Tree_Fish

If you've got a hobby lobby around you can use a 40% off coupon and save some money on your airbrush equipment.

Yes it has an insert in the middle. I paid 82 bucks for mine

Just had an idea, what if you masked the scale while you still had it on the blank? You'd just need a row of crescent shapes cut out of stencil material, move on down the blank with whatever highlight you choose just like you would using the half circle stencil. Or spray the highlights first in rows then adjust your scale to match and shoot transparent enough to see the highlight? I won't be able to get any painting in til next week or I'd try it!

Don't beat yourself up brother, that's a darn good looking bait right there! In fact if ya wanna send it to me I'll "test" it for ya!

I'm really liking the changes I've seen so far. Especially the addition of a gallery and the classifieds to the home page. I think this is much more attractive to new users. Props to ya Kurt!

Bear can still get this mold for you, mine got shipped out today.

+1 I just don't feel right if I'm not throwing a 702 craw, and awesome customer service to boot

I have been told that you can still get one through bear you just have to call and ask. I plan on calling tomorrow to see if I can get one, I'll post and let you know what happened

Your second option will work, just make sure you hold your brush at a consistent angle, it also helps to have a scale material that's a little thicker. Your first option will probably work but you'll have cleaner lines which are harder to fade together. That's a well painted bait, I've done the scales like that but not nearly that close together. Either way you do it I'd bet you have a better chance at it than I do by looking at your sig lol.

Man that thing looks awesome, I definitely want one! Mark if you look at the backers options on the right side of the screen you could have gotten one for 2500 bucks, and he states never at that price again. To pricey for me but man the things you could do with it!

Thanks for the encouragement and advice Matt! While I agree with BobP in the way that it is sometimes best to use what's already been proven to work, taking the easy ( I actually laughed to myself when I wrote easy, we all know nothing concerning swimbaits is easy!) way out is no fun at all! I do like learning and sometimes the only way to do it is to go out on a limb and experiment. I'm not known for being creative but I can usually improve on someone's design or at least get it to work the way I envisioned. I wish I was more creative but that's what I'm stuck with. Really I don't want to break the mold I just want something a little different, and half the fun for me is knowing I put hours and hours into a bait and it looks good and there is nothing else like it out there. Matt has already accomplished this, and even on a commercial level. I agree with Mark that I could never match your works of art

Dadgummit Mark ya always gotta shoot me down!! Lol I'm kidding, of course you are right, I forgot to take into account the offset weight, I still maintain that with a faster retrieve they are not level though. (surely you can let me have that one!) I'll be so glad when I can stop with my meds, it may not stop me from saying dumb shite but it might reduce it lol! Just got my boot off hope the meds wont be too much longer. I think I am going to try a line tie up top and see if it lets me stay level while burning it, and once again thanks for all your help Mark, I owe ya big time bud!

Trial and error is killing me slowly lol, that why I thought I'd ask. I've been through so much pvc its crazy, I'm glad I don't have a wife because I'd surely be catching some flak over my little swimbait craze! I was hoping maybe someone would chime in and say they've done it and it isn't worth the time to mess with it, but I guess not so there's hope that I can get it to work I do usually weight my swimbaits like that and that is generally how I do my line ties as well. The bait cannot stay horizontal during a retrieve because you are retrieving it at an angle. Maybe at rest or on the fall, or a slow shallow retrieve but anything more than that and you are definitely getting an angle, even if it is minute. This is the reason I thought about trying the line tie up top so that the bait would stay horizontal during most of the retrieve. I have a couple of successful lures following the conventional methods, now I guess you could say I'm exploring a bit

I bought the swing head mold, it's pretty sweet. Really needs a smaller insert for the two smallest sizes though. I'm about to order the FB head with the wire keeper, anyone fished those yet?

@ Ben, sorry if I insulted ya, if I did it surely wasn't my intention. Do you mind if I ask what did you expect to be more beneficial about it? Maybe I'm missing something lol it wouldn't be the first time!

It's free floating, those that use this method won't have to worry about getting a line tie perfectly centered anymore. As long as the pin crosses the axis with a wide enough gap for a little play you've got a self tuning line tie. So, not only easier to get it right the first time you also never have to mess with tuning it. Not the be all end all imo but ingenious none the less. I'm a scientist by no means so if my terminology is wrong forgive me, that's just the way I understand it