[JBlaze]

Anyone making their own wire weed guards. I tried using these without the little end balls and believe me that little wire is like a hypodermic needle. Unhooking a bass or even putting on a plastic trailer left plenty of punctures in my fingers.
I made these out of .011 spring temper wire. They work well and do get bent but are easily straightened back out with your fingers. I mold them in by placing a skirt collar where you would normally put a fiber weed guard and then fold your wire and slide it through the hole in the skirt collar. The little ball ends are made by bending about 1/32 inch of the end of the wire back upon itself then heating it with a heat gun about 1 second and dipping in powder paint. Do this (heat/dip) several times until you get the size paint ball that you want. When baking your jigs, you will want to turn the heat down and bake them for a longer length of time. I baked these at 350º for fifteen minutes and as you can see, a couple of the little ball ends got soft enough to run down the wire.

John

[JSC]

Thanx for the info on making the "Balls" on the end of the wire.
I all ways make a bend about 1/4 in from the end and us a little heavier SS or Music wire.
JSC

[JBlaze]

JSC, you're welcome. You can also mix up a small amount of D2T and put some glitter in it then dip. This also makes nice looking ball ends but it takes longer for the D2T to set up and you will probably need to do it after you have baked the jigs I may be wrong but I don't think the 2T would take the heat. I tried stiffer wire but felt like I missed to many fish.
John

[JSC]

The shorter the wire the lighter gauge should be.
Also if molded in with out a "Swivel" point it should be lighter.
I am a firm believer that the resistance that the wire gives the tighter a fish will hold to it. Look at the spines on fish and the pinchers on crawfish for example ... they are putting up a lot of resistance ...
Just food for thought
JSC

[HookUp]

Nice! I like the ball end.

I haev the same problem, but use .018 wire. Wire end's sharper than the hook LoL

Sometimes, I just bend a small piece at a 90d angle at the end to avoid sticking and alerting the fish.

When I pour them, found out they pull our easy, so now, I haev one of those pliers made to bend wire for spinnerbaits,etc. and bend a small look in the wire and 'hook' it around the hook in the mold. I think I got that tip from a pix on this board.