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Ryandr3

Best wood for neutral buoyancy

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Just starting out making wooden lures. Carved up a few cranks and jerkbaits. I was able to get my smaller crank baits that were 1.5-2.5 inches to be neutrally  buoyant with 2 belly holes filled with lead from my lee pot. I carved these out of basswood I got at a craft store. But I had trouble making my bigger and longer jerkbaits neutral or even sink at all. I tried carved out of both balsa and basswood and I ran out of space to drill bell holes for weight. These jerk baits were 3-5.5 inches. 

 

So what would be a wood to use to make what I'm after? I'm rough shaping with my band saw and hand carving/sanding, no lathe for me. I'm fishing for bass and big panfish. So don't have to worry about muskie or pike ripping it up. 

 

Thanks,

 

Ryan

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I would suggest researching this and digging through the archives. Simple answer is Oak, Hickory, eucalyptus and such but you will not be happy with those and that is the wrong direction for you to head. You have a good wood you are using add more ballast!

There are wood density charts out there that tell you what the more popular wood choices are. But IMHO basswood is one of the best choices out there for crankbaits and jerkbaits. It is easy to carve, has tight grains and holds screws very well. Others like balsa may outperform it but they have weaknesses like screw holding retention.

You should really try and do some research on here about design, theories and what not. Essentially you want a very buoyant wood for many reasons. A few examples are with weighting and weight placement. You have more control over how the lure falls and where the weight is placed which effect action in the simplest terms. Also less buoyant woods like balsa have more action thats why they are soo popular given the inherent weakness of balsa. Again you should read up on this as you would have reading material for weeks if not longer.

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15 hours ago, Ryandr3 said:

Just starting out making wooden lures. Carved up a few cranks and jerkbaits. I was able to get my smaller crank baits that were 1.5-2.5 inches to be neutrally  buoyant with 2 belly holes filled with lead from my lee pot. I carved these out of basswood I got at a craft store. But I had trouble making my bigger and longer jerkbaits neutral or even sink at all. I tried carved out of both balsa and basswood and I ran out of space to drill bell holes for weight. These jerk baits were 3-5.5 inches. 

 

So what would be a wood to use to make what I'm after? I'm rough shaping with my band saw and hand carving/sanding, no lathe for me. I'm fishing for bass and big panfish. So don't have to worry about muskie or pike ripping it up. 

 

Thanks,

 

Ryan

First, welcome to the site Ryan.  It is good to have another lure crafter join in.

I think that first thing is to actually tell you how to get to the search feature, and that is as follows:

     Hover over ACTIVITY at the top right of this screen.  On the pop of screen, follow down to Search and click on it.  Then enter search words to find your answers.  And, as Matt suggested,

6 hours ago, Matt Moreau said:

I would suggest researching this and digging through the archives.

And, as RUI suggested, the following dunk test link will help.

http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/22200-archimedes-dunk-test/?tab=comments#entry33351

Now, to answer your question, I need to tell you that not everything you read is accurate.  We all come from different backgrounds and those backgrounds filter our understanding.

Your first issue is to come up with the shape and size you want.  Then you need to determine what hardware you will need to use.  Once you have that, you can go to the dunk test link to determine what weight you need to add.  As Woodieb8 suggested, simply adding more ballast works, if you have room enough to add the ballast in your bait.  Sometimes you don't.

Then, as others have suggested, denser woods will then help.  IT IS NOT true that denser woods adversely impact action, denser lures impact action.  Using Balsa to enhance action, then adding tons of weight to the lure, is NO BETTER than using a heavier wood to begin with.  But, the point is well taken that you use as little weight as necessary.

Now, more popular woods that are denser include Popular, Western Red Cedar, Maple.  The Popular and Maple are common Muskie woods but Maple is quite dense.  The Western Red Cedar is more commonly used for a wider range of woods. The options are limitless, just remember that some woods have lots of pitch or resin or grain or cracking and those woods should be avoided.  

https://www.easycalculation.com/other/wood-density-chart.php

Good luck on your search.  I think you will learn a lot and enjoy doing it.

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I am far from an expert on gliders. I do know neutral buoyant lures can be very fickle. I have not relished the fact of making anymore. its truly truly a labor of love.. I will stick with cranks for toothy fish. but I'm sure someone here has been there done that. a lotta mad scientist here lol.

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When I make suspending/slowsink/sinking wood glide jerkbaits I mainly use beechwood but I also like to use Siberian larch. I have also tried oak, linden tree (swedish basswood), maple, pine, american ash wood, and fir wood. But the first two I meantioned is perfect for glidebaits and super easy to work with if you compare to woods like oak and maple. 
If you have a saw machine like bandsaw and a router to round the edges you will be very very happy with beechwood. Siberian larch is easier to shape than beechwood but needs a bit more lead weight but nowhere near as much as you need with basswood. 

Hope this helped a bit!?

/Pickadollbaits 
 

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Great info here and like everyone has said everything we have done makes us who we are. So we all have a slightly different outlook on things. I think we are all saying the same basic concept but different ways. 

Like I said weight and weight placement is key for ME. With a lighter lure you have more options to control variables than you do with a heavy lure. Also, You can always add ballast in strategic areas to control action but with a denser/heavier wood you do not have this option except to drill and plug with air pockets or buoyant material which brings in new issues. So back to the key concept I think...Action! What do we mean by action? A desired reaction to the inputs we place in a bait? A denser wood cannot have as much action as a lighter wood. Place 2 cranks exactly the same dimensions and the lighter one will have more movement because the forces exerted on it effect it more. Now is it the movement or action we want? Probably not! A denser wood will have a different action than a lighter wood with ballast added to be the exact same weight because we can manipulate those variables.  So same cranks but we add ballast and I guarantee the lighter one with ballast added to control the action will be more favorable.

Can we add too much ballast of course! But to have that option IMHO is better than not. I  have never run out of room for ballast but i have made baits out of oak, black cherry, almond blah blah blah that just did not perform as well as woods like bass wood, yellow cedar or even poplar.  Again these are my views and opinions only copyright infringement does apply!

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