[chris_hughes]

Me and a good friend of mine have been researching swimbait designs, hard plastic,wood, ect.. We eventually want to start our own company and see where it leads. I have some great designs both in my head and on paper, I have found that some people use wood, while others use expanded pvc, but wanted to know if anyone has tried making there own and if so what type of material was used.I really would like to apprentice for someone and learn the tools of the trade. Anything from CAD, to the actual fabrication process, hinges for jointed baits, and find out what kind of tools we need to get this started.My friend who is investing in this, is one of the most amazing artist I have ever seen, airbrush,sculpting, you name it he can turn it into something amazing.If anyone would possibly teach me wood working, carving, or pvc fabrication I would be forever great full. I found some things on a lure design website, but would like to learn first hand.

Thanks in advance,



Chris Hughes

[dampeoples]

I think your idea is sound, but rather than wait around for someone to show you how, pick up a block of wood, a knife, and see what happens. The first bait you make doesn't have to be the best looking thing on the planet, hell, it doesn't even have to work, but from that experience, providing you still have all your fingers, you'll begin to understand what you're reading online, and apply it to your design, build your skills, then come back and teach us.

Take your CAD designs, your airbrush artist and such things and put them on a shelf for now, if you truly don't know anything about woodworking, you're not gonna learn them overnight, and you'll have more failures than success, but sticking with it will get you somewhere in the end.

Good luck, one thing you can do is find a woodworker in your town, look to flea markets and such for those guys.

[Spike-A-Pike]

Chris.

Frist, welcome to the Tackleunderground, center of the tackle junkie universe.

There is no real apprentice program like your looking for. It would be great if there was. The only way to get started is to get started. Get yourself a few blocks of wood, a good pocket knife, some carving knives (Exacto) and learn what you can and can't do with wood. As you progress, add a belt sander, a band saw, and tools that make the process easier to turn out lures the way you think they should look. After you come up with a few designs you like, then you can start to experiment with expanding foam and microballoons.

It is a growing series of progressive steps. Take the time to learn the craft before trying to create a business. You should have a good idea from the amount of fishing and time on the water of what you want in a hard bait... Build a few, buy some lexan lips and give it a shot. Looking forward to seeing your ideas.

[clamboni]

Chris, good advice already. The only tools I use when carving my swimbais are a bandsaw, belt sander, exacto knives and a drill. Just cut some stuff out, get a shape you like and throw it. You'll learn some of the things that help a bait have more/less action. There's a ton of info available here, but the most valuable info you can get is from trial and error. Keep notes on what works and what doesn't, be very detailed.

Don't forget the search function on here.

[Vodkaman]

The difficult part is controlling the symmetry, keeping both sides the same. I would start off with balsa, as it is easy to work and the feed back results come faster. Once you have mastered controlling 3D space, you can progress to more durable woods.

I am not a skilled wood technician. I do all my carving with a dremel, sad, but what ever it takes. It's the final result that counts, no matter how you get there.

If you are going to cast your bodies, then you can justify all the time and attempts you need to get a good master. You are going to produce a lot of lures from this, so be self critical, try to get it as close to perfect as you can. Don't be afraid to start over. It's just practise.

[chris_hughes]

Trial and error has been ringing in the back of my mind since I really sat down and started thinking about everything that goes into this, my previous post showed the excitement I have at learning this. But I also know that people don't become good at making baits, if they don't take the time to sit down and make some mistakes,get frustrated, correct mistakes, and learn from each experience.

From what I have seen in the past 3 days on this board, lots of info here look forward to sharing and learning from this place.


Thanks guys,

Chris

[Snax]

Welcome to our addiction my friend!!!

[Theflyingplatypus]

I recommend going to the gallery of this forum and look at the swimbaits that the guys have made. Just start getting ideas of what kind, size, type of swimbaits you want to build. Then get some graph (i'm sure you have some already form what I read) and start drawing out body shaps, styles of joints, cross sections, top profiles, ect.. Now i'm not saying that you have to have the entire bait planed out i'm just saying that you need some designs on paper before you start carving away at some wood. This is so that when you carve a swimbait that runs like a dream and has the perfect action you have always wanted but you don't have even the side profile on paper so you can duplicate it. Oh and you also want to record how much ballast,weight you put in it and where. This will be invaluable information down the road. But it kinda sounds like you already have most of this down already so that is good. Basically just take one of your drawed out designs and put it to some wood. As far as the woodworking teacher goes well... Maybe try to find a woodcraft store near you and look at the corses that they offer. I know the woodcraft near me has lots of carving and turning classes that you can take for very reasonable prices. Here are some links that have given me inspiration and I hope will be usefull to you. Oh and I forgot to mention, all the advice the other guys gave you is awsome the guys on this forum are great guys and will go out of there way to help a guy out. I just wish I had more to contribute to this forum.


http://http://www.tackletour.com/
http://http://www.lure-fly.com/vagabond/lure/lure.html
http://http://www.calfishing.com/reviews/index.html
http://http://www.ichibantackle.com/...name=bymf.html

[mark poulson]

You can get a head start by finding a lure similar to the one you're thinking of makeing, and reverse engineering it to learn as much as you can from how it's made.
Ater that, it's trial and error until you get your own design perfected.
One hint. Don't bother painting your lures until you've got them working correctly. Just seal them well, if you wind up making them out of wood.
Another tip, and then I'm gone. Go to the gallery, find things you like, and pm/email the makers. Most of the people who post here are extremely generous with their hard earned knowledge in a one to one setting.
Good luck. There's always room for more good luremakers.

[LaPala]

Another source of learning will be to take a class on fish carving. Once you can carve a fish carving a lure be easy or you can carve a realistic lure too. Just search the web for fish carving there is a lot of great craftmans/artist out there offering classes in basic fish carving.

Once you've done that or concurrently just search thru TU for the what, hows and whys that makes a good lure. Ask questions as you go along, you'll be on ur way in say a year or 2?