Brug-Man

My personal favorite is a good wood carving knife for the balsa. I have tried the scroll saw but one thing I feel that it lacks is getting the feel for your bait, I am not sure how to explain what I am talking about. But I have done them on a scroll saw before, but much rather take a block of balsa and carve it out only using the knife.

I don't really have a direct answer for you, I can just tell you what I have been doing and everyone so far works perfect. I utilize finesse weight also, but 1/16 and I also use a 1/16 cotter pin for my hook hanger. I just recently finished a balse crank bait that I carved and placed a 1/16 weight in the very bottom of the belly and a 1/16 weight on the ass end with the other hook hanger, the bait is 2inchs long without the bill. This amount of weight is perfect, great action, great feel, casting, etc. I have a pool so I just test all my baits right after I prime them, (oil based primer). I carve, install all hardware, prime, test, tweek if needed, then final paint, clear. But the 1/16 weight has been great did the same with a topwater plug 1/16 in the belly hook hanger and 1/16 in the ass end hook hanger, hits the water pops up on the belly in a split second sits beutifully on the top of the water and also great action. One thing I can add is that the wider the body is carved does extremely effect the action also, if the body is to wide or fat then it can have a tendency to spin in wide circles the slimmer the bait the tighter the wiggle! GL

I use balsa exclusively and what I do for all of them is prime with an oil based primer, then come back and paint them with createx paints, then seal everything with two part epoxy (the 2000lb version found at Wallyworld). Now one more thing that I find in balsa is sort of injecting the wood with epoxy. What I mean by this is when I do my hook hangers I use a 1/16 cotter pin and a 1/16 finesse weight. I drill the hole for the weight to go in, it's a tight fit. Then I fill the hole with epoxy and push in the weight with cotter pin and it forces the epoxy further into the wood, I have even had it come out of the back of baits through all the different pores in the wood, makes for a really solid bait, especially when it is topped with the epoxy (rock hard finish). When I use the epoxy for the hook hangers I use the 1500lb epoxy, this one dries in about 10 minutes. I have used this and picked up 25lb dumbells with these hook hangers in balsa before the final epoxy coat, very strong stuff!!

All I actually do is lock my baits on an exacto knife and hand rotate them for about 10-12 minutes then put the exacto handle into my vice and let it sit and my epoxy clear coats come out perfect everytime!

http://www.americanfishes.com/thumbnails.htm this is the one that I got from these forums, just click on the picture, copy, paste it to a photo program and adjust to the size you need!

I bought it from Jann's Netcraft! I got a sheet of Lexan also from Lowes, but I'm not to crazy about the one that I cut out. I don't like the thick edges. I tried to taper them a little but it makes the Lexan real hazy.

I carved this little crankbait! I am gonna do the back with a metallic blue, but I just can't decide on the belly color. Looking for suggestions, give me some!!

I have a question, I see that some of the cranks have the tow-eye on the body and some of them have the tow-eye on the lip. Can you tell me what difference this makes as far as the placement of the tow-eye on body versus the lip. I have a crank that I am just waiting on my shipment of lips to come and would like to know before I install my lips.