You Live and You Learn

[Yake Bait]

Unfortunately, after several hours of foiling, epoxy, and painting this bait is a dud. It is unstable when cranking through the water and tends to want to blow out to one side or the other. Not sure what went wrong but I did make the lip more vertical than some of my other cranks. Interested in any theories of what I didn't do right - possibly not too late to make a modificaton?

http://www.tackleunderground.com/photos/index.php?n=610

That's two baits in a row that have not turned out (action wise) what I had hoped Good thing my pool just thawed out cause I'm tank testing everything before finishing from now on. Hopefully by next winter I will have a better feel for do's and dont's.

[LaPala]

All factors in lure making are interrelated. So more info will be needed for diagnostic.

Size, length, thickness, weight placement, wood type, front view so we can see the lip shape & size etc...

[Yake Bait]

10" long by 2 1/4" deep by 3/4" wide. Weight is placed behind the front hook. Wood type is cedar. Lip dimensions are 2 1/4 long by 1 1/2 wide. Requested photos are attached.

Thanks

[Tally]

Not sure what went wrong but I did make the lip more vertical than some of my other cranks.

You probably anwered your own question. If the baits ran good before the modification.....there you go. Man, the width of that lip is huge....what size is it?

[Yake Bait]

The lexan stock that I use is 7/32" thick. I like the heavier lexan for the larger baits.

[tinman]

I have a jointed cedar plug with a similar lip angle on. It was my first hardbait attempt. It's an unweighted trolling type. Completely different desing than yours. I ended up shortening the lip & rounding off the corners. The wide square lips seem to give that wide side to side wobble. Rounding it seems to give them more roll. Maybe someone else will have some other suggestions before you get that radical with it, though.

Lately I've been using aluminum lips on my musky lures. My Dad used to (many years ago) work in a sign shop, so I've got a life time supply. Super durable, And also, somewhat adjustable. Like that kinda subtle flash, too.

Great looking finish on yours. Very nice!

[Tally]

sorry I meant the thickness

[LaPala]

Lip angle looks okay but the lip looks positively crooked from front view. Could try tow eye right on the nose too.

[Yake Bait]

You are right LaPala - the lip is installed crooked. Didn't see that before but I sure do now. I had some trouble with my epoxy soaking into the wood grain of the lip slot while installing so I quick made a little more. By the time I put the lip in the epoxy was already getting stiff.

I may try to take some material off the lip to flatten it out at the bottom and see what that does for me. Thanks for the observation!

[Tally]

That's two baits in a row that have not turned out (action wise) .

so is the other lip crooked as well? the crooked lip may not be the only factor

[fatfingers]

If the body of the bait is not too wide, you may be able to lay the lip on a tabletop beltsander and remove the excess from the one side.

Additionally, you might try this:

Take a piece of thick flat wood and cut a slot in it the same as the thickness of the polycarbonate that you used.

Place the lip in the slot in the wood. Get it in there about 3/8 of an inch and get it in there nice and square.

Boil some water in a wide pan.

Place the lip and the block of wood under the surface of the boiling water for about 3 or 4 minutes. It should soften the lexan enough that you can bend the tip forward in the same direction that the bait runs (in other words, forward).

I'll post a photo of this later, if I have time. You are essentially locking the tip of the lip in the slot on the block of wood to hold if firmly so you can bend the bait after heating it in the boiling water. (Torches and other heat sources will often scorch the polycarbonate to the point where it bubbles and distorts...looks ugly even if you bend if properly.)

If that works, you might be pleasantly surprised at how much correction you can get; maybe enough to salvage the bait as a winner.

When you're done the lip will look similar to the lip you see on Rapala SuperShads.

But you must grind down the once side of the lip, no matter what. That imbalance is usually not forgiven by the water.

[Yake Bait]

Tally,

Other bait was a glider and was made with 3/4" thick wood, should have used thicker wood for a bait that size.

Fingers,

I think I follow what you are suggesting with regard to bending the lip and I am familiar with the Supershad. Where woudl you suggest making the bend?

Can't believe that I glued it in crooked like that then spent the extra time on the foil finish. Really hope I can get this bait to swim decent.

[Tigger]

Pete I hope it works for you. That is a sweet bait! I love the sucker pattern. That's a catcher if you get it straighten out.

[Yake Bait]

Tigger,

I owe a lot of credit to you (on the finish not the lip). I used the foil tutorial that you put up on another website. Worked great!

[fatfingers]

Pete, you can sometimes make a bad lure good, or a good lure better by proper lip selection, or altering the lip after installation, if necessary.

First you might consider using thinner lexan, because to a pretty high degree a thinner lexan lip will give you a tighter vibration and is a bit more forgiving. Also if you have to shave (grind off) one side or the other, or the front of the lip to tune the bait, a thinner lip shaves cleaner and easier.

1/8 lexan is incredibly strong stuff on a musky bait if the lip is properly secured during installation, and the epoxy is allowed the appropriate curing time.

I've torture tested a lot of them on rocks during high speed trolling and have yet to have one separate from the bait,break, shatter, or even chip. Fish up to 44 inches have had no effect on the lip integrity at all, and I'm confident that no musky will have any effect on them. We've purposely tried to twist them off a few baits and couldn't budge them.

I know its a matter of opinion, and I'm not telling you how to build your baits, but I would only use lexan that thick on a bait over 14 or 15 inches long. This year, I'm experimenting with larger baits using 1/16 inch lexan. Keep in mind that larger is a relative term, and generally, I think that larger baits only produce in certain conditions for musky (not a topic I wish to address on this thread; just my opinion after nearly two decades of musky fishing and only on my local waters, not Canada, or elsewhere).

1/16 inch lexan may be another story, but if the line tie is not attached to the lip, and is instead attached to the nose or forehead of the bait, the lexan lip is under much less stress, when a fish is hooked because he's not pulling on the lip.

I only use 1/16 for those bait configurations (line tie screweye on the nose), and most of the time, only for baits that I won't be racking off the bottom rock structures in an attempt to trigger a strike (which is a very effective tactic on some waters). I have a lot of confidence in 1/16 inch lexan under those specs.

Here's one of the jigs I use to bend polycarbonate in boiling water:

I made it by simply making a 1/8 inch cut on the table saw so that the cuts are perpindicular/square and thus allow the bend to be as accurate as possible. Of course if the bend isn't square to the rest of the lip or the body of the bait, the bait will tend to veer one way or the other.

Note the burn marks on the jig. I spent considerable time experimenting with a heat gun and a torch and concluded that the boiling water is far less inclined to damage or distort the lip material.

Here's a minnow bait that I bent:

Before bending:

After bending. The lip was actually attached to the bait during the bending process since I wanted to tweak the action of this completed bait:

[fatfingers]

I forgot to add that after you heat the lip in the boiling water you can bend it with your fingers since its held firmly by the wooden jig shown above. Sometimes I wear a pair of cotton gloves during the bending process, sometimes not. Lexan does not conduct that much heat so it softens a bit, but isn't too awfully hot to the touch, but be careful and use your best judgement. Of course clear your work area near the stove because boiling water is unforgiving if you dump it by accident.

After bending the lip, run it under cold water and its sets permanently in that bent position. You have about 30 to 60 seconds after you get it out of the water to make the bend, so don't rush. The worst that can happen is you have to heat it again and bend it again if you don't get it right the first time.

[Vodkaman]

My humble opinion is that the lip is too long. The vortex low pressure behind the lip is greater than the rest of the bodies water resistance. This causes the body to want to tip forward until the loads are balanced. My guess is gravity takes over from this point and the raised weight of the lure swings to the bottom, thus the lure rolls out of control. This could be tested out by rigging a temporary eye location about 5mm down the lip.

When I create a new lure, the first prototype has a line eye sticking out about 10mm. This allows me to explore the ballast, eye, lip combinations. By bending the eye up or down I can find the best geometry.

[scoop10]

I would try narrowing the lip, especially from the point where it meets the nose on back (into the body of the bait). From the experimenting that I've done, the more lip material there is at the side of the bait 9 (from nose to eye), the more apt you are to get a bait that will not run true.

As Tally implied, the crooked lip probably isn't your only problem, or even THE problem. (If it was, many of Ed Chambers' baits would never run true -- or catch all them hogs.)

Having lip material past the nose may be a way to create a bait that hunts, but it's also a way to get one that will be all over the place.

[Yake Bait]

I am happy to say that this bait now swims like a champ!!!

The solution was 2-fold. Lip installation was a factor and was corrected by reshaping using a palm sander. By itself, this wasn't the total solution and after sanding off about 3/16" from the lip bottom, there wasn't much left to try the bending technique so I kept experimenting.

After observing that the bait blew out worse without hooks lead me to conclude that weight distribution was also a problem (this question was raised in the other thread). This gave me enough confidence to drill out a new hole and add 1/2 oz of lead low on the belly just forward of the middle hook. This improved the action noticeably so I then added another 1/2 oz of lead in between the front and middle hooks (again low on the belly) which improved action even further.

The bait will now swim with a rolling wobble and can be twitched nicely. With all the lead (total of about 2 3/4 oz), the bait has a slow rise with a nice wiggle on the pause. This is not a trolling bait as it will still blow out at high speeds. I believe that more lead low on the bait would improve stability further but would result in a near neutral or sinking bait which I wanted to avoid.

A little 5 min epoxy filled the lead holes and some white touch up paint on the belly will hopefully hide my sins. Although I was frustrated by the mistake, the learning experience was well worth it and this experience can be built into future baits. I want to give credit to all those who replied on this thread as well as the gallery thread. Gave me plenty of ammo and encouragement to keep at it and make this bait a winner.

Thanks