types of woods

[spoopa]

does it matter what types of woods you use for making swimbaits and also glide baits?

[BobP]

Build enough baits and you'll realize EVERYTHING matters! Wood selection is mostly about buoyancy, which determines how much ballast you will need and how lively the action will be on a lipped bait. Wood hardness is a factor in baits for toothy critters. For swimbaits, I use basswood most often. Cedar is an alternative. I think the same woods should be OK for glide baits, but I've never built one. Other guys undoubtedly use different woods, especially when we're talking about hardwoods.

[diemai]

@ spoopa

Every different wood provides different action to a lure , some woods are more suited for certain lure types and models than others .

For instance topwaters could never work with low buoancy hardwoods , these should in my opinion only used for big sized swimbaits , crankbaits , jerkbaits and trolling lures .

Big sized because they still require a certain grade of buoancy to be able to carry sufficient ballast and hardware .

Lighter softwoods are the perfect joice for topwaters and smaller crankbaits , due to their high buoancy these there are far more options in terms of altering and setting their action with ballast weights .

One other thing to consider is the working effort required , hardwoods can be quite tough to shape just with handtools .

good luck , diemai

[hazmail]

Spoopa- I have tried Balsa, Red Cedar, Beech, broom handle (whatever that was) and have settled on Kauri Pine. It's heavy, but not too heavy, hard, but not too hard, machines/sands well, has no real visible grain, (similar to Bass wood) and above all is tough and will not crush as with softer woods like Balsa, floats well, has a density of about 500kg/ m3, compared to Balsa's 200kg/m3. It took about 30 years to settle for this. These are just some of the qualities to look for, but the main one would be, it's mass /m3, or in your country, lb/cubic' As Bob and diemai say, buoyancy is the key, so start in the middle, not too light, not too heavy and you can work sideways from there - I think Basswood would be somewhere in the middle (never used it), Cedar lighter and Balsa lightest. A lot of people here swear by Beech, but I find it too hard to work. whatever you use, have fun doing it.pete

KAURI PINE (S

Kauri Pine (Agathis microstachya, palmerstonii, robusta) or Queensland Kauri, or Bull Kauri, is a large softwood native to the Cairns and Maryborough districts. Similar to, but slightly darker than Hoop Pine. Heartwood is not durable. Suitable for plywood, furniture, joinery, patternmaking, vats, kitchen utensils, battery separators, turnery, violin bellies. Supplies mainly limited to northern Queensland .

[Vodkaman]

Here is a link to a document that lists all the popular woods and their densities in both units.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF COMMON WOODS

The wood I have found locally here in Indonesia, is called albasiah, but I cannot find a name that would be more recognisable. It is very light, 0.23g/cm3, but varies from batch to batch. It is strong enough not to require thro' wiring, which makes me happy. Very cheap, $1.20 for 3"x2"x12'. Perfect.

Dave

[diemai]

@ Vodkaman

Just googled for that wood , its obviously called "albesia" or "albecia" .

Only browsed over the headlines within seconds , but I could figure out , that it is obviouly used a lot for folk art in the Far East , since there were masks and Buddha statues mentioned , being carved from it !

Greets , diemai

[Vodkaman]

Thanks Diemai, how did I miss that.

I googled it and it fits the descriptions perfectly, including the variations in density. I had some that was upto 0.4 density, also the color variations were evident too.

This just means that I have to measure the density for each batch of wood and amend the ballast design accordingly. It will be a chore at the start, but as records will be kept, the tuning will become simpler.

Dave

[Palmetto Balsa]

Spoopa,

I have never made a swimbait, but I think that Paulownia might work out very good for what you are doing. Most of the grades of Paulownia I have found around here are 14lbs.-16lbs./cubic foot. It has very little grain if any, and is easy to seal with propionate. I found a few people in my area that grow the trees and I had quite a few boards milled and planed to a usable thickness. Send me a PM and I will send you a piece to work with. It might be too light but I think it will leave you with a lot of options for ballast locations. I know it is strong enough and it is still very easy to carve.

[hazmail]

Dave - I am thinking that wood may be called 'Ramin'- is it 'blond', can be soft or hard, and is used for picture frame moulds and furniture framing here, and is an, Indonesian timber. Pete

[spoopa]

Hey guys thanks for all your input

For now i have been making mostly topwaters,(not very complicated to make:lol:). My main wood has been basswood. I got bored with the topwaters and i just loved how the glide baits looked. I did some searching on the forums on how to make them and i Googled it to. For my first glide bait i made it about 4 inches long by about 3/8 inches and made it out of basswood. When i was trying to make it neutrally bouyant i noticed that i had to put in like 2 onces of lead in the thing. I didnt get the bait neutrally bouyant but i got a slow sink with the hooks and all the hardware on it. So the question that i am trying to get to is that is it normal for this much weight in this type of bait or is just because of the type of wood i was using?

Thanks

[Vodkaman]

Spoopa, those figures just don't add up, so I am thinking that you are not weighing the lead, but just guessing.

Basswood, from the table of wood densities, has a density of close to 0.4g/cm3 (water = 1.00). So yes, quite a lot of lead.

Achieving true neutral buoyancy is quite difficult, as you have to be at the correct weight to within 0.1grams. But what is the point, a slow sinker is close enough. The problem is that, you get it to neutral, then add your top coat, which is heavier than water, hense a slow sinker.

Thanks Pete, I will look it up. Sorry Spoopa for the albesia wood hijack.

Dave

[diemai]

@ spoopa

Just like you I have made many topwaters out of light and buoyant wood(abachewood) . For sinking or suspending jerkbaits use some more dense wood , just because off that weighting reason .

If making a larger lure of lightwood , there might simply be not enough space left to glue in sufficient ballast weights , so I already try to choose my woods after the intended lure models .

On the other hand , when making , for example , a 5" flat-sided sinking jerkbait out of a very heavy kinda wood , so that it would barely float up without a lead weight , you might not be able to place enough lead without having the lure sink like a brick , to provide best possible glide action !

Or , in other words , if weighting accordingly to desired sink rate , the weight might not be enough to provide best lure action !

Greetz , diemai

[rofish]

Here is another link to wood densities:

Wood Density

I make crankbaits or jerk minnows out of basswood, poplar and a lighter wood called fuma wood.

I think Diemai is right. For a swimbait you need heavier wood than for topwater lures, since a swimbait is usually designed as a sinking lure. As far as I know from the information available on TU, swimbait makers use heavier (and tougher) wood for swimbaits. There is no reason why you should use light wood for swimbaits, since you want them to be tough, and there seems to alway be a problem with the available space for the weight in the sections, especially with smaller swimbaits, so you would need to add just some small pieces of lead for stability.

Find some swimbait pics in the gallery and see what kind of wood they are made of.

The density of water is 1 (grams/cm3). Personally, if a type of wood has a density of less than 0.5 gr/cm3, I would call it light wood.

As said before, the density of the same type of wood may vary very much. If you have a perfectly rectangular piece of wood, you can calculate yourself its density.

The basswood I use is sometimes over 0.5 gr/cm3 and still the action of my lures is good, I think.

By the way, it took me a long time to find out what basswod is. Only after visiting Wikipedia was I enlightened. I thought the tree was called lime tree. And there are many species of Tilia (americana, europea, etc.) it seems that the basswood in USA is lighter than the lime tree in Europe.

Vodkaman, sorry to be offtopic, but I have a personal favour to ask you. How do you call the Tilia in England, basswood or lime tree?

[Vodkaman]

It is called lime in UK. I remember because my brother (chainsaw artist) acquired some from a park he does work for, after a storm.

I had never heard of basswood before I joined TU. But wasn't interested in woods either, before joining.

Dave

[spoopa]

tested my glide bait and to my surprise it actually worked:yeah:the weight of my glide bait is not 2 onces, sorry for the exaggeration but it is 1.5 ounces.

my swimbait was a failure though, the thing lays on it side and doesnt swim very good. I think that i should of added more weight to it and the wieght should of not been so far up in the biat. The only part that my swimbait swims in the water at is at the tail section, single jointed there.

[Vodkaman]

Don't feel sad about it Spoopa. It is a learning process for us all. I have only done one swimbait, about two years ago. It took a few attempts and modifications until I got it to work.

Your diagnosis of the ballast location sounds about right. So drill it out and have another go. Don't make plans about painting until it works. All the blemishes of prototyping can easily be filled.

Just keep moving forward, then post your findings. Ballast on swimbaits has been discussed, so try a search and read some more.

Dave

[BobP]

A general guideline is that ballast should be installed as low in the bait as possible. You probably found that out already:)

[spoopa]

i think i may just scrap this one because the wood for this one has been splitting like mad:pissed:

On all my other lures that i made this has never happened before, so i think this one is just a test make. Another thing is that i am going to make a better ballast mold. the one that i made a few nights ago was made out of wood. The problem that i have with it is that there is just to many holes in the ballast piece. I think i may just make a metal one this weekend. Ill post my next swimbait. I think i'll make it out of some white cedar that i got at the lumber yard. Another question i just discovered that i have pieces of red oak. would this be good wood or is it just to hard to make anything out of it?

[diemai]

@ spoopa

Prior to first testing of your still unpainted lures or testing in water to determine about correct ballast and trimming you should coat them them with one or two layers of clear lacquer to prevent water sepage during the test .

At first such a sepage might render the weighting inaccurate , second it might have caused your bait to crack up(as far , as I can say from a distance) .

Greetz , diemai