Homemade tools for bait hardware

barrybait · December 4, 2019

Here are a couple of simple homemade tools that are working out well for me and may be of some help to you too. Photos were necessary for clarity.

The first two pictures show a simple homemade screweye driver for use in your drill chuck. If you have any access to scrap pieces of stainless steel or steel tubing, the first picture shows a short length of SS tubing that will not fit over the screw eye. By using vise to squeeze the end oblong, it will easily fit the screw eye. The screw eye will not go too far into the tool either because it does not fit into the unflattened tubing. However, if desired, you can turn the tubing 90 degrees and make another squeeze immediately above the first squeeze to stop the screw from going too far into the tubing. Just make sure the unflattened tubing will fit into your drill chuck.

The next four pictures are for a tool I needed to devise to help me fit up the hardware for Prop Baits I have been making lately. LPO has all the hardware I need for Prop Baits similar to the one in the background of one of the pictures. Where I had trouble is I could not hold the cup washers in order to drill out the center hole as needed. For example, when using the large cup washer for the wood chopper or other large prop blade, I use the cup washers for a bearing surface of the prop. Even though the cup washer is drilled out to 0.095", it is difficult to fit over the 0.092" size screw eye because even though the screw eye is made of 0.092" size stock, the threads are raised on the stock and the diameter of the screw eye at the threads is actually over 0.100". Therefore I needed to find some way of holding the cup washer in order to drill out the center. It was even more needed for the smaller cup washers for smaller prop baits.

I found a small steel hinge measuring only 1" long by about 1/2" wide and drilled for small No.6 flat head countersink screws for a flush screw head once installed. For the large cup washers, the countersink for the No. 6 screws was perfect to put the cup washer in. Once you close the hinge on the cup washer, a light squeeze with small needle nose vise grips will hold the cup washer securely and keep it from rotating while you drill out the center hole. For the smaller cup washers, I had to drill a pilot hole larger that what I would drill the center out to but much smaller than the base of the cup washer. Drill this out with the hinge closed together for perfect alignment. Then open up the hinge and on one size, use a counter sink or simply a larger bit to provide the countersink. Once you place the cup washer in the countersink and close the hinge, the countersink keeps the cup washer centered up perfectly and holds it while you drill out the center as needed. One picture shows the hinge open with two different sizes of cup washers installed before folding the hinge over to clamp the cup washers. Of course you can't do both these sizes at the same time, one at a time please.

It was easier to do than explain but I think with the pictures it will be selp explainatory, hope this help some of you.

Barrybait