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UKandy

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Posts posted by UKandy

  1. As dave said above, use weight for the microballoons, also I found with my glides that there really is no fast way to perfection you just have to keep testing all elements until you reach something you're happy with, the biggest thing that caused my glides to either work or not was weight placements & a level sink rate :yay:

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  2. Hi all, back after a long lay off & looking to start getting back into my lure making, firstly I hope you're all well :yay:

    Okay so I'm after a little information on the different types of woods you all use for different styles of baits, why do you choose a certain type of wood for let's say a glide bait & another type for a crank bait? What are the important factors in making your decision?

    I'm looking at making some top water baits, some glide/swim baits & some crank baits, so I'm hoping you guys can give me a heads up on the best woods too choose from for each application? These baits will be 5" upwards mainly for pike.

    I remember seeing a chat that someone had created for lure builders which stated all the popular wood densities against water, which was helpful, unfortunately due to a major computer failure I have lost nearly all of my lure documentation :( if anyone knows of that chart i have mentioned and can send me a copy it would be much appreciated.

    Thanks guys, I look forward to your input

    Andy.

  3. 11 hours ago, soda said:

    Hi everyone, I'm new to making lures and I just made a wooden fat belly minnow lure.  Its 6 inches long made out of pine. Its a top water lure with a lip that I want it to go about 5 to 8 ft deep. So I'm at the point where I'm gluing lead weight to the belly to find that perfect floating height in the water. No matter how much weight I place the lure leans on its right side. All the sides look even, I tried placing the weight in numerous locations...its weird and I'm starting to the one side of the wood is heavier even though it looks even. Any help would be appreciated.

    Also one more question. I'm finding that when I make wooden lures the weight of the lures I make are never the same weight in the store bought lures. Meaning if I buy a 6 inch lure in the store its light as a feather and If I was to try and make the same lure mine would weight much heavier. I know its probably different material, wood type ect...but Its hard to explain, its like a different feeling of weight if that makes sense. I don't really feel the weight with store bought lures.

     

    Thank everyone in advance...

    Hi, have you definitely got your centre line on point & is the weight you're adding dead centre? This would be my first point too check if the bait is leaning over to one side.

    There are so many differing variations in lure design, be it, store, hobby, custom or hand made that too pin point why you can't always match them for action & weight would be a nightmare, if you think about it, store lures can be made from a completely different wood or material, such as plastic, some can be hollowed out have rattle chambers in them etc, different top coat weights, paints, ballasts :mellow: the list goes on!

    I would suggest making something you're happy with yourself, do your own thing and learn along the way, ask lots of questions on here & the guys will help out & trust me they know their stuff!

    I was in a similar position too you a few years back and as most suggest you just have to try stuff out, if you do want to get as near to store bought lures as possible  then maybe resin molds may be an option for you.

    Andy.

     

     

  4. On 7/4/2022 at 4:53 PM, Travis said:

    3D printing is great for design.  Making lures frankly well just too slow and time consuming to be anything more than having fun playing with regards to making lures.  Last small bluegill swimbait I drew up took like 6 hours to print.  I will mold it eventually and cast.  I have a few other lures I down loaded and some pushed 8 hours to print.  Glue up, surface finishing will take even more time.

    As far as duplicator lathes have been around for ever and relatively easy to outfit most lathes and many can easily knock out a few lures with the typical set up available to hobbyists.    Every now and then you will come across a clip of crankbait machines that have blank spindle stock  feed continuously that are designed for true lure production.   I have come across several videos and they typically  work similar. 

    Automating processes for the sake of making blanks, for most hobbyists is purely because they love the technology and to tinker.

     

    Thanks for the video link, wow that is one heck of a setup right there & inspiring, is there still a place in the market were custom/handmade lure makers can make a living/good profit? The video made me question that aswell :o

    Andy.

  5. On 7/4/2022 at 6:49 AM, wchilton said:

    UKandy, I think the machine that can do what you are asking about is what they call a 5-axis CNC mill.  It can move the part in the normal X, Y, Z linear axes and also can rotate around two axes to make under-cuts and other complex cuts that require the cutter to have access to places a simpler 3-linear-axis machine cannot reach.  As mentioned earlier, you still need to be able to design what you want in CAD, and you would also need 5-Axis CAM software to generate the more complex toolpath instructions.  Even with all that, there are things that 3-D printing can do that 5-Axis machining could never do.  Physical machining always needs a way to get the cutting bit inside the shape where 3D printing can create completely sealed objects with interior structure.  For a simple example consider if you wanted to "machine" a hollow sphere.  Can't be done using any conventional machining.  Is relatively easy with conventional machining if you do it in two halves to be attached together.  Creating it by 3D printing is possible, just need some support points to hold it in place as the layers are built up.

    Thank you for the info provided, I have also been looking down the 3d printing route & resin printing, I'm just not sure what too do with all the choices involved, if I could sell a few baits it would make more sense that's for sure!

    Andy.

  6. On 6/27/2022 at 12:51 PM, hazmail said:

    andy- 

    Recently curiosity and idle hands has got the better of me, so in earnest I have started making lures again (also my tackle box is low) and its time to get the copy machine going (needs a new transformer).

    So I just Googled "copy lathe" and up came TU and this thread ... I also looked up YouTube to see what was the latest on "copy lathes" and up came this interesting, eccentric character  (English of course) .

    Here he is explaining in simple terms  how a copy lathe works (2 x dimensional) while he is building one.

    Beside myself, I thought you and others may be interested :

    Enjoy Pete

    Hi Pete, sorry for my late thanks on this, I've been out of action for a good while now!

    That was very interesting, I would think it can be modified on to a smaller machine also, will have a think.

    Andy.

  7. 14 hours ago, Outlaw4 said:

    I've not seen anything for spindle blanks. But there are plenty of CNC wood engravers that you could make half sides of crankbaits with to make mold masters. You could also probably make halves of any lure to though wire. I've contemplated this but never pulled the trigger and i just do low volume and like to carve lol.

    That's a good idea, I like that, so basically make 2 identical half's of a lure and then glue together after insering a through wire etc, makes sense and definitely worth a look into!

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  8. 14 hours ago, SlowFISH said:

    As most have stated - every process has it's plus/minus as with everything in this hobby - you have to pick your poison and learn to deal with the route you choose.  

    If staying with a "manual/hand" method of creating lure blanks is of interest - a carving duplicator is probably what you need to look for.  This was on EBAY (https://www.ebay.com/itm/143953712063?hash=item21844f53bf:g:KpsAAOSw5VFWKTVN).  Not saying get this one - but should give you an idea of what to look for - or DIY your own.

    They make CNC lathes - I've even seen small/desktop ones... but You'd still need to learn CAD and programming and unless you want to make "spook" type topwater blanks it can't handle non-spindle type shapes.

    3D printing is great - has a ton of benefits - but is labor intensive if you don't already have the CAD skills - and even then you still have to process the part (sand/smooth/etc).

    Realistically - if you are happy with resin baits - making one - then a mold and pouring multiples is probably the best method if you want to keep cost down to start with.

     

      J.

    Agree with what you are saying, good points you have made, the link that you shared was interesting, I've never seen that type of machine before, baffles me how it even works! Some more learning is needed I need to swat up on things.

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  9. 17 hours ago, Chris Catignani said:

    I would think that one of the problems with a spindle lathe would be that the piece would have to be symmetrically straight like a baseball bat or a table leg. A lathe would not be able to cut eyes, fins, a lip...or even have a tail curving down.

    I have made some lures with a 3D printer (straight PLA) and was not happy with the result. First of all, sanding PLA cant be good for the lungs. It's defiantly harder than wood. I have had some latches I made pretty much just break after a year of so outside (UV). I probably should have use something other than PLA. 3D printing is a little new to me so Im sure there is something about it I'm missing.

    I do know they make a wood filament that 70%PLA and 30% wood derivative (haven't use it).

    I do think eventually 3D lure making will be popular.

    Some really good points, thank you for sharing, the wood filament sounds very interesting.

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  10. 18 hours ago, Vodkaman said:

    Several people have posted 'duplicator' machines, I myself have built a couple. Computer NC control is an option, but all the machines that I have seen are manual motor driven.

    Commercial duplicators are very expensive, in the region of $50K but I built mine for around $200, not brilliant, but I was very happy with the results. Try a TU search.

    3D printing Is a viable option. I have designs, but I have not printed one off myself as yet. To do the job properly, you will need to master a CAD software to a reasonable standard. You will also need to get involved with densities, COV (center of volume) and COG (center of gravity), to have any chance of creating a lure that floats how you want it to do without a lot of tedious trial and error.

    I hope to source a 3D printer locally one day as I have so many projects ready for printing, not just fishing. There are local printing services that I have used, but they are just too expensive.

    Dave

    Hi dave, thanks for your input my friend, I have been more and more interested in the 3D printing side of things, as always though I don't want to make an expensive mistake, I will have too take a look into CAD design and see how I go with that, I've worked on a whole lot of computer softwares during my career so hopefully I could pick it up at a basic level okay.

    The point you made regarding the different types of plastics has got me head scratching though! Would definitely need to do some research as I would have no idea where to start regarding materials.

    Many thanks

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  11. Hi all,

    I was speaking to a guy yesterday about making lures & he asked if I'd thought about using a 3d printer for making them, I said that for now I would like to stay down the resin/wood master route at present as I am still very much learning that side of things at the moment.

    He then asked if there is a desktop lathe/router that would basically do the same idea as the 3d printer but by carving wood spindle blanks, to be fair I was unsure of this, but assume it would be an expensive machine to buy & some kind of cad programme would be needed to run it?

    Interested to know if you guys know of any options about this, at least I will have that knowledge then :yay:

    Many thanks

    Andy.

  12. On 12/8/2021 at 9:35 PM, LHL said:

    I'm far from an 'expert' but have some anecdotal advice I'd like to give you:

    There's a fine balance between stability and instability in a glide and I think you did a great job showing this in your experiments. An 'unstable' lure will have a tendency to roll. This roll is also what causes the lure to have an 'S' swimming pattern when straight retrieved. Instability is increased the higher the center of gravity is. A ballast close to the center line will cause it to roll and the further away from the center line the more stable it will be.

    A stable lure will have no roll, and therefore no swimming action on a straight retrieve BUT will often have a really good gliding action when given a hard twitch. It's because this hard twitch/jerk forces a point of momentary instability, and when the lure stabilizes itself it then glides like a torpedo in a straight line either left or right. 

    You need something that is stable enough to glide, but unstable enough that it has a small amount of belly roll. From your experiments, I think you found both "extremes." My advice would be to find something in the middle.
    Two things I would try:

    1. Start with the most stable gliding bait, drill out your weight holes and add the weights. Test it. If it's a torpedo on the straight retrieve, remove the weights, drill the holes deeper (closer to the center line), put them back and test again. Keep doing this to see what happens. My thought is the closer the weights are to the center line, the more it will roll, but the less it will glide. 

    2. Start with the better swimming lure. Remove a small amount of weight from the largest ballast and take that little bit you removed and add it back to the bait so that it remains level when sinking. Test it. Keep doing this until you achieve a glide that's far enough with a bit of belly roll and you should be able to also have it swim on the straight retrieve. 

    The last thing you could do would be to change the shape of your lure... This sounds like it would be the most difficult but it would be interesting to see what your lure looks like to get a better idea of what's happening. 

    Sorry for my late reply!

    Thank you for the information you have supplied it's really appreciated, all good advice & I like the ideas you have suggested trying out, as soon as I have time I will get back to the lure blanks & do more testing.

     

    On my next batch of testing I will add some pictures from start to finish so everyone has a better visual of the testing stages!

     

    Many thanks again for your help,

    Andy.

    • Like 1
  13. Another note I have just made regarding the test lures:

    I've been holding one upside down in the palm of my hand and it's very apparent that the lures are wanting to roll over quite aggressively at the slightest amount of tilt, the width of the lure bodies are 18mm and the diameter of the ballast holes are 10mm, I'm not sure if the ballast holes diameter ratio too body width are causing some of the roll problem on retrieve, maybe narrowing the diameter of the holes on another test lure too see?

    Just thinking out loud, I could be going down the wrong rabbit hole here :Dinterested to know what you guys think & if it would make any difference :yay:

    Cheers Andy.

  14. 10 minutes ago, Vodkaman said:

    Firstly, great work with your experimenting. There is so much information here, it is going to take several reads to soak it all up.

    The 'closer to rod tip' thing makes sense. You are dealing with an action that moves side-to-side, so as the lure comes closer, the offset angle from the centerline increases.

    Resin-MB mixes are literally just creating a pure wood alternative. The problem is that the wood alternative that you are creating is very dense, probably around 0.75g/cm³. The lightest material I was able to make with resin-MBs was 0.64g/cm³. So, if you can make a glider with heavy woods then you can make the same glider with resin-MBs. You will have to ask glider experts about that.

    That is all I have for now, but will likely return with more confusion :)

    Dave

    Hi Dave great to hear from you, your input is always received with gratitude, so I will look forward to hearing more from you :yay: 

    I tried to give as much information as possible so people can understand my dilemma, I know there are so many factors that can change a lures action, therefore I thought I'd ask for a little help.

    Andy.

  15. 4 hours ago, ravenlures said:

    Just wondering why half/half and not the whole lure mix resin/micro balloon's which I think will give you overall control of lure weight and then add weights where needed. Not much of a swim bait lure maker but I make musky baits for casting and trolling.

    Wayne

    Hi Wayne, after a couple of conversations on here, I was advised that a pure resin/micro balloon mix would never get the same kind of desired action as from a wooden lure, but if a certain type of foam pour was used it would give a much livelier action nearer to that of a wooden lure, it was my decision to go down the middle and give a resin/foam mix a try  :D don't get me wrong a couple of people on here also pointed out that they thought it wasn't worth the hassle, I was and still are only starting out on my lure journey so I gave it a whurl :yay: right or wrong Im trying!

    Andy.

  16. Hi guys, not posted for a while I've been doing some more lure testing out on the water.

    I've been working on a 7" one piece jerk/glide bait for some time now & have tried quite a few different things out throughout my testing stages, as I am using a resin/foam mix for the body (bottom half resin, top half foam) I have been messing around with all sorts of different mixes to achieve the buoyancy I thought I needed.

    My first batch of test lures produced one lure that stood out from the rest, it had a really nice side to side swimming action on a steady retrieve & if paused upon the retrieve would glide maybe just over a foot in either direction, nothing hugely amazing but it worked well, the problem I had with this lure was it suffered from some belly roll, which became more obvious as it got closer to the rod tip.

    This particular lure that worked well from the first test batch had 2 ballast placements, one was slightly infront of the centre of balance & one was slightly behind the centre of ballance (this ballast was basically as far back as needed to have the lure sink in a horizontal manner) the ballast holes were quite deep and near to the centre line of the lure, which I believed could be contributing to the belly roll I was seeing whilst retrieving the lures.

    With that said I went back to the drawing board with the intention to correct the belly roll on the lures & maybe get a slightly greater glide. My thoughts were to use a heavier resin on the bottom half of the lures, this should mean that I would need less ballast which would allow me to keep the centre of gravity even lower down within the body, which hopefully would cure the belly roll problem.

    After making the second batch of lure bodies with the heavier resin, I still felt that the ballast holes would be too deep & close to the centre line of the lure, so I opted to split the ballast so there were 2 ballast placements next to eachother just infront of the centre of balance & 2 placements next to eachother behind the centre of balance, this allowed for much shallower holes and kept the centre of gravity on the lure very low down.

    Next was to get out & test the new batch of lures on the water, I found that on a steady retrieve the lures had lost nearly all of the nice side to side swimming action that the first batch of lures had produced & they pretty much had no glide action at all on a pause of the reel, whilst I was stood there thinking what exactly was going on, I happened to give the reel handle a really quick half jerk turn, which caused the lure to glide off in one direction about 4feet, surprised by this I reproduced the glide in the other direction with another swift jerk of the reel handle, I was baffled, these lures had lost nearly all action on any type of retrieve apart from a really quick jerk on the reel handle, I also noted that when the lures got closer to the rod tip the action would fade and the lures basically became a torpedo & still produced a slight belly roll.

    This has got me rather confused as to what has made such a difference and why the lures would now be acting in this way, I would assume that the vortices would be acting exactly the same on each batch of lures produced, so I'm guessing the slight adjustment in ballast placement has thrown things off, I'm also wondering if using less foam for the top half of the lures would actually help with stability.

    If the second batch of lures had kept the nice side to side swimming action on a steady retrieve & then I had been able to produce the 4foot glide with a quick jerk of the reel handle, I feel I would have been on to a real winner, unfortunately I've come to the point were it seems it's either one action or another.

    Can any of you more experienced guys please give me any direction of what I can try next to have the lure produce the swimming action & glide action within the same lure, some shop bought ones I have do both, as you would expect, so maybe I'm down to fine line adjustments now.

    Two last points I would like to make is that the belly hook on the lures has always been placed directly under the centre of balance, I have not yet tried putting one point of ballast exactly on the centre of balance of the lure & moving the hook placement, not sure if that would help or make a big difference in action, but thought it was worth mentioning, the second point is that the lures are near to critically balanced with an ultra slow sink rate, if I remove the hooks they would float, so could it actually be a point were I'm not using enough ballast to gain a better action in whole (more driving force weight).

    Cheers guys, as always your help is massively appreciated :yay:

    Andy.

  17. 12 hours ago, JD_mudbug said:

    Mass production lure companies use a variety of plastics. The common types are acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polycarbonate, and polypropylene. The different types can also be blended. Each company has their own formulas. The precise formulas are trade secrets. A Berkley square bill may use a different formula from a Bomber square bill even if they are same general type of plastic. A company may use a different formula or different type of plastic for each product line. A Bomber square bill may use a different type of plastic from a Saltwater Magnum Long A. Companies choose a plastic for a certain density, weight, durability and cost based on what they want the lure to do.  The density of each type of plastic changes some based on the particular formula. ABS is somewhere around 1.06 g/cm^3. Polycarbonate is around 1.20 g/cm^3. Polypropylene is around 0.92 g/cm^3.


    If I had to guess, the most common type of plastic used in a typical bass size lure is some type of ABS. ABS is in the mid-range in terms of density of the 3.  It can provide a wide variety of buoyancy based on the thickness, the size of the hollow chamber and internal weighting. ABS is typically cheaper than polycarbonate. It is strong and durable enough for a typical bass size lure. 


    Some of the larger saltwater lures are made of polycarbonate because it is more durable and impact resistant. Big saltwater lipped lures are usually made of some type of polycarbonate or they wouldn’t survive.  Polypropylene is used in some saltwater lures like big top waters and big lipless trolling lures. These rely on a wire harness with heavy hardware for strength and need more buoyancy.
     

    JD thank you so much for the detailed information you provided :yay: that will be very helpful for me moving forward

    Andy.

  18. 4 hours ago, Hillbilly voodoo said:

    take a look at the surface paddles made for Murray cod in Australia. They have a variety of interesting designs. 

    There is a thread on the forum about the one I made. The design I made has caught pike, musky, and bass. I did add larger hooks and a dressed hook to my newer ones.

    if you have questions about it just ask. I know there is a few Australian’s hiding here too that could likely be helpful 

    This sounds really interesting Hillbilly :yay: have you got a link for the thread please?

    Andy.

  19. 22 hours ago, JD_mudbug said:

    I get my blades from LPO, Janns, or  Barlows. It depends on who has the best price on what I need at that moment. Just type in 'prop',  'propeller blade', 'delta blade', or 'buzz blade' into their sites' search box. Some different types are called 'chopper', 'woodchopper', or 'dumbell' props.

    I have made some blades out of sheet metal but I find it is just easier to buy them.

    https://www.lurepartsonline.com/search?keywords=prop&page=1 

    https://www.jannsnetcraft.com/Search/propeller blades.aspx

    https://barlowstackle.com/search.php?search_query_adv=prop&section=product

    The ones in the pics are called Delta blades or (counter rotating) buzz blades. The props/blades come in different sizes and also list if they are clockwise (CW) or counter clockwise (CCW). Smaller size blades tend to only come in one spin direction.

    You should be able to eliminate roll with ballast. 

    If the bait is really flat like the side profile of a baitfish (like the bass lure above), on a rare occasion the bait lands upside down (with the hooks up) and doesn't flip to its proper running side even with ballast. A rod jerk at the start of the cast will get to flip to the right side. The top side of that bass bait is painted flo orange so I can see it on a long cast. I have seen some big Japanese topwaters that had put bright spots on the top so the angler could see what the bait was doing on the retrieve. The fish never see that part of the bait.  If I don't see the flo orange top on that bait, I know it landed upside down and didn't flip. I have some other flat baits where I just paint a bright spot or stripe on top for visibility. It doesn't happen often, but its annoying if you retrieve a lure and it's messed up and didn't know it. The more rounded bodies usually land correctly as they rotate to the proper side on landing.

     

    Thanks again for all the info JD, really appreciated my friend :yay:

    Andy.

  20. 2 hours ago, LHL said:

    JD has already provided a ton of good information but I'll throw my hat in the ring here since I just recently built a delta prop bait.

     Delta.thumb.jpeg.05c9debd5df934c6c796431209b82148.jpeg

    Hopefully this picture can help explain some things. I went with a through wire construction so I started by carving the cedar blank and then drilling a hole straight through the bait. This presents it's own complications as the wire is free to slide back and forth which will pinch the blade in the back when retrieving the bait, stopping it from rotating. To counter this I added a bead in the back and then bent the wire in a 'Z' shape so that the bead presses against the body when the lure is retrieved but stops at the bend in the wire, leaving the rear blade freedom to spin. Check out Musky Madness Trophy Topper for better pictures of the bend. I didn't go with the cup washers or screw eye base eyelets but if I were to do it again I definitely would. 

    The final note I'd make is I added a small amount of weight just behind the front hook hanger to act as a ballast to keep the body from rolling on the retrieve. I'll have to double check but from what I remember in my testing this bait sits pretty level, if not very slightly tail down. If it sits nose down then the front blade will dig and not throw any water which is the whole point! This is a more subtle top water but if you bend the blades up to almost 90 degress you'll get a lot better commotion out of it. 

    Thanks for the input LHL I enjoyed reading it, the Z bend you mentioned is a great idea!

    Did adding the ballast eliminate all body roll or just help? Your bait looks really cool I like it :yay:

    Andy.

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