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Mr.J.

Glass rattles and lathe turning question

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I'm seriously considering adding glass rattles to my wood lures but I'm wondering if I put them into the wood body before turning the wood on the lathe may make them smash to pieces.

Because of the shape of the pure I don't see it being do-able after turning the wood.

So, shape lure, bore holes, insert glass rattle, turn wood on lathe would be my procedure.

Anyone have any experience doing this? Does the high speed make the ball bearings shatter the glass? I have some plastic and some metal rattles that should be ok but in my mind I suspect glass rattles would give off better lure sound.

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I don't think the rattle would break. The ball would reach it's settled position long before max revs are reached.

Rather than fitting the rattle, I would drill a small pilot hole for the rattle, so after shaping, the rattle hole can be easily and accurately drilled out to size.

I would be nervous about drilling the full size, incase the chisel catches the hole and throws the wood. I hope some experienced turners jump in here with real experience to share, these are just my engineers thoughts, worth no more than the usual :twocents:, for which I will dispatch an invoice in the post.

Dave

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I would add the glass rattles after you turn the bait down. If you are worried about the bait rolling in the drill press you can buy or make you a drill press jig that holds dowel shaped wood. Its a v shaped trough that your piece lays in and it will not roll.

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Mr. J,

I put magnum rattles in some of my Musky trolling baits. I turn them first and drill the holes after. I put rubber on the jaws of my drill press vise and it doesn't hurt the bait at all. I use forsner bits to drill the holes.

Rod

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@ Mr.J.

If you turn from square stock , you might as well leave one or even both dowel ends unseparated from your lureblank , so that you can use the right-angled planes for clamping the blanks into the vise of your drillpress for drilling the rattle holes after turning and cut and round them off after drilling .

I haven't drilled holes that way yet , but cut sideward planes and lipslots to some lathe-turned blanks , drilling would surely work that way as well .

Since I don't have easy access to square stock , I only have to cut a square portion to one end of my round dowels prior to turning , not a problem though on my hobby routing machine .

good luck:yay: , diemai

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Here's an alternative to glass rattles. It looks like a .22 brass shell but is designed for wooden lures. Drill a 13/16 hole (using a depth guage for starters on the drill press) make a jig to hold your bait on its side, idrill hole as square as possible to the bait, nsert a regular 4.5mm BB followed by the shell and you're done.

You can leave the blunt end of the shell flush with the bait or countersink it then cover with a wood putty (my personal preference). Another suggestion is to drill clean the bait and install 2 shells, one on each side.

It just so happens I have about 97,000 of these from an order of 100,000 (the minimum the manufacturer was willing to go). If anyone is interested, PM me and we'll work something out.

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I am keen to insert a rattle, I have a brass cylinder and I am just placing a small sinker into it but I am unsure where to drill it into my lure?

The lure has a wide action and I believe the rattle would work better if it was lower but by some pictures I see they are higher up the lure.

The higher up the lure you go the less swing you get from the action but will it still work in the middle of the lure if the cylinder wasnt to wide? I dont have enough brass cylinders to waste and find out?

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@ onelastcast

I either use plastic jig rattles(on smaller lures) or homemade ones made from dia. 8mm brass tubing and steel balls(for biiger lures) .

I always tend to put them crosswise into a bore at the about fattest part of the body , simply because this is the widest part for them to fit in , as my rattles are almost as long as the lure blanks width .

Due to their length they don't fail to work there even on minor roll of the lure , but a shorter rattle might not work , as the balls inside don't have as much distance to roll back and forth .

TU member rofish recently wrote a statement , that he likes to place his rattles on the very body ends of the lure , because the lure's swing("Xing" viewed from top) would be the greatest there , thus the small rattles are safer to really work .

Because there is no sufficient space inside the lurebody at those locations(due to the body taper) , he has placed the rattle outside of the body , somewhere below the lips base .

A picture of that very smart design is somewhere in the hardbait gallery , do a search on his uploads .

I would also advise you not to use lead sinkers , but steel balls or at least solid brass beads inside of the rattle casings , as these generate a sharper "click" as lead balls would do .

good luck , diemai:yay:

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Mr. J.,

What if you drill a hole of a necessary diameter in your blank before turning it, then you fill the hole with a dowel made of the same wood, so as the dowel stays fit into the hole, then cut off the ends of the dowel, then work the lure as you need, and, when finished, just hammer out the dowel and you have the hole for the rattle?

I have not done it yet, this is just my :twocents:

I guess the dowel must fit snugly, otherwise it might come out while turning the blaqnk. Not a specialist, so maybe Mark Poulson and others may have an oppinion on it.

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If I was going to add glass rattles to a round bait I think I would round over the bait take off the lathe go to the drill press drill out, then add the rattle, plug the hole with a dowel, then cut flush, then put back on the lathe and sand paper smooth.I dont think you have to worry about the bb rolling around and breaking the glass in the rattle you would think centrificle force( sorry for the spelling to lazy to look it up) would hold the bb to one side of the rattle when spinning on the lathe.

Edited by jamie
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@ jamie

On lathe-turned lures I had drilled the crosswise bore for the rattle AFTER the blank was completed , ....I clamped the blank in the vise of my drill press , ....... protected it with thick balsa boards , taped together cardboard pads or special rubber pads for vises , so that the vise won't squeeze the wood and cause blemishes .

Takes some eyeballing to chuck it in proper position , center lines and especially a pre-cut lip slot or lip plane(for screw-on lips)act as a reference .

I would set my rattle snugly and crosswise centered into their bores , secure them with a drop of super glue , .......the open ends of the bores I'd close with epoxy glue , a "putty" of epoxy glue or polyester putty(the kind used for fixing blemishes on cars) , ...........after curing I'd work it down flush to the lurebody with "Dremel" routers , files and sandpaper .

Never tried these methods described above , but they sound like less effort ,.........though I don't think , that closing the rattle bore with wooden dowels would transmit the sound into the water as good as f.e. the rock hard polyester putty does .

PS : the spelling is "centrifugal" ,.... had to look it up the other day for another topic post;):) !

greetz , diemai:yay:

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Diemai, Thanks for the spelling check. Ive used dowels on musky cranks to plug rattles and you can hear the bait ticking as its swimming at you with no problem. These are large baits though with several rattles ( I tend to over kill things sometimes) but I would say your right about the putty though.

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Since this thread has popped up again I'll fill you in on how it has been going.

I have yet to use glass rattles but I have tried both the brass and plastic.

I would turn my lure

Then drill hole, insert rattle and back fill with epoxy

When epoxy is cursed I would put the lure back onto the lathe and use sandpaper to smooth it out

Works good so far

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