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birdy

birdy's billy baits

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I'm not sure as where to put this thread on this site as the heads aren't hard or soft they fall somewhere in between the material we are using is a soft polyurethane.

The pic above is of the masters that i've made on the lathe from ally then polished to get the scratch marks out of the surface so we can make a mould from them, the first moulds we made from these heads had fine machine marks in them and duplicated themselves on the moulds which caused the heads to come out a little scratchy looking and dull so i had to polish the masters up and have another go at making the moulds.

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After you've made the mould off the master that's when you can get creative and jam whatever you want into the head (This is where i reckon you fellas can help) At the moment i'm using a pice of ally that's the same outside diameter as the eye with a hole through the centre to take the pice of brass tube that the line runs through, Not quite ideal as far as cost goes but it was the only thing i could think of. From now on we're going to use polyethelene tube 3mm id and 4.2mm od that way there are no sharp edges and the line can't get cut.

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After the heads are out of the mould even after 6hrs they are still a bit tacky and need a couple of days to harden. Then all is needed is a couple of skirts we're using yo-zuri but would love to find some better ones if anyone can think of any to give a go, and this is just about the finished product apart from rigging.

cheers birdy.

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Birdy. Excellent tutorial, well written and very easy to understand, something that I am not so good at.

I agree with you that it is dificult to decide which forum to present this project as it is half and half. But, personally, I read all the forums and pick up knowledge from them all. Quite often techniques applied to one type of bait can be transferred to another.

I would be very interested to read what everyone else thinks about this work. Good job.

Send me your Email addy, my work PM does not work, cheers.

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You and my buddy, Vodkaman, are going to get along great! You two are into all this high tech engineering stuff. I think your baits are beautiful.

All I know how to do is chop wood and sling paint, but I used to make wire baits with skirts. There is a material called Flashabou and another called Crystal Flash that might look good as a skirt material for those baits. Perhaps you're familiar with it already.

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Birdy, There's a bunch of makers of aftermarket trolling skirts if you are just building lures for yourself. If you are trying to develop it as a business, you can try z-man fishing who carries a lot of products made in Veitnam.

http://glcfishing.com/FishingProducts.asp

and

http://www.zmanfishing.com/

As far as tubing, I know you don't want to fray the line, but if you use soft won't the line cut through it at those kind of pressures?

Clemmy

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Birdy, Give up and quit while you are ahead. No seriously they look good and if that is your first proper attempt at making these lure heads I would say you are well on your way. Like I said originally there are lots of good people here who can comment and offer good advice.

Cant comment fairly myself as I have not made heads but am interested and eventually will get round to it. Following are my comments for what they are worth:

1)Your masters probably still need a bit further polishing if there is any marks or blemishes being carried over. I dont know what grit you have polished those with but aluminium oxide instantly springs to mind. Also try some Autosol paste which is used for polishing metal and ss on cars. Available from good auto garages or someone like Super Cheap Auto. That Autosol is a good product and originally was developed for Rolls Royce. I have found with a little elbow grease and a good polishing cloth it works a treat. In your case spinning them on the lathe with some on a cloth will cut the time down dramatically.

2) I think this is probably better on the Hard Baits section rather than the Soft Baits.

3) 3mm ID tube seems pretty large to me and I would have thought was on the large size. (equates to just under 1/8"). I would have opted for something in the 1.6 to 2mm with a bit of a lead in through the nose maybe. Perhaps try teflon tube if you can source it. Wall thickness is not going to be that important cast in a solid head like this.

4) Have you thought of using some NZ Paua shell for inserts? Here they use it quite regularly and it makes some of the better and one of the best Marlin lure heads I have seen. Sure beats any other abalone shell around as the colours in those are too light and too white while the paua is a good blend of greens blues and turquoises. I will email you a picture.

PM me your address and I will see wether I can obtain some samples from someone I know and post them over to you.

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Hi Tech, come on fingures. stir and pour how hard is that? The finishes that you guys put on look flasher than a airbrushed harley.

I checked out the flashabou i liked the flashabou holographic and the fly fibres holographic, No never seen it and it looks great, Thanks for that, are these in a sheet form though? i don't want a join is the only thing.

Tinman. Yeah you guessed right, saltwater trolling. I had to start making my own, it was getting to expensive to keep replacing them, when the razor gang turn up you loose a few. I reckon a couple of the smaller sizes on the lakes. I've got to do a few reverse tapers which have more action at lower speeds, they might be the shot.

Clemmy. Yeah it'd be great to get onto quality skirts, that seems to be harder than making the lure itself There isn't anything realy wrong with the yo-zuri skirts apart from the price, the glc skirts look pretty good i wouldn't mind getting hold of one to have a look at, that's the sort of thing i'm after. Can you deal direct with glc? I'd want a fer hundred in asorted colours and sizes. might not be a big enough order.

I havn't heard of the line cutting into any heads, i'll get a pic of a rigged one, There is a rubber stopper that the head sits down on.

Thanks for all the ideas keep em comeing

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Dave i polished the masters with 800grit then onto the polishing wheel.

not a problem with clarity now, I left the skirt notches rough to get a better bond when you glue on the skirts, the photo's aren't the best the masters have been rolling about and everyone's had there hands over them and the heads and i think the long barrel has copped a double shine onto it from the flash which look like machine marks.

I wish i'd gone a bit smaller with the tube as well to be honest and had to with the realy small ones.

it was a pain to try and get a thin wall tube with a 3mm id if i went down to 2.5 i could of got red blue black yellow green clear natural and white

the only colours they do in 3mm id 4.2mm od are blue black or natural.

any pneumatics supplyer should have it i.e festo, smc, norgren.

Yeah i know the shell you're talking about it looks great, that would look hot!

I havn't done any long ones yet (waiting for the tube) I'll have to put something in the heads of those to fill the void otherwise they will look silly. I was thinking of getting a sheet of holographic paper and going to a sticker mob to see if it can be cut to size and shape on a printer to save the painfull task of having to cut the right shape by hand.

Thanks dave.

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Birdy, Do a Google search under Surgical Tubing and I am sure you will find a local supplier of lots of small sizes.

Let me know if you want some paua pieces along with some approx sizes. I have got someone down in the South Island sending me up some small pieces and some circles for something I am doing and he could probably include those as well so its just a matter of onforwarding them.

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Ah there you go. surgical tube is one avenue i would never even thaught of, and it just so happens i have a mate that works in a surgical supply company, time to call in for a favour.

Reidy by the way your last post sounds, you might live in the north island?

The paua shell looks awesome and i've seen it used in the heads before

i'd love to give it a go to add a bit of "bling", the biggest head is about 32mm by 32mm or 1 1/4" by 1 1/4" how is it to work with?

If you or your mate chase the odd sticknose (billfish) i'm sure we can work something out.

Round 3 should be a heap of fun now that i'm over the earlier mistakes, Thanks for the great tips and how to find what i need and where, now i can spend more time where i'd rather be. ON THE WATER!

cheers birdy

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Birdy,Yeah I live in Auckland. Lived in QLD a long time back when I was 20 and then again for 5 months on my way home after 5 years over in Europe. Came back with the idea of buying a particular piece of land at the southern end of Ellis Beach just north of Cairns and building a beautiful Mediterranean house there I had in mind. It would have been 20 years before its time and was a million dollar site. The social reporter for the Cairns newspaper at the time took me up there and lo and behold there was the exact house just being finished by a damn good European builder. Freaky. He had beaten me by 6 months. The odds on it being that piece of land, that particular style of house, getting around the 2 or 3 problems that site and design presented and a builder who could build it all coming together even today all these years later seem impossible. It taught me one thing and that is even when everthing is going your way and everything is stacked in your favour and life seems certain Life itself or Mother Nature will come along and kick the living crap out of you just for the hell of it. The other thing is to seize life by the horns which due to circumstances and virtually everything I own being stolen including all my tools of trade is what I seem to have been avoiding for the last year or so as I have fought to stop myself killing the ##### which is the real easy way out and am now changing.

No probs re the paua. I have a nice guy down in the S I who is sending me up some samples and who sent me up an email last night saying he would be sorting it out today and puting it in the post so will ask him to include some samples for you as well. The measurements you have given will help. Later shipments we will have to pay for naturally as that is his business. Mainlanders here are damn good people once they have made up their minds you are a reasonable dude and in my case not a JAFA (Just Another F---ing Aucklander) ripping them off or freeloading. Will get back in touch with him this morning. Cheers

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Birdy, First samples arrived yesterday which was what I requested originally and nothing at all suitable in that. (just a number of small paua circles which take time to cut, and some small broken piece paua confetti). 2 more lots of samples coming up (from this and another supplier) and there will have to be something in that. One has to get it right.

Rest assured Paua shell is a good solution and will repay any time expended.

One supplier supplies to the Craft market and the other to the Commercial market so as I was a lot more specific in what I specified here we should get some of the right samples. I suspect the more appropriate stuff here might be the laminate Here is what the commercial guy said:

In his first email he said:”We supply quite a few fishing lure makers both here in New Zealand and offshore in Australia, Hawaii and Florida. These guys are using our shell laminate”.

And in his second he said: We will send you a brochure, laminate sample sheet and a few off-cuts of laminate for you to play around with. I think it best for us to supply you the basic 0.3mm thick laminate and you glue this to whatever is suitable for your production processes

Further down the track if you require specific shapes laser cut from the laminate in reasonable numbers we can cost this for you later.

Thanks for the Craft Warehouse details. Found them easy enough on the web and see they have 16 different sizes which is good. Will try to source them locally first as the need is likely to be ongoing but will get back to you if stuck. Again Thanks.

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Birdy and Roger, Final samples arrived Saturday so yours will be in the mail later today when I have sorted a few more things out. Please post pics at some stage as I am as curious as you to see how it performs outside NZ from the lures and spinnerblades you make. If anyone else wants some please PM me and I will eventually get round to it as I am interested in promoting the industry and will probably sell it from my site when I set one up although it is not top priority right at present.

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Thanks for the link to zmanfishing.com. Birdy why can't sombody make a head like yours with a body like the zmanfishing elaztech flyingfish offshore series ? you might hahe to weight the middle to push the nose up, but i think with the wings it would swim great. im very tired of trolling many hours without a strike, please invent something new, With a head like you made a sluggo works better as a body for me than a skirt. Nice work on your detail by the way

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