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tony simpson

Swimbait Joint

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Personally I prefer screw eyes connected together.  More specifically, I like to make the screw eyes myself from stainless wire so I can control the gap between body sections.  For me this has been a lot less finicky than using a pin configuration and it seems to have less chance of binding.  On a minnow bait, I use 2 pairs of interconnected screw eyes on the joint and I can recess the heads of the screws into the body segments to make an unobtrusive joint.  I'm sure other guys prefer a pinned joint but it seems to me that if you're working with wood, that offers increased chances for water intrusion.

Edited by BobP
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I use a single screw eye and pin.  I make the joint deep enough that the tail section can't rotate, even if I make the joint with more gap, for better action on the tail.

I like the screw eye because it lets me adjust the joint for more or less action.

Since I don't have a hook in the tail section, I use a .072 X 1 1/4" screw eye, and a sst bicycle spoke for the pin.  If I wind up having problems with the eye bending, I'll switch to the .092 eyes, but, for now, the .072 is working fine.

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Yeah, that is a good point Bob.  In fact, it is one of the major reasons I switched to PVC, first for my jointed swimbaits and then for almost everything I make.

But I am spoiled, because water intrusion is no longer an issue for me.

 

Have you ever tried epoxying in a screw eye, so you could still adjust the joint but the epoxy would make a waterproof plug in the wood bait?

Edited by mark poulson
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Mark, I epoxy a screw eye from each of the two pairs into one side of the joint and then finish the the lure including topcoat.  I drill 2 holes in the other section, including countersink recesses and then epoxy the other ends of the screw eye pairs in to finish the bait.  That's the point at which I set the gap by pushing the screw eyes in to a depth that I want the gap to be.  Pretty simple.  Since I use hand wound screw eyes, don't know if I could ever unscrew one out of a cured epoxy bed but that's academic since having 2 pairs of screw eyes in the joint would prevent me from doing that anyway.  I've never tried to unscrew an epoxied hand wound screw eye from a bait and suspect the wire would bend before I could break it loose.  On the other hand, I've never had one ever fail over many hundreds of installations, so you get what you get.

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That would work easily on a joint that uses a single pair of screw eyes, but how would you unscrew them if the joint has 2 pairs of screw eyes?  I guess you'd have to pry one of the screw eyes of each pair apart to separate the joint, adjust the depth, then try to force them closed again in the very restricted space between the segments. Possible?  Yes, but....?

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