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The round head of tube bait is obtained by the concave shaped cork that close one end of PVC pipe. You have to chose a cork with an external diameter that fit without any clearance the inner diameter of pipe. You can shape the concave with a round grindstone. Finally let seall the cork with the working tape. The thickness will be not the same in all length, but thicker in portion close to the head and thinner where you will cut the stripes of the tail. The results are really performing tube baits ... that catch Pikes. Bye Cami

Dear Eastman03, as said unfortunally there are anymore the 2 vids and I'm no the guy who showed this simple technique (I usually make 4" tube dipping rods) The first hyphotesis is the right one: 1) tap the PVC pipe with the concave cork 2) lube the inner side of PVC pipe 3) pour hot plastisol for around the half of PVC pipe length 4) start to rotate the PVC pipe with an angle more than 45° ... more horizontal the pipe is, more long the tube will be - I apologise but I really don't remember if "Il Gatto" closed also the other side of pipe. I think not 5) cool the PVC pipe under a current fresh water tap 6) with the thin rod (a stiff pc o wire) detach the tube from the PVC pipe - the rod must be used between the external skin of tube and the internal wall of pipe ... simple, but for sure a little bit dangerous: when you put the PVC pipe under the fresh water, using thermal gloves of course, you must be really careful that no one drop of water can enter inside the pipe. Bye Cami

Before you cut that wood master, you could mold it to make multiple masters. That way you can experiment on where to make the cut for the molding of the two halves. The original sketch looks like 60% resin front half and 40% paddle tail. The longer the paddle tail section the more it can flex and kick. If you mold 3 masters from the one uncut master, you could try a 50/50 or 40/60 ratio of front-to-back sections in addition to 60/40 sketch.

Hi, I would like to suggest this old thread The original link to the Italian Site is http://www.bassmaster.it/a_tube.htm Unfortunally it isn't more possible to see the 2 videos on youtube. Anyway, the trick to obtain such big tubes is to fill hot plastisol inside the rigid PVC pipe and rotate it sliding the plastisol for all its length. After some rotations you have to cool the PVC pipe with current fresh water ... simple. Important: you must wear heat gloves, glasses, long suites Please, let me know your experience with this technique and ask if you need. Bye Cami

Looking at your bait I'm thinking the "Big Hammer" style (wide tail with big kick) swimbait tail would be a good fit . You can purchase and try different style swimbaits (tails) a lot faster than you can prototype your own . Once you determine which one swims the way you want you can pattern your tail mold loosely based on the one that works best for you .

section before the tail, fat if you want to effect the whole bait, skinny if you want just the tail to move without affecting the front of the bait. I personally use both depending on what the fish want.

Thanks SlowFISH I will go with my original plan of cutting a tail from lexan for the master and go wider