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greg.p

Lure Screw Eyes

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I often got my supplies at www.mooreslures.com , ........in Europe at www.lureparts.nl (Dutch supplier with higher prices though , but faster , less costly delivery and no import taxes for EU countries), ...........else an international suppliers' link list can be found in here :

http://www.lurefishinguk.com/

For our European pike the medium thickness ones are just fine , shaft lengths 3/4" to 1 1/2" , .....epoxied into the lure blank .

Make sure to take stainless steel only , no brass(tends to twist off when inserting into hardwood).

good luck , mate , .......cheers , diemai :yay:

Edited by diemai
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.....epoxied into the lure blank . am i right in saying just dab the end of screw eye in glue then screw in.

or do you do it some other way...

I do it after a method , that I've learned from a Swedish lure making book many years ago :

Drill a pilot hole , diameter about the screweye's shank thread core dia , ......depth about 1/2 to 2/3's of the shank length(in hardwood almost the entire shank length , even might have to extend the portion of the hole , where the unthreaded upper shank of very long screweyes comes to sit) .

Eversince I've been using a 1,5 mm drill bit for this , no hazzles so far .

The trick is to extend the first few millimetres depth on the entry of the pilot hole to 3,0 or 3,5mm dia , .......to twist in the eye for final assembly just smear some epoxy glue onto the shank , twist it in an wipe off excess glue , .........a kinda "glue plug" would evolve inside of the extended bore entry to provide extra strength .

You could get some visual impressions of my methods in one of my latest videos :

Good luck , ...cheers , Dieter :yay:

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Dieter,

You can make a quick and easy screw eye installer/ remover by bending a piece of stiff wire (I used an 8D finish nail) into a square cornered Z, but with the two outer legs at 90 degrees to each other. One for install, one bent the other way for remove. It saves a lot of cursing.

Thanks a lot , Mark :worship: , ...dunno why I had never thought of such nifty little jig !

If the eye of the screweye is freely accessible , I would just put the point of my awl through the eye using it as a cranking handle to twist the eyes in and out faster , ....otherwise I'd use my old pliers , ..........I have these for so many years so that through the times of service two little grooves have evolved on it's inner clamps just matching the screweyes diameter , these pliers provide a real proper grip on screweyes now :D !

greetz , Dieter :yay:

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Dieter, @ 3:42 on the video. Did you make the twisted wire hook hangers that you would epoxy in? They look like they would hold better, but I can't figure how you keep the center wire from spiraling during twisting.

Nice Chuggers too. You only use the hood weight for orientation, correct? No belly weight at all.

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Dieter, @ 3:42 on the video. Did you make the twisted wire hook hangers that you would epoxy in? They look like they would hold better, but I can't figure how you keep the center wire from spiraling during twisting.

Nice Chuggers too. You only use the hood weight for orientation, correct? No belly weight at all.

Here ya go Rob. It's Vodkamans post and I think it's #7. He has a short video of how he makes his manually twisted hook hangers. He's also got a mechanical jig he made for doing barrel twisted line ties and hook hangers in the Homebrew Tools section. Just look for "Barrel Twist Jig".

Ben

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/23014-hook-hangers/page__p__172143__hl__+barrel%20+twist__fromsearch__1#entry172143

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@ archeryrob

Basically I'm making those eyes similar as shown in Vodkaman's video(thanks for providing it in here , Ben) , ...only that I would clamp the tag end of the wire firmly into the vise , hold the pre-bent eye with a crosswise inserted drill bit , nail or similar and put tension on it , then winding around the other wire end with pliers(my wire is obviously more rigid as the one shown) , ...need to change grip with every winding , though .

To glue in these eyes , one needs to furnish matching holes , in this case 3 mm dia(my wire is 1 mm thick) preferably as snug so thta the eye's shnk still has to be twisted in and not just pushed .

Really important is to put epoxy glue INTO the hole , use a toothpick to fill up it's bottom and smear glue all around it's inner walls , ....off course also apply glue to the eyes shank as well and slowly TWIST it in , not just push , ........this way glue gets everywhere and you'd achieve the best possible bond .

Just putting glue on the eye's shank would end up in having a good share of glue wiped off when inserting the eyes , ....a much weaker bond would be the result .

I had tested these kinda eyes , .......glued one of about 1" shaft length into the end of a piece of broomstick in the above mentioned manner , ...let the epoxy glue cure for 72 hrs.(max strength according to describtion) , ..fixed that timber piece into my vise and tied a cord loop to attach the wire eye to my 25 kilograms fishing scales and puled on the scales as hard as I could .

At about 12 kilograms pull(approx. 26 lbs) the cord snapped , due to the sudden release the scales got spoilt , but the wire eye was still in place , did not even bend oval nor the surrounding glue plug seemed to have lost grip on the wood .

And this was only on a linear pull direction , also the springy features of a fishing rod and the advantages of a reel drag were missing in that test , ....so I guess, that these kinda eyes will hold up pretty well .

Only disadvantage is the rather more time consuming working process and the higher weight compared to "ordinary" twisted wire eyes .

Concerning weights in such plugs sporting integrated head planes for diving , ..........when I was new into luremaking about 20 years ago , I had attempted to get them down deeper by placing ballast into their belly , ....only to find out , that this would seriously minimize their wiggle .

Nowadays figure out , that this must be because such diving planes can never provide as much leverage in the water like an added diving bill of plastic or metal , which makes up for a much bigger plane somewhere below the center axis of a lure blank , thus having a bigger tendency causing a lure to roll or break out sidewards compared to the most likely smaller integrated diving bill bein located AROUND the tow eye , thus not as much leverage as well .

This is the reason , why such plugs can't handle extra ballast in their belly , their general balance is just too subtle and sensitive .

Probably ballast placed right on dead center of the lengthwise axis and also on the lengthwise center of gravity would act rather more neutral , but I have not tried to achieve this before , ........I'd rather go for a suitable material in terms of hitting the right buoancy .

Check out the final picture with the lure on water , ....if it sits at this level , it would perform best , ....a little lower decreases popping sound a bit , a little higher would decrease diving depth .

A longer lower lip might cause the lure to flip over on it's back , a higher tow eye either , ........if your lower lip is a bit longer than shown , you might place the tow eye lower to avoid overturning , but in this case the lure would not wiggle as much .

greetz , Dieter :yay:

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Dieter,

When I needed small hinge parts, I used some fine sst cotter pins, and bent the very ends back tight to give myself a 1/4" "key" to hold in the glued hole.

Would that work with your regular eye wire, since the epoxy is so strong. I doubt the wire would pull out of the epoxy before the epoxy pulled out of the bait.

That would seem like a much simpler thing to make.

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Dieter,

When I needed small hinge parts, I used some fine sst cotter pins, and bent the very ends back tight to give myself a 1/4" "key" to hold in the glued hole.

Would that work with your regular eye wire, since the epoxy is so strong. I doubt the wire would pull out of the epoxy before the epoxy pulled out of the bait.

That would seem like a much simpler thing to make.

Mark , I know what you mean , .......I call these roughly "W"-shaped wire forms , ........I'm utilizing these for joining lure sections as well , but I must admit , that I never relied on them alone :huh: !

Check out this jointed bait that I'm holding in my hands at 3:15 of this video :

The lower joint is made with an ordinary three-point wire form glued into a belly slot of the front section and a paper clip-shaped wire form passing through a lengthwise bore along the belly of the rear section , .........so I can call this bait truly thru-wired .

The upper pair of joining eyes are made like you have described , ..........though the wire forms are only about 1/2" long , I trust them to hold up this way in conjunction with the lower trough-wire connection .

But I guess , that if these "W" forms would be made with a longer shank and their fitting bore is extented to a somewhat bigger dia at the bottom(utilizing a small ball router bit , this is to create a kinda wider "glue plug" inside of the bore) , they will surely hold up well just like this !

Greetz , Dieter :yay:

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Dieter,

I make the end of the bore larger just by holding the lure in my hands at the drill press, and moving it so the regular twist drill bit cuts at angles, while it stays centered in the entry hole. It's not scientific, but it works. Even a straight hole in PVC works. Epoxy really bonds to the PVC.

..............looks like I tend to overlook the easiest things , Mark :huh: , ......... thanks a lot for pointing out :worship: !

greetz , Dieter :yay:

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