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philB

Rounding of hardwood lures

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http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=47287&cat=1,42500

Here is a little tool that will work in a drill press or small drill or air tool. You can adjust the air perssure to deflect as much or little as needed for perfect radii. I use a laminate trimmer to roundover the bigger baits but on small bass sized stuff in basswood, I just chuck this in the drill press and do all the shaping in a mater of seconds.

Jerk!

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http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=47287&cat=1,42500

Here is a little tool that will work in a drill press or small drill or air tool. You can adjust the air perssure to deflect as much or little as needed for perfect radii. I use a laminate trimmer to roundover the bigger baits but on small bass sized stuff in basswood, I just chuck this in the drill press and do all the shaping in a mater of seconds.

Jerk!

Have you tried this tool? Seems like it would have to be awfully soft for the tool to make the round you want on the edges of a bait. Interesting concept.

RM

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I have been using it for about a year and even though I still route the edges of big baits, I no longer hand sand anything. I put about 10 psi in mine and use a drill press to spin it. The center of the drum will deflect as little or as much as I need to get a good rounded back on baits up to 1.5" thick. Small stuff as mentioned, I dont even rough I just hit both sides, then top and bottom and it is off to sealer. The center deflects more than the ends of the drum so you can either vary the amount of pressure or use the edges to get less radius. I saw a guy on TV making skateboard decks out of ash and he could get a perfect round edge with one pass on each side of the deck. I would be glad to throw up a picture but it may take me a while to get to it.

Jerk!

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For hardwood I would agree, but for some softer woods like cedar the drum may be just as fast. I do know that some thickness planers actually use sanding drums instead of planing knives to reduce stock to a desired thickness so the possibility is there.

RM, I know one of the owners-ish of Busy Bee maybe he can donate one ot my work :)

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That's what I was thinking too.....when you look at the amount of wood laying around the router after just one lure it seems like that would be a wholelottasanding with a set-up like this. Seems like it would be a great set-up for those doing balsa baits though. I would still like to experiment with one to see how it goes.

RM

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PhilB, using about a 6" section of a large dowel drill two holes in one end slightly smaller than a small finish nail. Now cut the heads of the nails of and using a little epoxy push the nails into the dowel leaving about 3/16" exposed. You can now take your bandsawed blank and push the nails into the blank and using one hand on top of the dowel and the other to turn it round over al the edges. this must be done on a router table. You will have a couple hole to putty but it works great, just remember quality router bits.

kbhere what size round over router bit do you use 1/4 3/8 or 5/16 or does it matter. can you get the full roundover with one pass kb

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A table-monted router is probably the fastest way for rounding lurebodies, but certainly very dangerous. Machining handheld lurebodies with a table-router is asking for an accident to happen. At work (a plastic machining company) we have several table-routers with custombuilt safetydevices, but routering small handheld lurebodies is deffinately abit scary anyway. Am planning to machine some sort of device to secure the lurebody when routering it but I need to get some sort of non-slip rubber so that the lurebodies easily are securely fixed without too much force needed.

For handmade lurebodies a japanese radius plane could be of use, Iv e recently ordered a small one, 160x26mm with radius of 18mm. It will be intresting to see if it works, Ive read that radius planes like this are used when building custom music-instruments and stuff like that.

Heres a pic:

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

RadiusPlane.jpg

2350_thumb.attach

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I'll add my 2 cents becasue i've been trying many different methods.

Router table is deffinitly the fastest way to go. Are they dangerous?...no not any more than any other tool as long as you respect the tool you'll be ok.

My wooden lures are 4 inches long and I'm not so interested in rounding them out as much as I am in getting all of the sharp corners rounded.

Recently I have been experimenting with a lathe. My baits are symetrical so the lathe is well suited for this. I start with a 60 grit strip of sandpaper and work my way down (or up) to 120 grit. I cut the sandpaper into strips and run it along the bait as it is spinning on the lathe.

As long as your bait is symetrical and is centered on the lathe the results are very impressive. I'm inclined to say better than what I was getting using a router. Not much chance of getting an accidental manicure either.

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Go to Home Depot and look at their oscillating belt sander/spindle sander. Their tool brand is Rigid. It uses 4X24 belts, which are standard and easy to get, and have enough surface that they don't load up/wear out for a long time.

I shape bigger baits using 36 grit, and it removes matl. quickly. Much easier than a router, and I have more control. I have nothing against routers. I must own eight. But the sander is quicker to just walk up to and use, a lot safer, and I can change belts and go from roughing out to finish sanding in a heartbeat.

Anyway, it works for me. And the Rigid machine didn't cost an arm and a leg. Just an arm. :o)

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It's a shame we can't get this thread into a tutorial (M'sST) there are so many safety DONT's, and brain storming DO's, to questions which are basic and fundamental, to lure making here in one thread, it's not funny - PLUS- "The Australian Wheel' would be in stone for all to eventually take on board with fingers in tact. There are so many great ideas/ tools buried in threads on TU, you just have to read every one.pete

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After going through this thread I noticed that hand held cornering tools were not really mentioned. There was one mention of a cornering plane but this tool seems a bit more convenient since it has multiple radii. http://www.leevalley...682&cat=1,42524

They carry another cornering tool but it does not have as much options as the above set has. Anyone try this method yet?

BTW the pneumatic sanding drum posted previously is ingenious, now I'm debating if I get that or the above.

Edited by Central
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Central,

The problem I've found with that kind of hand held edging tool is that it catches the grain whenever there's a slight change in grain direction. This is because there is no depth control.

Before you try that, get a block plane with an adjustable throat, and give that a try.

A block plane and a sanding block will give you control, and remove wood fast enough.

But Pete's radiused sanding wheels are the best idea for consistent, safe rounding over of blanks, short of the mutiple blank approach with a router table.

I can envision stack of discs glued together and mounted on a shaft, with several different radius'. Sort of like a step pulley, but all the same diameter.

The only drawback I can see is changing the paper.

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