Mr.J.

Since this thread has popped up again I'll fill you in on how it has been going. I have yet to use glass rattles but I have tried both the brass and plastic. I would turn my lure Then drill hole, insert rattle and back fill with epoxy When epoxy is cursed I would put the lure back onto the lathe and use sandpaper to smooth it out Works good so far

Sounds like it is worth a try Heck I have made some attempts before, some worked out and many didn't But I learn more from my failures then success It's on my to do list (along with many others ) Thanks guys

I'm seriously considering adding glass rattles to my wood lures but I'm wondering if I put them into the wood body before turning the wood on the lathe may make them smash to pieces. Because of the shape of the pure I don't see it being do-able after turning the wood. So, shape lure, bore holes, insert glass rattle, turn wood on lathe would be my procedure. Anyone have any experience doing this? Does the high speed make the ball bearings shatter the glass? I have some plastic and some metal rattles that should be ok but in my mind I suspect glass rattles would give off better lure sound.

Consider yourself lucky to have so many to choose from Up North Here we only have LureMaking.com Try Moores Lures, great costomer service. I know I would if it wasn't for the exchange and $5 duty

Ottawa sucker? Tea colored water? Got to be talking the Big O Walleye colors have put a 47 in my boat.

Get the metal ones at the dollar store You can bend the metal ones and have it line up with your lure very easily Glad I could help

I don't have any pics of the results but I use a spatula Awesome

I'm pretty sure I understand what is happening. I've seen where the router bit hits right at the grain of the wood. I bet if you look at the split it is right at the grain. Even if is not a little trick that may help you. Put a scrap piece of wood at the end of your working piece, thus now your working piece has no end. OMG it even sounds confusing to me. Ok, take a 1 x 1 pice of wood. Now put a scrap piece on the end. The scrap piece is now the end of your working wood and who cares if the router chunks it out. I know what I am talking about but I am even confusing myself reading this reply. Sorry guys not the most articulate pencil in the box.

Teeth marks are a good thing. All musky guys love to pull out a lure from their box and show their buddies the one that's all chewed up. If I sold one of my lures and it got all beat up from the fish it caught then I would have a repeat customer, but if I sold a lure and no fish were caught and it was all beat up I would have a very bad reputation. My point? Musky guys are ok with hook rash and teeth marks and they always expect trolling will beat up the lures but musky guys get really upset spending $20 - $50 a lure and it is toast without getting a fish. OK D.T. seems you've got our attention. I've started using an industrial clear coat recently. 2 coats and so far no teeth nor hooks have made any significant impact on the integrity of this clearcoat, BUT, it has a very short working time (about 20 minutes) so I cannot clear coat more than 2 lures at a time. What kind of working time is your clearcoat?

IMHO any one coat clearcoat would be awesome but hard to believe for musky lures. A couple of nights ago the bite was just off, late summer heat wave put the fish completely off the bite so we tried a hard agressive troll at over 6mph. I would be more than impressed if a single coat could withstand a troll at this speed. I have 3 coats of an industrial clear coat and it came out with some pretty good hook rash after that beating Now if it was that good as a single coat then I could live with the none 1:1 mixing ratio. There are musky guys here that will tell you all of our wooden lures take a real beating so we always multicoat, so forgive us if we come across sceptical (nothing personal of course)

I have been making my lures (Pike/Musky) exclusivley out of Poplar. I like this wood because of it's ease to turn on the lathe. No issues long term yet but I do try and go with a minimum 2 top coats, I wish I could go with more but I just can't wait to use my new creations and I take them fishing right away. I'm going to make a couple using different woods like oak and maple So thumbs up from me on poplar P.S. My friends who also make their own musky lures call poplar garbage wood.

I have tried many different top coats and with each different brand/type thick coats will give you lumps and thin coats will not A word of caution, yes the coat can be too thin and in that case you will get craters (or pockets) as the clear coat hardens it pulls on itself thus leaving voids. Practice practice practice

Funny this thread should come up again I've started to mix with more windex, almost at 50 - 50 and prefer the results better. Less clogging and just back off the pressure and stay with thin coats and you are good to go. Most important is that at a higher ratio the air brush almost cleans itself. Now trolling for musky at 4 - 5 mph there isn't a fish in the world that can get that good of a look at your lure so who really cares what the paint job looks like.

With musky there are a few things that must be followed. 1, Leave the fish in the net and in the water 2, Remove hooks before handling and while the fish is still in the water 3, Always be on guard, a 4/0 5/0 or 6/0 hook can cause some serious pain. 4, Have a good set of bolt cutters and cut the hooks when required 5, Musky are big mean fish. always respect the fish and you won't need bandaides