[DSV]

the chain is indeed stainless steel. i made very sure of that before i bought it. i bought it at true value hardware store for 99 cents a foot. it is very strong, i cant break it with my hands.

only thing im worried about is it's durability in the lure. im afraid that it might pull out of the slots.

i plan on using 2-ton epoxy in the grooves and to glue the halves back together, do you think this will be strong enough to keep the chain in its place or is there something else i should use to secure the chain?

now that i look back at the picture, i have a lot of room to make the slots for the chain longer. i think i can add at least 2 more beads per chain. i will make the slots as long as i can so that they are more secure.

thanks for the comments guys

PS: diemai, i did not use the tungsten carbide bit at all on this lure. i bought the bit after i was done shaping the lure. i carved the gill and fin detail using one of these: High Speed Cutter 1/8"
by using the "corner" of that bit, i was able to make some very defined lines.

[mark poulson]

I think there will be no point in burying too much of the chain in the lure. 1 1/2" should be plenty. With D2T, the epoxy will not pull out of the wood, and the chain will break before it pulls out.
Make a test with some scrap wood and a piece of chain before you decide how much to bury.
Be sure and let the epoxy set for a day, to be sure it's at max. strength.

[DSV]

i completed the chain slots, and added weights. i also made the grooves for the chains a little bit longer.





i then soaked them in polyurethane and hung them up to dry:



i might give it a run in the bath tub tonight and possibly in a swimming pool tomorrow.

[diemai]

@ DSV

Your work is just great , I am so eager about the results !

I assume , that you just located the weight positions by estimation , did you ?

Good to hear , that such chains are also available in SST , even better to hear , that they are rigid enough for fishing purposes !

And thank you for having taken the effort about that router bit link , I already have such a bit , even one of tungsten carbide , but with a longer cutting portion .

I guess , that it is just that I never have thought of using these bits for sculpturing gills , eyes , fins and stuff !
Seems that I think more in technical issues rather than in a sense for art !

But still I am going to look for the first one pictured here , I like it's slim conical shape .

One more thing :

I like those T-shaped twisted eyes , very good input to me , never used such or even thought about such an eye design .

One day I might surely get back to it for a new lure !

Good luck and success , Dieter

[DSV]

die mai,

i kinda just placed the weights where it looked like they should go. no real rhyme and reason to it.

im gonna stick the halves together with rubber cement and give it a run in the bath tub! will report later.

[DSV]

well the bathtub tests were not very good but they weren't terrible either.

there is a problem, but i know what i need to do to fix it.

i could see the lure trying its hardest to wiggle, but there wasnt enough ballast weight to keep it upright. the head was upright, the body was cocked at about a 70° angle and the unweighted tail was about 45°.
so tomorrow i am going to add a few weights to the body and tail and then give it another run!

[ebby]

if i were you i would take it out and cast it, i have made two different styles of swimbaits and one seemed to swim in the tub but not when casted the other didn't seem to swim but swam great when cast. if its tipping like you say your prolly right and need to add some wieght

[pizza]

Great thread and way to think outside the box DSV. You are running into the exact problem I did when I tried to make a tri-segment flatsided bait (see my gallery pics). Especially with baits whose height/width ratio is large, keeping them upright is tricky. Keep at it and add more weight as low as possible. Perhaps maybe consider lead plumbing tape(I've never seen it, only heard of it). This way your weight would be at the very bottom of the segments which will best help it stay in an upright position. You may need to add some epoxy and sand the area of the plumbing tape afterwords (and make longer hook hangers)to get that "seamless/smooth" look though. Best of luck and thanks for the thread.

[diemai]

@ DSV

I like your thread !

You always come up with new things(to me) !

Glueing the two halves together temporary with rubber cement for a test run is something , I haven't heard of before .

In fact I am not so familiar with making lures out of two halves of wood , especially not multiple sectioned ones , just started out with a few simpler ones last fall , but here you took the working processes to a perfect and easy way to follow .

Thanks you so much for the input !

Good success with the weighting , Dieter

[rofish]

DSV,
One can find out if his ideas will work only with the help of practise. The thread you started is a proof to that. There are some good ideas which you showed to us. Like Diemai, I like those T-shaped twisted wires. By using such wires, you win space in the segments, and you definately need space especially with a smaller swimbait.
You do not have to worry about the durability of those beads inside the lure. Mark Poulson is perfectly right, those beads will never pull out in case you use Devcon 2T to glue the halves together. I even think that you do not need to use the whole length of the chain in the middle section. 3 beads on each side will be more than enough to permanently glue the halves with Devcon 2T. This way you would be able to use the unnecessary weight at the top of the lure to the bottom of it, for a better stability.
But I would be worried indeed with another aspect. When you mentioned the durabilitiy of the chain, I thought at first that you refer to the chain itself, not to the possibility that it pulls out of the slot. That chain, even if made of SS material, will fail after a period of time, due to the wear and tear. I think that 2 interlocked twisted wires have a much longer life span than such a chain.
Are you going to leave 2 beads outside the body in a line between 2 segments? I think this is not necessary, one bead will be enough. The good thing about such a chain is that it allows the segments to move much easier than 2 interlocked wires. So I think that a bead chain is better or worse than other linking systems, depending on what you have in view.
But you have to think positive: think that a big fish will steal that lure from you, before the segments will start falling apart