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2 nice failures


rofish
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Thought I would make a crankbait with a BB rattle at about where the eyes are. I designed a shape which is tall at the head area, to accommodate everything inside. I made 2 identical lures as size and shape, but they differ as construction process. One is a one piece lure, with drilled holes for twisted wires and lead, and the other one is the sandwich type, but not through wired. Using a Dremel type rotary machine, I made grooves for the wires on both parts of the sandwich type. I tried many shapes of lips with these 2 lures, but no one gave any of them a true action. The lures would lean on one side on retrieve, and changing sides from time to time.

I tested the lures in pot of water. They lean on one side. If I push the lure on the other side, the steel ball inside would go to the other end of the metal tube, causing the lure to lean on the other side. The angles are equal, so the lures are well balanced, but the steel ball is too high up in the lure. The one with the tow eye at the tip of the nose tends to almost have a good action, but shortly after a good start, will lean on one side.

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@ rofish

Make them about 1/3 to 1/2 of body width wider at about 1/3 to 2/5 the length from the nose , off course you also need to taper the body down the tail and nose . Also try to round off(taper) the belly a little more than the back .

This way the body would gain more sideward stability and also buoancy , thus you can put more ballast to help it swim upright all of the time .

Also place the rattle at thickest part of body , possibly on center line(where the lateral line would be) or even slighly below(towards belly) , if possible .

good luck , diemai:yay:

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Diemai,

All my crankbaits are rounded at the belly area and shoulders. More to the belly area than shoulders. These are quite tall, I think they are the tallest I have made yet, compared to their thickness.

As to the rattle at the middle area of the lure, this is just the thing I want to avoid. I have made such lures, but the steel ball does not seem to have any action at all, because the rattle is situated at the place where the lure does not move sideways, or just barely moves. (this is the "X"-ing point of the lure. So the steel ball inside the tube does not have the chance to move left and right, to make the sound.

This is exactly the reason why I try to figure out ways to place the rattle where the lure would have the most action, and this means head and tail. I have made another crankbait with the rattle outside the body. Almost ready. After testing, I will upload a picture.

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@ rofish

My homemade rattles of brass tubing always have two steelballs inside , during a test I have once found out , that these provide more noise compared to just one or even three balls inside !

Probably you should mount your rattles to a differnt kinda lure , one with a more sideward rolling action , ........I have never had problems with rattles not working , if located at about the center of gravity ,...........but I guess , that your lures are more subtle than mine , too ?

good luck

:yay:, Dieter

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Dieter,

Let me explain.

I think that in 95% of the crankbaits I make, I use wood with a thickness of 14 mm. The metal tube I use for rattles, has about 6 mm for the inner diameter, and is 8-9 mm long. The steel ball I use is small, just 4 mm in diameter. I found out that if I use a bigger ball, the sound of the rattle is not louder. And I cannot use 2 balls for such a small thickness of wood, because the balls would not have enough room to travel, to gain momentum and smash the metal discs glued at both ends of the tube.

Most fishermen try to hear the sound of their crankbaits with a rattle by shaking their crankbaits sideways (moving the whole lure left and right, following parallel positions). The result is that they hear a loud sound, and they are very satisfied. I did this too, in the beginning, after installing a rattle in the middle of the lure.

But a crankbait does not act this way in water.

Make the following test. Take one of your crankbaits with a rattle, keep it from above, in the middle of the crankbait, using 2 of your left hand fingers, and with your right hand move the nose of the lure left and right, as if the lure would wobble, so this would be an action much more closer to the real action a crankbait has in water. Will you hear the sound anymore? I doubt it.

You can change the location of the fingers of your left hand, to see in which case you can hear the rattle the best. I can already tell you that if you keep your crankbait by the tail hook hanger, your rattle will work best. But again, this situation does not happen in water. The "X"-ing point of the lure (where the balancing point is) is situated somewhere in the middle of the lure, so that part of the lure hardly has any action at all in water.

So what I try to do, is to place the rattle as close to the nose or tail as possible, so that the steel ball is smashed into the ends of the metal tube every time the lure ends move from left to right or back again. And I think there are many factors to be considered here. The length the ball has to travel, the speed by which the crankbait ends change direction (tight or large wobble), etc. Practically you have to fit the construction of the rattle with the action and size of your lure, and this is a hard thing to achieve. The only feasable method I can think of is trial and error.

So do not rely on the roll of your lures to make a rattle work. And the roll alone will not smash the ball. What if you screw up things an make a crankbait without a roll ? :lol:

Cheers

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@ Rofish

Off course I see point in your statements , a rattle placed away from the pivot point of a lure's "X"ing wobble is more likely to work , but also more likely to take the lure out of balance .

I did not notice , that your lures are that small ,...... talkin'bout mine with rattles inside I refered to a body width of at least 20 mm , ........certainly you won't have space enough for longer "2ball" rattles on your smaller lures .

Concerning rattle testing , .......I always do it in my bath tub , the water inside and it's bowl shape amplify the sound , and I guess , that this would be more like the fish outdoors might sense it , too:? ???

greetz:yay: , Dieter

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