be. Remember, that Lexan sinks pretty hard, so don't put it way up above the center line of the lure, or it may tip it off balance. At the same time though, that may make it more erratic, but as with everything in lure making, design is a compromise. The difference in lip angles in crankbaits, is a big topic. As a rule, the steeper the lip angle, the shallower the lure is going to dive. A, 75 degree angle lip is not going to dive as deep as say a 45 degree lip. A 20 degree lip will dive far deeper than the 75 and 45. The thing about a 20 degree lip, your lip is generally going to be longer. When you have a longer lip, you generally need to put your line tie onto the lip. If you don't do this, your lure wont work very well at all. This is a good segway into line tie position. As a rule, the further away from the lip the line tie is, the less action the lure is going to be. The closer it is to the base of the lip, the more pronounced the wobble will be. Now for wakebaits, with a wakebait, your lip is not going to be shallower than about 60 degrees. Generally, with a wakebait, you are looking at about 75-90 degrees. The same principle applies here as with crankbaits. The steeper the lip, the shallower it will dive. The shallower, the deeper it will dive. Lip length on all lipped lures has a huge effect as well. The longer the lip, the deeper it will dive, and the shorter the shallower. Once your lips get too long, you will need to put your line tie onto the lip. Then for a jerkbait, a lot of the same principles apply. With a jerkbait though, the lip is generally narrower. It is not like a fat bodied squarebill crankbait where the lip will flare out and be very wide to aid in deflections and erraticness. There are a lot more factors when it comes to making lipped lure work well as well. You also have to take into consideration how buoyant your material is that you are making the lures from, how heavy your hooks are, and where you place the lead. Generally with crankbaits, you can't go wrong with placing the weight in the lowest part of the belly. Then you have to think about lead hole size and depth. If you are making a 3" flat sided 3/4" thick crankbait from cedar, if you drill a super deep 1/4" hole and fill it all the way up, your lure will be more erratic than if you drill a shallow 1/2 inch hole and fill it all the way up. Also, don't forget to consider castability with your bait. If you are making a super long 6" jerkbait and you put all of the weight right in the lowest part of the belly (which is generally farther toward the head of the lure), your lure will be really hard to cast well. Especially if you are making it out of a light wood like balsa. If you are using a brush on epoxy clear coat, epoxy sinks hard, so you will need to take that into consideration while ballasting your lure. You can also substitute lead for tungsten while weighing your lures. Tungsten is far smaller and denser than lead, so you can get a very low center of gravity. Another thing to consider would be the material your line ties and hook hangers are made of. If you are using stainless steel twist wires or screw eyes, stainless steel has some weight to it, so if you are planning to build suspending jerkbaits, definitely consider that. If pike and musky are present, or if you plan to sell these, you would want to thru wire the lures. If you can't thru wire these lures for some reason, you must glue in you screw eyes and twist wires with 5 minute epoxy. You can also consider the angle that the line ties and hook hangers come out from, and could use the hooks as more ballast. I am going to stop now. I know that this was a lot to read, and the way I organized it isn't perfect, but this is what I have that I can offer. 

 

Braden

When I had mentioned woods, I wasn't referencing making them out of wood, I was referencing buoyancy.

[Fishermanbt]

One thing I found when making a mold using fast cure resin was the heat generated caused the bottom/floor of my abs printed mold to warp. The 2 part silicone I tried did not do that. My resin and silicon came from specialtyresin.com

the 2 part resin has been great for making knock offs of the Mirror Lure jerk bait in a silicone mold. 

[aulrich]

Riversmallie thanks for the response that gives me a lot to work with.  The bigger of the lures is not fully flat sided  but top to bottom it is certainly on the flat side of oval and along the length there is only about 1/10th of an inch taper though if I fatten it to the magic number it would be more like 3/10ths.  The short one has a lot more taper  in both directions it has really beefy shoulders and a narrow belly, it's probably one of the beefier 4" minnows I have seen.

I hate to admit it but the whole jerk or minnow bait is lost on me. To me if it looks like a classic Rapala  it's a minnow bait and if it has a smaller lip at a shallow angle near the line tie it's a jerk bait. For my usage the baits will either be cast or trolled so for now I will be shooting for a minnow bait rather than a jerkbait. 

 

Looking at the book where I got the profile from I do have the lip slot too far back, the original uses a screw on metal lip so the lip slot should likely be between 4 and 5 o'clock on the eye.  the nice thing about CAD is that change is a couple of clicks away.

 

FishermanBT I got most of the CAD hints from Gulfstream

 

[RiverSmallieGuy]

14 minutes ago, aulrich said:

Riversmallie thanks for the response that gives me a lot to work with.  The bigger of the lures is not fully flat sided  but top to bottom it is certainly on the flat side of oval and along the length there is only about 1/10th of an inch taper though if I fatten it to the magic number it would be more like 3/10ths.  The short one has a lot more taper  in both directions it has really beefy shoulders and a narrow belly, it's probably one of the beefier 4" minnows I have seen.

I hate to admit it but the whole jerk or minnow bait is lost on me. To me if it looks like a classic Rapala  it's a minnow bait and if it has a smaller lip at a shallow angle near the line tie it's a jerk bait. For my usage the baits will either be cast or trolled so for now I will be shooting for a minnow bait rather than a jerkbait. 

 

Looking at the book where I got the profile from I do have the lip slot too far back, the original uses a screw on metal lip so the lip slot should likely be between 4 and 5 o'clock on the eye.  the nice thing about CAD is that change is a couple of clicks away.

 

FishermanBT I got most of the CAD hints from Gulfstream

 

I feel like if you put your lip slot too far back from the nose, you would need to put your line tine on the bottom of the head to achieve a decent wobble. But, at the same time, lets be honest, that would look kinda odd. What I do when I make minnow/jerkbaits is put the lip close enough to the front, that it could wobble well with the line tie directly off the nose or just below the nose.

[RiverSmallieGuy]

16 hours ago, Fishermanbt said:

One thing I found when making a mold using fast cure resin was the heat generated caused the bottom/floor of my abs printed mold to warp. The 2 part silicone I tried did not do that. My resin and silicon came from specialtyresin.com

the 2 part resin has been great for making knock offs of the Mirror Lure jerk bait in a silicone mold. 

 

17 minutes ago, aulrich said:

Riversmallie thanks for the response that gives me a lot to work with.  The bigger of the lures is not fully flat sided  but top to bottom it is certainly on the flat side of oval and along the length there is only about 1/10th of an inch taper though if I fatten it to the magic number it would be more like 3/10ths.  The short one has a lot more taper  in both directions it has really beefy shoulders and a narrow belly, it's probably one of the beefier 4" minnows I have seen.

I hate to admit it but the whole jerk or minnow bait is lost on me. To me if it looks like a classic Rapala  it's a minnow bait and if it has a smaller lip at a shallow angle near the line tie it's a jerk bait. For my usage the baits will either be cast or trolled so for now I will be shooting for a minnow bait rather than a jerkbait. 

 

Looking at the book where I got the profile from I do have the lip slot too far back, the original uses a screw on metal lip so the lip slot should likely be between 4 and 5 o'clock on the eye.  the nice thing about CAD is that change is a couple of clicks away.

 

FishermanBT I got most of the CAD hints from Gulfstream

 

I also do not make lures on CAD or 3D print them. I carve and pour everything I make. All of that lipped lure philosophy was strictly on making wooden lures. You can definitely apply it to your printed lures and resin baits. The only differences here is that with resin, you don't have to seal it and with printed masters you may want to seal it. People try to compare wooden baits to resin baits, and really the only thing you need to know is how buoyant your material is. Woods can be way more buoyant than resin, so they need to be treated differently.

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Too tired because I work long hrs to get into a lot of detail. I can get into it more on my set off in a few days if you want 

But I can tell you this body shape can achieve far more action wise then what most utilize. North American designs focus on baitfish profile over creating action. Want to see different shapes look at the Australian lures for example. 

I actually have tried a design very similar to what you have posted. Line tie will need to be under the nose or a lip that will be powerful enough to compensate. It caught fish but it was a meh design. I might still have the molds if I didn’t recycle it

lip angle on cranks can very a lot depending on the action and depth your going for

jerk baits I prefer a shallow angle but again this can vary 

but I am will end there because I have to sleep then wake up then nap then go to nightshift 

[aulrich]

The Aussies I had totally forgot about them,  as I understand it fishing for barramundi is very similar to fishing for pike, now there is another rabbit hole

I have to admit I will be going down more natural route as well once I get a bit better with CAD I am planning on a whitefish profile since so many of the lakes we fish have whitefish. I am using this drawing as a template

 

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Personally I think you can achieve better results using this style of profile over your prototype. It will be easier to weight vs the thin tail on your prototype that the hook/hardware will make it want to sink vs float

Consider how the different shapes cut through the water or provide resistance. How you can funnel pressure towards lips/faces. Points of a shape that will be more buoyant. Or wide curved belly that can generate lift in the tail section. Shape also plays a roll on how a lure acts on the pause 

if you think about it you can can do small tweaks to natural shapes even 

Just something to think about 

 

2 hours ago, aulrich said:

The Aussies I had totally forgot about them,  as I understand it fishing for barramundi is very similar to fishing for pike, now there is another rabbit hole

I have to admit I will be going down more natural route as well once I get a bit better with CAD I am planning on a whitefish profile since so many of the lakes we fish have whitefish. I am using this drawing as a template

 

 

[aulrich]

So I modeled up a new version, and it's a lot thicker with a noticeable taper, but I did mess up the taper on the tail and ended up with an edge.  The wire harness slot needs to be at least twice as thick. I designed in a bigger weight hole sized for a 3/8 steel slingshot. At this point I am trying to use really common items for ballast since I want to post finished designs. 

The nice thing about CAD is being able to go to a save point and fork a different version

 

Hillbilly, I will be doing a bomber long a KO for a more traditional  shape, I am currently on a deep profile kick.

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Best of luck Aulrich and if you find any issues making a profile swim you are welcome to pick my brain 

I have two injection molds from epic bait molds and a dual injector getting shipped too me at the moment so I may have questions I could use your help regarding soft baits soon 

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Oh and the new design looks like it has a more user friendly lip slot location 

[aulrich]

Absolutely Hillbilly, what kind of molds?  I have the 8 cavity do-it ripper mold that Santa brought me. But between my reno's and my kids reno's my garage is in an serous state of disarray (think tornado) so I have not shot it yet, never even managed one ice fish this year.

The next version is on the printer now, to be able to go back in the timeline with CAD and adjust stuff is very powerful.

Just need some soft water for testing.

I am actually thinking that the first lure may still work, the basic layout is very similar to a grandma lure

 

 

 

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Oh your first lure will work it is just a matter of matching tie point location, lip design and correct weight 

like I said I have made a very similar crankbait 

everything has been a mess here as well. I had two deaths in the family. Dealing with my moms estate without a will and all the other stuff that goes with it during Covid. My whole house got Covid resulting in temporary heart issues for my son too

2021 and the start of 2022 sucked basically 

For molds I ordered 2 from epic bait molds. The 5.6 prey bait paddle tail swimbait and the 8.25 ribbon tail swimbait. The last mold is a combo injection/hand pour.

Still need a mold for jerk bait tails and who knows where it will go from there 

[aulrich]

Sorry to hear of your losses, my condolences to you and yours.

An 8" ribbon tail I'll have to look that up, there has been a couple of epic mold I just about pulled the trigger on.

Pulled the last version of the printer last night, the front of the bait was too narrow so I did an adjustment and V9 is on the printer. I did a little poking around in the properties of the model and once printed the body has the density of the light side of the pine range.

With luck this body will be worth water testing so the next todo is printing some lips. With luck my style of printer won't suck too much for printing lips I am hoping I can get away with a dab of hot melt glue to tack in the lips so I can cycle between styles and sizes.

 

 

 

[RiverSmallieGuy]

19 hours ago, Hillbilly voodoo said:

Oh your first lure will work it is just a matter of matching tie point location, lip design and correct weight 

like I said I have made a very similar crankbait 

everything has been a mess here as well. I had two deaths in the family. Dealing with my moms estate without a will and all the other stuff that goes with it during Covid. My whole house got Covid resulting in temporary heart issues for my son too

2021 and the start of 2022 sucked basically 

For molds I ordered 2 from epic bait molds. The 5.6 prey bait paddle tail swimbait and the 8.25 ribbon tail swimbait. The last mold is a combo injection/hand pour.

Still need a mold for jerk bait tails and who knows where it will go from there 

Hey man, I am sorry for all of your losses. I hope you can get through it alright. I fully understand losses, I lost my mother when I was 10, that was 5 years ago, but I still think about it every day. DM me if you need to talk man.

[Hillbilly voodoo]

2 hours ago, aulrich said:

Sorry to hear of your losses, my condolences to you and yours.

An 8" ribbon tail I'll have to look that up, there has been a couple of epic mold I just about pulled the trigger on.

Pulled the last version of the printer last night, the front of the bait was too narrow so I did an adjustment and V9 is on the printer. I did a little poking around in the properties of the model and once printed the body has the density of the light side of the pine range.

With luck this body will be worth water testing so the next todo is printing some lips. With luck my style of printer won't suck too much for printing lips I am hoping I can get away with a dab of hot melt glue to tack in the lips so I can cycle between styles and sizes.

 

 

 

My opinion don’t throw away the blanks you have printed. Attach some hardware and try some different lips simply pressure fit. Give them a test swim you might be pleasantly surprised

[Hillbilly voodoo]

Don’t worry about me It’s life good or bad you deal with it and keep moving forward. 

[BTL]

Did you have to send in a CAD file to have these baits printed, or did you just describe what you wanted? Been thinking of doing the same thing. I make resin lures but I want some new masters to make molds with.

[aulrich]

No, fusion has an export function that makes a shape file and then I take that shape file and use a program called cura and that program "slices" the shape and generates gcode (the standard code for any CNC type operation) and then print it on my printer. There are printing services but printers like I have are pretty cheap now.

[aulrich]

It's looking more like a lure.  In keeping with the printed lures I printed the lip it took 25 min to print but that is to be expected when you go for solid. The stuff it surprisingly stiff.  Added the wire harness and the ballast (3/8" slingshot bearing). Still need to do a top coat on the wire slot with bondo. Then seal it and a swim test to see if it is worth painting.

[Aaron856]

Looks good! Hope it works out right!