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One thing we haven't addressed - at what pressure are you shooting your paint? With the hobby acrylics, I always had to use more air pressure to get them to shoot consistently - around 30 psi or more. If you keep airbrushing, you'll find the extra couple of bucks spent on airbrush paint is a good bargain, considering the hassles of hobby paints. That's especially true when you start shooting multiple colors. Get several colors on the lure, then your next color screws up everything with splatter or runs, ruining the whole job and making you start from scratch. Doesn't take many episodes like that to make you start using paint that sprays more consistently.

I saw this in the tutorial. Click on the colored words "swimbait" http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/15916-pvc-trim-board-shad-swimbait/

I use skirt bands as well but I rol lthem on a needle nose type pliers that really isn't needle nosed, it's actually about 1/4 wide and thin. I roll the skirt band up over this, then I open the pliers a bit and slide the skirt material into it and position where I want it and roll the band off. I know there's tools available commercially to do this at Jann's etc., but this works for me. I use stainless steel wire to tie my jigs and I use this system. I slip the banded material onto the shank and position it for tying. I usually have about 18" of wire on a small vise grip type pliers. Holding the wire in front of the jig, with the pliers about even with the bottom of the jig (which is in a holder) I wrap the SS wire three times around the rubber (I find three turns is best). I then take hold of the dangling vise grip in one hand, twist the loose end around the vise grip wire and kinda make a tight twist knot. I then cut off the SS wire about 1/2" out, hold both ends together and with another vise grips that have the long snout on them, continue to twist the wires until they just about break, I cut off the outside twists just a hair outside the closest bend to the jig, bend the little tag back against the wire and whalla, you're done. Now regarding the vise grips, remember, these are the small one's, not your everyday garage sized one's and I'm not advocating there use, it's just that it's the way I started doing it and have stuck with it. No glue necessary and I really don't know the diameter of the SS wire as I manged to get a huge spool, which I'll never be able to use it all but all I can say is that it's very thin but strong.

also try Lowes and Home Depot for pvc exterior molding ( millwork ). it has a hard outer skin that you will need to trim off.

My experience with 2 cranks in which I placed a rattle in the middle area of the lure has lead me to find other places for the rattles, because such rattles would not make any noise, and that's because the BB would not move, or not move enough. But when I placed the rattle towards the head or towards the tail, the rattle worked very well. This is not only a placement issue, it also has to do with the distance a BB would have to travel to one side and to the other. The longer the distance, the less chanses for the rattle to make noise.