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epoxy finish on hinged baits

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I'm having trouble putting a finish coat on a hinged wooden bait.

To make them look as good as you guys make the hinge, the pcs need to be close together. I've tried a hinge made with stainless plates, the bait looked and worked great but I made a mess trying to top coat the bait in one pc. Th e only other way I tried was to use eye screws, I then could coat in 2 pcs but finished result was the 2 halves were to far apart. Am I doing it wrong? Is there a better way? Any help would be appreciated. thanks.

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I use interlinked handwound ss eye screws and make the eyes small. After the clearcoat cures, chuck a piece of ss wire in a Dremel to clean out the eyes. Not elegant but workable. One thing to avoid is leaving sharp edges on body segments. Epoxy draws away from a sharp edge while curing and will leave insufficient finish, so you need to round them off (or use another clearcoat). There are various tweaks for body segments. One is to slant the cut backwards so a fish following the bait from below can't see the joint space. If you get the segments too close, they'll hit and limit the amount of swing - a good or bad thing depending what you want.

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Good question, and problems anyone attempting a jointed bait will find. If you assemble, then paint, you have another set of problems. I think sometimes it is best to treat the bait as two separate baits; paint/seal halves before assembly. Of course you have to follow up with particular sealing attention where the eyes/wire join the halves.

Screw-eye joints will allow a "rotational" joint. Plates will only allow vertical or lateral movement (one axis).

As BobP alludes, I don't think many have found a way to avoid making a mess. Either the topcoat causes the mess (assemble/paint/topcoat), or the paintjob suffers (paint/assemble/topcoat). I'm sure someone here has figured out a way to do this better.

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I've been messing about with multi segment lures on and off for the last three months, experimenting with hinge ideas.

I have settled on a nylon type thread. I bought 100m of it in a large hardware store. It was too thick in its bought state, but found that when unravelled, it was perfect.

The thread is glued into 10mm lengths of thin plastic tubes, ie. one hinge comprises one length of thread and two tubes with a gap between the tubes of 1mm or less.

1mm dia Pilot holes for the tubes are drilled prior to painting.

After the lure is completely finished, the pilot are opened up to the correct dia for the tubes, allowing enough slop for the epoxy.

The surface of the tubes are roughed up to improve adhesion before cutting them to length.

Then simply epoxy them in.

Make sure you keep the epoxy away from the hinge area, as it does tend to flow a couple of mm along the thread.

Sounds complicated, but after a couple of goes you will get organised. It is possible to make enough hinges to last the whole season in an afternoon.

With one joint comprising of two hinges, their are no body rotation problems.

For multi segment lures, I simply thread the segments on without gluing, allowing them to float free on the lines. I works for me.

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OK, vodkaman, you have proved you will share what you learn. It is also possible to joint lures using sevenstrand wire or other type. If you don't know what sevenstrand is....it is the wire that saltwater fishermen use to construct their leaders. Kind of like a brake cable on a bike, only smaller diameter unless you're fishing for sharks (LOL). I think it will resist weakening from the chemicals in the epoxy better than nylon. Also will not tarnish over time.

As far as figuring out how to anchor into each segment, use your imagination.

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Doomdart.

Yes, it is possible to use sevenstrand, however I found it to be more restrictive in movement than a plastic chord type material. Also, I have read threads in the past, discussing the merits of stranded wire for hinges and it was generally agreed that fatigue was a problem. Four hours fishing will apply approximately 200,000 bending operations on the joint, ok, the bend angle is small, but I wouldn't put my life on it after twenty trips to the pond.

As for chemical rection with plastics, unfortunately, my tube is written in Swedish, but I did do a web search, couldn't come up with anything negative.

The point of the original thread was how to hinge the two lure segments together, keeping a minimal gap. I found your advice of 'use your imagination' unhelpful at the very least.

But the point that I really don't get, is the personalised comment at the start of your thread reply.

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vodkaman, meant nothing derogatory at all in my comment. The "personalized" part was in reference to your original (I think) posted thread where you promised you would share what you learn as you go. Just commending you for living up to the promise, is all.

As far as the nylon vs. sevenstrand, I was only offering another option. Not saying that the sevenstrand is necessarily superior. I guess I should have separated the commentary of the wire from the introductory personalized remark, as the rest was directed at the readership as a whole.

I don't know of reaction or weakening with the chemical/nylon bond. I trust your search and research that says that there is no problem.

You may be right, perhaps with sevenstrand eventually I will set myself up for disappointment when the big one strikes, but so far I am pleased with the results from that particular wire product. I've not seen the fatigue mentioned by others. Also, for sure no problems with any reaction.

Also, as far as joining, I did not mean the "use your imagination" comment to sound derogatory, only that I choose not to reveal my particular method. And the "your" was not directed at you, but again at the readership as a whole.

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I sincerely appologise for my gross over reaction. It is due to the rough ride I got from a few members when I joined TU.

When this contract is finished and I can get back to my workshop, amongst the list of things to do, is to build a simple test rig to put this steel/nylon thing to bed. To test how many cycles it will take in our application. But I'll have to start writing down the list on paper, it's well out of hand.

As for your joining method, pity you don't want to share it, but I respect that. Yes, my original statement about sharing was a bold one. Not sure I could really live upto it if I came up with something really big.

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No apology necessary. When I read my post again I could see how my comments might be interpreted. Didn't mean them that way at all. The test would be interesting. Not sure of exactly which type of thread you are using, would be curious to find it. sparetire, hopefully I haven't steered this away from your inquiry.

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The package was in Swedish and I dumped it, so maybe Swede can tell us next time he visits the Clas Ohlson store. Best I can do is to describe it.

Diameter 1mm. Breaks down into three chords, each chord breaks dow further into about a thousand fibres, too thin to register on my digital vernier. Obviously man made. It unravels too easily, but this is solved by touching the frechly cut end with a flame.

I can only hazard a guess at the breaking strain, at least 200Kg. It is extremely strong, very pliable and cheap.

Because of its structure, it lends itself to fatigue applications, on the down side, glue tends to flow by capillary action along its length, even thick epoxy will travel 2 - 3mm, so it is important to keep the epoxy away from the joint, which is what led me to the sleeve idea. It holds it well,seals the wood and prevents moisture ingress at the same time.

It could be terylene.

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You all have seen my jointed baits. If not look at the ones in the gallery.

This is what works for me. I form the bait and then cut it on the band saw at the desired length of the split. I put the screw eyes in at this point. I then seal, prime, paint and clear coat each piece individually before I put them together. I use either hand made screw eyes from ss wire or for musky baits .092 stainless screw eyes from stamina. They come out clean looking and always fit. Much easier this way. ;)

Rod

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Riverman. To be honest, once I arrived at a solution for the hinge, I lost interest in the jointed lure. It was around that time that I made huge leaps forward in the lip theory and concentrated on that.

I will eventually get back to the hinge, but at the moment work is severely hindering my progress. I hope someone tries it.

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Oh come on Doomdart, show us some of your jointed baits! We've all shared plenty with you, I can't believe you'd hold something back from all of us. I'm considering trying some jointed lures, and I very much like seeing the end results from the different joining methods. Thus far, rjbass has set the standard in a clean, finished, dependable joint, but I'm open to ideas, especially with the number of possible solutions to connecting parts of a lure! I can't think of that many different ways to join Sevenstrand: Show us your lures! I won't copy if you don't want me to, besides, your anchoring system would be hidden inside the baits!

Dean

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I use cotter pins for my joints and I install one set in the head section and put screw eyes in the tail. Paint and clear coat, remove the screw eyes and drill out the hole and install the cotter pins in the rear section. I don't have any issues with epoxy in joint. Now it is a slight pain trying to hold the front half with dangling cotter pins full of epoxy and then hitting 1/16" holes. But this works for me.

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I have toyed with this method a bit....it will work best for larger lures such as those I build for musky.

I install two screw eyes on one side of the lure joint. On the opposite side, I install two more making sure they are located just inside the two screws on the first side. I then run a pin down through the pieces to hold them in place...see the attached image. I found a nail that works perfectly and only requires a slight bend on one end of it to hold it in place. If done correctly the joint cannot slide up or down and works very smoothly. One thing I like about this method is that you can take the lure apart if needed and reassemble it and it's incredibly strong.

Jed V.

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There is probably a better way. Since I am building musky lures I tend to over-build things and this is a good example. It definitely won't ever break. The one down side of it is that you have to use alot of screws which makes it a bit tricky to add in the screw eyes for the hook holders....they collide with the other screws so they must be installed a bit off-center.

I forgot to mention, you should drill the area where each of the screws will go to allow for clearance on the screw eye heads as they swivel. I use about a 1/4-3/8" forstner bit to do this. Twist the screw eyes in as far as possible while still allowing free movement of the pin to reduce the gap between the two sections.

I experimented some with the screw eyes on one side and then held in place with a vertical pin running down through the joint and into each eye on the other. Many commerical jointed lures are built in this manner. This works too but when I gave it a good pull and twist the wood cracked which ended my confidence in this approach. Solid plastic probably wouldn't crack like the wood which is probably why commercially built lures in this manner hold up.

If someone can think of a way to improve this set-up please let me know...I would be very interested!!!

Jed

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I thought about trying a hinge pin on my bass baits but it tended to increase the gap between segments. So far, the hand twisted ss screws built one inside the other have worked OK. You can make the screw eyes very small if you want a small gap (use wire bending pliers!), or you can even recess the screw eyes into the bait if you want it REALLY tight, so the segments click together when retrieved. I clean epoxy out of the hinge with a piece of ss wire chucked in a Dremel. It works very well but you need to be careful not to drill through the clearcoat and expose raw wood to water absorption. I don't know if it's important (bass seldom talk to me directly!), but I like to cut the segments at a slight back angle so a following fish doesn't see the gap or the hardware in the hinge.

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I have been using cotter pins interlocked together. If you want to be able to assemble and dissasemble with ease prior to final glue up, all you have to do is spread the cotter pin open, squeeze together, and instert it in the hole. It will create a spring effect and the cotter pin will grip the inside wall of the hole. That way you can paint the bait with it together, take it apart to clear coat each segment, and when cured complete the final assembly. You can just insert a screw eye or whatever in one of the holes to hold it while turning. If you don't get too much epoxy on the screw eyes, they will screw out pretty easily after the epoxy has cured. Anyway, this is what I have found to work pretty good in my limited experience. Also another tip I have learned, is if you use two pins for each joint (total of 4, two pairs per joint) cut one just a tad shorter than the other and it will be easier to insert them at the same time. Works for me.

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