squirrel3495

Was thinking about this post this morning and one other thing came to mind. Make sure your ballast is only in the lower half of your bait. For instance, If I'm looking at a side profile, I would never drill a ballast hole up further than a line drawn from nose to tail. Ballast higher than that will cause the bait to lean. Just another thought.

The bait it self looks very good. My first bet would be the eye to eye joint. Change that to a eye/pin and i'll bet the problem goes away. Only other thing I would check it the ballast. My baits are more to my liking when I ballast the sections separate.

I've been using Alumilite Flex 30. I really like it so far. Just as soft as worm plastic but won't tear under normal fishing conditions like the slammer tails. Downside is that it is a honey color. I've use smooth on so strong to color it red and black they worked great. They don't make silver. Going to try the alumilite metallic powder. I put in in a toaster over at 150 deg and it cures in about 3 hours.

I bought it off amazon. Don't really know how I got along without it! 10 bucks well spent.

OK Mark, You have got me to revisit PVC. Last year I was fishing till dark, jamming home, carving, painting, rigging then pretty much right back to the lake! There was not much time for sleep. A fast build is going to be a must for this spring. I searched and read a lot of your posts on the subject. But some were from 2012-2013 and was wondering if maybe some things have change. Are you still sealing with the super glue to keep it from bubbling the paint? Looking at the vintage woodworking site, there seems to be a few different choices, plus traditional finish vs. wood grain. Is there one exact one you prefer? The s-waver you recently made had a screw eye to hinge pin connection I believe? How do you think this will hold up on a large swimbait, say 10" 5-6 oz.

I faced this exact problem. I solved it just like Mark said. Making sure that each section falls horizontal by themselves. If more ballast is in the head to compensate for the tail, I ran into all kinds of problems.

I cut mine on a table saw. I draw or trace the shape of the lure onto the wood. Then mark where I want the joint. Then cut almost half way through, flip it over, run it on the other side. The bait stays whole, then I finish the cuts after I finish shaping. That way, there always even and exactly the same.

Mark, I have tried clear plasti dip with poor results keeping the coat even over the whole bait even with rotating. Could you elaborate on the liquid tape you used and how it holds up. Skinning my baits has been an unsuccessful adventure so far.

Restricting the joint is probably a bad choice of words. Any little irregularity in the joint will make it stick, even if it only sticks every 20 or 30 glides it will happen when a nice fish is eyeballing it. I've had it happen more than once. Cleaning the joint up and making sure it is free and clean, even after paint is one of those other little things I mentioned. One of the very last things I do is epoxy in the hinge pin, this way after I paint the bait, I can pull it apart and clean the screw eyes and slots. IMO, Length of glide (from side to side) is directly effected by the amount of degrees the hinge allows the head to turn. A large degree of turn from the tail will make the bait spin in a tight circle. A smaller degree of turn causes the bait to turn in a much wider circle which is what we see as a wide glide. The bait just does not have enough momentum to finish the circle. Then you pull again and it tries to make a large circle in the other direction.

I've only used urethane and fiber tails and have not notice any real difference in action. I will say I stop using lexan because of the extra "clacking" sound it makes, but that was long before I made my first glide.

There are a lot of little things that can affect glide action. But I have found, restricting the joint to less than 30 deg of movement, making the front section longer than the tail section, keeping the bait ballasted as low as possible and making them a very, very slow sink usually produces a bait with a very nice glide that gets a lot of attention. There are a lot of other factors, but those three have had the most effect for me. ok. 4.

Just took the San Francisco Mud Hole class for beginning rod builders. I would recommend it anyone who is about to start out. I probably could have learned everything in the class from youtube, but it would have taken weeks if not months and a lot of trial and error. Not sure if I would have had the patience to stick with it on my own. The instructors were right there when you screwed up, to help you out. The class really was enjoyable.

How long and wide is the slalom bait. 2.2 oz seems light compared to the bait I make. I use poplar. at 9 in long, I get a good action at around 100 grams. If I get much under 100 grams, the baits will sit right in the water but will bust the surface with any type of forward pull. My bait pre ballast is right around 50g. Hope it helps

Thank you Vodkaman. I never thought about it being weaker. I guess I should add all the baits I've poured with this have been larger than 6 inches. I never thought of it being weaker at the bond, but this could be a problem with smaller baits. If I can find a reject, I'll smash it and see were the fractures are. Anglinarcher, good call with the body types. My mind only processes swimbaits I guess. Thanks for the info on the foam, would have never thought of it. I going to try it, because I freakin hate mixing microballons. This will be a great shortcut.

Ok here goes. I'll use the bait I just worked on to try to be understandable. I hope. The bait is a 10" 2 peice glide. 2" wide, 4.5" tall. It weighs 283g with two treble hooks and split rings. The bait is poured with smooth cast 300 and I used alumilite microballons. It sinks at approximately 1' in 3 seconds in 62 degree water, but I make it as floater as well just using more microballons on top section. The head section weighs 170g and is poured with 25ml of microballons. The tail weighs 105g and is poured with 15ml of microballons. The reason for diffrent sections was to make the bait sit head up. My thinking was the bait would rise back up to the surface when pulled like a feeding trout. But keeping the ratio the same obviously keeps the bait level. My main concern when I started was would there be a line between the two diffrent resins which would have to be sanded. I can say that after several hundred baits, I have never found a noticable line between the resins. There is a slight color varation so you can tell where each resin set, this has been a good thing though because I have used it to ajust the ratio between the non mb and mb sections based on preformance. Pouring the head section. I mix 180g of resin. 90g of side a, 90g of side b. I don't mix them yet. Then I cut them by .6363 I pour 115g with out mb's. This will be the bottom of the bait. Which is oriented normaly and has 1 pour spout on the back and one vent. I pour the resine in the mold. Then I mix the left over 65g with 25 ml of MB's and pour. Takes about 2-3 min. Which I think lets the first resin start to set and keeps them from mixing. Same with the tail section. 110g of resin. 55 of a, 55 of b. 70g without MB's and pour. Mix 40g with 15ml of MB's pour. I poured this exact bait, with Mb's in all of the resin, I took 27g of ballast to get the same rate of fall. It's a big heavy bait, but cutting over 1oz out and still having the same action and fall, is a plus for me. I've probably made it sound way more complicated that it is. I have to say, when I first started experimenting with this idea, I found it to have a really wide margin of error. As long as I had the more bouyant resin on top, the bait oriented correctly and If I had to I could add ballast to ajust. But it was usually just a split shot or two, nothing close to what I was using before. One of the reasons I tried this was to get away from having to fix ballast holes, I could never get them to match the texture of the rest of the bait. When I would sand, I would always end up exposing bubbles just under the skin of the resin. So another thing I tried and found to work was pouring the bait belly up. This allowed me to pour the section with the MB's first, the pure resin second. I found that the bubbles in the first (with MB's) float up, away from the back of the bait and the second pure (belly) has far less bubbles because of no MB's. I feel this made my castings much better. I've probably made it sound way more complicated that it is. I have to say, when I first started experimenting with this idea I found it to have a really wide margin of error. As long as I had the more bouyant resin on top, the bait oriented correctly and If I had to I could add ballast to ajust. But it was usually just a split shot or two, nothing close to what I was using before. That's about it. Thanks to all TU members for all the knowledge and inspiration. Squirrel

It's worked very well for me. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on a post if nobody was interested. I'll make a more detailed post tonight after I get the kids to sleep.

Sorry in advance if someone has already mentioned this method, but I don't recall it being discussed and I used the search key. When pouring my resin baits, ballasting was always one of the hardest factors to nail down. Plus filling the holes was always a pain. A few years back, I came up with a method that I now use on all my resin baits. I pour two separate resin mixes into the mold. As a rough approximation, I pour the lower 2/3 of the bait with no microballons, thus making it more dense that water. I add microballons to the top 1/3 making it less dense than water. The bait always orients vertically without any added weight, drilling and filling. There is no line between the two different resins in the finished bait. Only a slight color variation. An additional benefit is that the bait ends up weighing less than if I use lead for ballast. sometimes as much as 10% less. A big deal on a 10" bait. I know this is not the greatest explanation, but I hope it might help.

Have you thought about using a pond liner. You could frame with 2x4's and then lay in the liner. Can be bought in pretty much any size and I don't think the price would be much more that fiberglass resin. Plus, you could take it a part if you ever wanted. Just a thought.

I agree, I don't ballast the last sections of my baits. They end up being small and the amount of ballast would be just a small amount compared to the overall bait. I you try to add equal amounts in all sections, the smaller, less buoyant ones will have the action killed and just drag behind. From my experience, If I get the front section right, then the second. The others will fall in line with the action that is imparted on them from the first two. As long as they are not over weighted, under weighted or cause to much drag. So I guess I make them "Neutral". If your third section swims without the tail added, my first thought would be your tail is causing to much drag. If you post a pic of the tail, you would probably get a lot of good info on it.

Location of the weight in the first section can also have a great influence on the type of swimming action the bait has. Putting the ballast just in front of the first joint will generally make the bait swim with its head from side to side. Locating the ballast further towards the line tie will make the head stay much more still and the swimming action will be in the body. (Like a snake swimming). Both are good actions just depends on what you are looking for. I personally feel the ballast near the line tie makes a much more natural swim and the ballast near the first joint makes a much more violent swim.

I'm just getting ready to put a scale pattern on a new master and I was watching a video about making scale patterns to brush up before going at it. The video was made by a man name Ed Walicki, who sadly has since pasted away. I've always been able to build lures that worked well mechanical speaking, however artistically I've been extremely handicapped. In an attempt to become better, I found Ed's website Fishcarver.com. There was a lot of free information on his site about carving and painting fish and some tools and videos for purchase. With a lot of learned patience and good info from this site and Ed's I can now claim to make a lure that looks more like a fish than a 2x4. Anyway, don't recall every hearing him mentioned so I thought I would bring it up as there has been a few posts on carving lately. Oh yeah, I believe the site is still being run by his wife, so it should be up to date.

When making a one piece mold, I skin coat the master with RTV then hit it with heat. This will pop most of the bubbles near the master. If you let the skin coat dry some, when you fill with the rest of the RTV the bubbles that are under the master will not be able to get near the master and effect the mold. This little trick has made a big difference in the overall quality of my molds.

Powerworm, Thats exactly what they seemed like. I can't believe I have never seen anything similar with all of my 1000's of trips to the hardware store for this hobby. They were so handy. Vodkaman: I disturbs me you were able to find that so quickly!!!!

A couple years ago, I was at a bass tournament. One of the non-boaters was removing his rods from his pro's boat and he had them all wrapped together. I struck up a conversation with him because I had never seen anyone carry their rods in this manner. The wraps were soft plastic or foam on the outside and a bendable metal on the inside. He just took on wrap and twisted it around the lower section of the rods and it held them all together, same thing for the top. I recall them to be about 12" long and they were multicolored. He told me the name of them and that he bought them at his local hardware store but I can't remember for the life of me. I have also scoured the local hardware stores in my area with no luck.