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That my friend takes a smart man years of lure building and practice to made a good crank. It takes a genius many years to make one better then any other bait out there. Before I started my lure business I spent many years making baits and designing baits, before I ever tried to sell any. I only make lures that I design and that are truly unique. I think your getting the cart before the horse here. You should know exactly what lure you are going to build, have thoroughly tested it, and know you have a winner before you ever start gearing up to make baits to sell. My 2 cents worth.

I`ve used pieces of coat hanger in a pinch. All sorts of stuff that you can use/find when the need arises.

Spent six days in Vegas recently. (Well, five full days.) Saw a Cirque De Soleil show, visited the "Pinball Hall of Fame", saw a Picasso exhibit, a great jazz and blues band at a club one evening, and lots of street performers. Food was pretty darn unbelievable most places. Went to Gordon Ramsay's for lunch one day. It was pretty good, but not fantastic. They brought me fries with my burger. They were pretty good fries. Maybe as good as the old McDonalds fries before they switched to vegetable oil like everybody else. They didn't come with my burger though, and I know I didn't order them. The tiny little cup of fries cost $11 when I looked at the bill. LOL. That was probably one of the cheapest places we ate. Oddly enough I probably enjoyed the street performers the most of all. Most were mediocre. A few were terrible, and there were a couple that were out of this world good. There were two I think I might have seen on one of those talent competitions on TV. I think Patti got targeted by a pick pocket once. He dropped in behind her and zigged through the crowd in reaching distances right behind her for a little while. He wasn't dressed or moving like a tourist, and he had plenty of chances to go around. Then he looked around and saw me in position to pinch him, and he suddenly doubled his speed and zigged off through the crowd. We had a great trip. While I was there I picked up a contractor's work cap for one of my trucks. That was the first day and because it was a little higher they parked my truck in the VIP section right up top the rest of the trip. I just wish I'ld had CNC molds signs on my truck. Or better yet a CNC Molds windshield sun blocker. LOL. I dropped a trolling motor off at BPS on Thursday morning for a warranty repair, but when I stopped by on my way out of town Monday it was still sitting on the floor in the exact spot where I set it, so I picked it up to take somewhere else. While I was there I bought a couple new trolling motor plugs, and a small handful of top water baits. They had some XPS poppers in a bone color that looked almost identical the bone color Ricos and Rio Ricohs. I had to try them, and one of the other color XPS poppers (which they didn't have in stock) is on my favorites list already anyway. No. I didn't do any gambling. I used to like to play 7 Card Stud in Vegas, but everybody plays Texas Hold'em these days. The game is just to fast and too aggressive for me. Well, that's not completely true. I stuck a 20 dollar bill in a slot machine and flushed it one day. It was pretty sad. Only 2 or 3 small wins, and never one time above the initial stake. Not enough fun to play again. I miss the sound of coins paying into the hopper. Clang! Clang! Clang!. I know why its been eliminated (for health reasons), but I still miss the sounds of jackpots big and small pouring out into the coin hopper. I thought about hiring a guide and fishing Lake Mead one day, but I just never got around to it. The view from my room was pretty good from the 28th floor of the Cosmopolitan. I got to watch the fountain in front of the Bellagio every half hour every evening if I was in my room. One thing I particularly noticed was the smell of the town at night. When I stood out on my hotel balcony the smell of a million different foods just blended into a cafeteria smell. Not a bad smell, but not what I might have expected either. It was a fun trip, and there things I would have liked to do and didn't but I'm good on Vegas for another couple years. The View From My Balconey

use twich and some jerk ,with low speed

Actually this one would be an easy one to make a mold of, just use a coarse wood screw as a master. The other alternative would be to get a blank mold, drill a hole, the tap threads into said hole..

Get as much brush as you can afford Iwata revolution is a good start but I'm partial to the Iwata HP-CS or BS. don't go cheap on paint, craft paint is doable but there is a bit of a leaning curve. Read up on brush cleaning as this is probably the #1 reason people run into trouble when learning, a dirty brush is the root of all evil.

Here's something to try. With nothing attached to the rotisserie grab the output shaft and try to spin it back and forth with your fingers. If you feel any slack that is what is known as "backlash". Gears have to have a certain amount of clearance between them to keep them from binding and wearing out prematurely. If they are too tight you get increased friction which wears the gears out prematurely as well as putting excess stress on the motor which also shortens it's life. Too much clearance and you get the problem your experiencing that shows itself as a "drop" when unbalanced weight moves to the downward side of the rotation and gravity takes over. Shimming the gears, either farther apart or closer together, is the only way to correct "backlash". I know of nothing that can be done to correct this problem in a sealed unit such as a rotisserie. About all you can do is buy a new turner motor and hope for the best. Ben

I think my rotisserie is faster than that and mine come out fine. Although, I did just have my first problem with Etex, it grew a lump after about an hour on the wheel after I stopped it. I don't think I mixed it properly. How long do you guys leave your lures turning for?

I bought a better rotisserie but had to buy the whole kit cost me about 90 bucks. I don't have any other option really I live in the middle of nowwhere Canada. The lures don't drop if I stack one side but it's turning about 2 times per minute, opposed to my cheap rotisserie turning 1 per minute. Is that to fast I wonder for evirotex?

one of the adams has a shop in the u k he makes crankbait blank molds for anyone custom done....might be worth a look.......custom lure factory......slawek adams paul dose videos on you tube...

yep.. one likes bud other miller. and maybe maybe 1 guy likes coolers? lol

I think people find something they like and or figure out how to get decent results with and they keep with it. I've tried several plastics including several from M-F, Chemionics, Bait Junky's, and Pourasol. Over all I seem to get the most consistent results from M-F, but others have reported they don't like it. Its like asking a room full of guys which is the best beer.

I would run away because once you get into this deal, life will never be the same. You'll look at normal everyday items and try to figure out how to use them to make your next lure. You'll daydream and doodle at work about your next lure build. You'll spend more money than you thought you had in pursuit of the next great lure! Oh wait, never mind, all that sounds like fun to me. I would recommend PVC. There is a pinned topic called "why pvc" at the top of the hard baits forum regarding this subject.

I made my plastic stirrers out of metal coat hangers, bent double, with a 1/2" flat at the bottom. Cheap, rigid, and move through the plastic really well. And they aren't heavy enough to crack Pyrex.

Cabelas or bass pro has lead core by the spool.It is used in alot of salmon rivers .Some is solid and some hollow look up solid -lead wire rolls at cabelas . This might work for you then you can cut it what ever length u want .

+1 I pretty much dumped purples and went to black grape or indigo.

Order Grape instead of purple if that is an option. If a company has a purple that doesn't bleed then odds are its the grape that most sell.

16 cavity stick molds, I routinely shoot with the temp controllers hovering around 170C (338F) with the actual plastic around 330. Never have I had a denting problem, maybe, and this is a huge maybe, I get 5-10 out of 1000 stick baits with a dent. Further, ZERO colour issues, including white. Only fading I've ever seen is with specific dyes, all other dyes and pigments I have no issues with. It seems that as soon as I went with my own mold (I specified the layout, runner and gate design as well as the cavity design) I had no issues with dents. For the OP. The reason they dent as Frank noted is the gate is too small for the bait. Plastic expands as it is heated and then contracts as it cools. To prevent the baits from getting dents as they cool you need a fresh supply of hot plastic to feed the cavity as it cools. If the gate isn't large enough it will freeze off before the bait is cool enough and the only thing it can do is shrink and pull from the side causing the dents. One fix is to shoot your plastic cooler as it will actually contract less. Another is to hold pressure after filling the cavity. If the gates are that magic size they will sufficiently feed the cavity as it cools. Also remember, you still need to bring your plastic up to proper temperature of 350 when you initially cook it, then back the temperature off to your shooting temp.

Not sure I've ever seen a nail weight that heavy, but I cut solid core solder into different lengths. Make a square cut on one end and a diagonal cut on the other end. This provides a sharp point to stick into the plastic and a blunt end to keep it from coming out. Solid core solder is 1/8" in diameter so if you can't make a weight that's heavy enough in a desired length just go to McMaster-Carr and order a larger diameter lead wire. Ben

I reduced the speed of my motor using a vacuum cleaner belt and a fishing line spool as a pulley. The belt fits in the spool perfectly and with the sides on the spool it can't slip off. mossy maker