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Bass & Musky Blanks

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Does anyone know a good place to get wood musky blanks? I am looking to do some topwater plopper baits similar to the top raider or twisted sister. I cant find any info out there on how to make these baits. I am also looking for the closest blank for the megabass 110 for bass. If someone could please offer some insight that would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks

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If you do a forum search you should find information on building plopper style baits

I know Mark has left information about building whopper ploppers a number of times. He makes them from PVC board. I have not built theses style of myself but they don’t look horribly difficult 

I have never bought a blank in my life so can’t help much there

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I have made a couple of the musky plopper baits. On one, I followed this guy's video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqrzyXAfJlA&t=231s

I made the bodies myself. The shape is simple to make. One I made was a split body like in the video and epoxied back together with D2T.

Another I made was a solid (non-split) body made with a dowel:                      (Sorry in advance for the length)

It was simpler to make than the length of description implies. The only real tricky part was drilling the center shaft hole. That was easier once I found a long 1/8" drill bit a Home Depot.

Drill a hole all the way through the center of length of a section of dowel (6" long, 1-3/8" diameter) with a long (1/8") drill bit, I used poplar because it is cheap and readily available at big box stores, shape the piece with a bulbous head and taper to 1/2" diameter  tail (razor knife and sand paper) , round off the very end of the tail down to 1/4", cut approximately one third of the dowel's narrow end off for the tail (or use an existing lure for a reference of the lengths of the sections).

Front part: superglue a rivet into the nose of the main body, put the glue on the underside of the rivet's lip (do not get glue in the rivet hole, used super glue for a quick dry time), put a .051 loop wire through the rivet (loop will be the line tie), the wire should extend several inches out the back to accommodate the tail section/loop for rear hook/hardware,  find someway to brace the front section standing so the loop is pointed down (taped the loop to keep it from dropping and wrapped the front section in a rag and clamped it in a vise), fill the shaft hole with epoxy, slide a rivet down the wire to cap the other end of the shaft hole, rivet head should be on top and will help as a bearing. Once the epoxy is dry, drill a hole mid point of the front section and epoxy in a small lead belly weight, drill eye sockets, add a .092 screw near the belly weight for the front hook or drill a hole to use a cross-pinned swivel for a hook hanger.

"...use Spro #4 heavy duty swivels for belly hook hangers, and pass a short piece of sst wire from side to side/cross-ways through the buried eye of the swivel to add some insurance". Mark Poulson, circa 2019

Tail section - cut a slice into the tail section along its length, try to keep the slice depth parallel to the center shaft hole, the cut will be deeper towards the thicker front part of the tail, shallower towards the tail end,  do not cut too deep you do not want to breach the center shaft hole, this slice is where the plopper blade will be epoxied in later, coat 1.5 to 2" of the outside of a coffee straw (or small metal tube) with epoxy, leave the ends of the straw un-coated, slide the coated straw into the shaft hole, make sure no epoxy gets inside the straw, a coffee straw is a couple inches longer the the tail section,  you should have 1-1.5" sticking out of each end, tape off the thicker end of the shaft hole around the straw with masking tape, pour epoxy down the shaft hole along the outside of the straw from the narrow end and fill the shaft hole like above with front section, let cure, remove tape (sandpaper and razor knife if necessary), trim straw ends flush with tail section, slide a rivet into each end of the straw, use a small amount of super glue or epoxy under the rivet heads to hold in place (again do not clog the straw), let dry, cut a plopper blade out of sheet metal (or buy like I did - below) and curl it with pliers using a whopper plopper or other bait for reference, you can change the curve somewhat after it is epoxied in,  epoxy the blade into the slice cut and let dry, you could then drill a hole and cross pin it, but I did not.

Finishing - seal the 2 sections, paint, add eyes, clear coat, yet again make sure you do not clog the straw in the tail section, just clear coat to the edge of the rivet heads. Once the 2 sections are dry, add a disc washer - see below (or other small washer) on to the wire behind the front section, this will provide a tiny bit of space between the 2 section in case of an imperfect cut when cutting the body (also acts as an additional bearing between the rivet heads), slide tail section on, slide another rivet on with rivet head facing the tail section, add 1-2 beads, I added 2 to give me a margin for error if I screwed up making the final loop, make final loop and wrap to get the 2 section close together but not too tight or the tail won't spin, if you wrapped too tight and the tail doesn't spin cut off one of the beads with side cutter pliers, add split rings and hooks.

They are not too hard to make. Lots of simple steps.

You can adjust the bend of the metal blade after it's finished to adjust the sound. Hold the blade stationary with needle nose pliers where it enters the bait and adjust the bend with a second pair of needle nose pliers from the center of the curl. You want to keep the blade stationary near the bait so the clear coat or bait doesn't crack. 

Tail Blade - https://www.lurepartsonline.com/TallyWacker-Tail

For pronunciation, please see the following https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbedV0cPajg

 

Disc washer - https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Disc-Washers

You could probably make one from the blank below. They do have a center drilled option. Not sure it if bulbous like the musky plopper type baits. it looks more like a spook type body.

https://www.pebblelures.com/product-p/msky001.htm

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