BobP

I use lacquer thinner. Dip the brush, agitate, blot brush on cloth, repeat. I use nylon bristle flat artist brushes. The finer bristles pop epoxy bubbles as I apply it. And the brushes last for years.

I build baits in batches of 6 and I use Rod Bond paste epoxy, the original slow cure variety, to glue in hardware and lips. It’s strong and waterproof and stays where you put it. Plus, I can mix up a batch and easily install 6 lips before it begins to harden. For lips, I push the paste into the slot with a thin wire until its filled with epoxy, then push in a dry lip. The excess squeezes out of the slot at the rear of the lip and is easy to wipe clean. Do not butter the lip before insertion as that causes a mess on the front of the lip. The slow cure time (6 hrs to begin, 24 hrs to finish) allows a lot of time to tweak lip positions, which I’m finicky enough to appreciate. I cut two slots in the rear of all lips before insertion to form “key” and improve strength.

Solarez is intended for surf board finishing. The wax flakes it contains and the white blush that it develops doesn’t matter much on a large white surf board, but it does matter to many lure finishers. I couldn’t use it for that reason and defaulted to using it as a quick strong waterproof undercoating, for which it was excellent. My quart of Solarez eventually hardened and was thrown away. Jmho, if you want a uv resin that hardens to a clear coating, you want a “doming” uv resin. The only two I know of are Alumi-uv and inexpensive Chinese casting uv resins sold on Amazon, etc. alumi-uv has excellent reputation, but it is rather expensive. The cheaper Chinese stuff works ok but the bottle I have takes longer (30 minutes) to cure under my uv nail light. I’ll try sunlight on my next batch of lures to see if that works better, since sunlight has all wavelengths of uv while uv lamps don’t.

A lot of TUers have tried Solarez. It’s very cheap for a uv resin but has one drawback that caused many of us to drop it, namely that the surface cure is accomplished by wax flakes in the resin. After the cure is complete, you often have a white blush in the finish. Some guys don’t mind it, some do. Alumi-uv and the Chinese craft resins you see on Amazon are a different type of uv resin and don’t use wax flakes.

Don, i agree with 21XDC about using a moisture cured urethane (MCU) topcoat but think I would opt for Dick Nite Fishermun’s Lurecoat instead of KBS. With Dick Nite, I’ve had the topcoat penetrate through the acrylic latex color coat and form a bond directly with the metal on spoons. It would be even more durable if applied over solvent based lacquer colors. 21XDC also brings up a point you should beware of regarding safety. You need to wear a mask rated for solvent protection if you shoot solvent based coatings. Aside from the very flammable mist that’s present, the chemicals in topcoats are often very poisonous. I wouldn’t dream of using anything other than MCU on a spinner blade or jig head. It’s the perfect topcoat for them: thin, tough, and non yellowing. Once upon a time I repainted a reel. It was a PITA to do and the new paint (auto aerosol colors) started chipping pretty quickly. Honestly, I think you’ll try it and probably decide as I did that the end product just isn’t worth the work and time required to do it.

For a line tie on the lip, many guys start with the tie point 45-50 % of the distance between the nose and the end of the lip. From there, if you move the tie toward the nose, you will get a harder, wider action. But go too far and the lure will blow out or circle in the water. If you have a similar commercial bait, you can often shorten the test-retest cycle by starting at the same point. The lip angle and placement of the ballast also affect the bait’s action.

Maybe it doesn’t matter which waterproof/gas proof coating you use under the foil. I use epoxy. I used to use uv resin (Solarez) because it was cheap and fast but my bottle went bad and I didn’t want it as a topcoat, so switched back to epoxy. I have Chinese brand uv resin and MCU too, but I’ve been using epoxy for decades, so... Mark has been building closed cell pvc lures for many years. That seems similar to resin with micro balloons to me and if he uses nail polish, I think it would work too. If you are considering superglue just because its fast I think that’s a mistake since you want a coating that yields a smooth paintable surface by filling in all the surface voids. Jmho

I wouldn't be concerned with the tape, but with what’s under it. Raw wood? Foam? Expanded pvc trim? I make wood baits and foil them. There has to be a waterproof/gas proof coating under the foil or any heating of the lure will cause outgassing and bubbled foil (whether heated by you when finishing the lure or by the user storing the lure in a hot compartment).

When I tried it, Solarez always cured hard within 5 minutes. But the end product isn’t always a slick hard dry surface because a small part of the Solarez resin can end up as a liquid on the surface of the coating. I think if you wipe the coating with some alcohol it will resemble what you’re looking for more closely.

It takes about 30 minutes inside a nail uv cure box to harden the Chinese resin I have. Different resins are designed to be hardened at different UV wavelengths and a given lamp may or may not work well on certain resins, but most will eventually get the job done. I’d give it an alcohol wipe like Travis recommends after giving it more time under the light. I don’t think you’ll have this problem with Alumi-UV, but the Chinese resin is much less expensive. and yes, curing resin in sunlight is a good way to go since the sun puts out a wide range of UV.

I also view crankbaits as expendable and I don’t have customers who expect (unreasonably) that they last forever. That doesn’t mean I want them to disintegrate an hour into a hot crankbait bite though. I undercoat with epoxy and topcoat with various stuff - MCU, UV resin, or epoxy. So my baits have 2 tough waterproof coatings. That’s enough for me. But all of us are “rolling their own” and if you want 10 layers of finish on your bait for some reason, well, no fault, no foul.

I use water based acrylic paint. The truth is, it lasts as long as the topcoat you put over it. If the topcoat is cracked or chipped, water can infiltrate the paint, cause it to expand and push the finish off the lure. You can avoid that by using lacquer based paint but it is much more toxic than water based. Most hobbyists and small batch custom builders use water based paint. It works fine for most crankbaits, most of the time.

You got me. I also have a bottle of Chinese uv resin, about a year old. It’s still the same viscosity liquid as when new. When I used it as clearcoat last week, it took about 40 minutes in my fingernail uv curing box to properly harden. Not much longer than it took when fresh, but maybe slightly longer. I think the longer cure time may just be typical for Chinese resins. The Alumi-UV resin reportedly cures in a few minutes. It’s also much more expensive, so “player’s choice”.

Anything will work, just depending on what qualities are important to you. Personally, I only use waterproof undercoatings to increase the durability of the lures I make, and in my experience NO water based coating is actually waterproof. I keep several kinds of waterproof clearcoats (epoxy, MCU, uv cured polyester) on hand and I use one of them for undercoating. But most solvent based coatings lIke shellac, spar varnish, urethane, etc can also be used. But water based primer? Not for me.

Don’t know if there are better ways, but I tension a thick rubber band over the nose, adjust it until it looks symmetrical, and mark the slot with a Sharpie.

I prefer inexpensive nylon artists’ brushes. I bought a set of 5 flat bristle brushes at Michaels a decade ago for less than $10 and have used them to apply hundreds of coatings since then. The finer bristles burst bubbles in clearcoats much better than other options. Clean them with lacquer thinner. You can’t beat the cost/benefit.

One thing to be aware of with prop, it should be dissolved in acetone in a pretty dilute solution to make a good smooth coating. That necessitates multiple dips to get a thick enough coating. I used 8 dips, which took about 1 1/2 hrs to accomplish for a small batch of baits. So there are quicker ways to make an undercoating. Also, i never could find a jar that sealed well enough to prevent the acetone from evaporating over a couple of months, an added complication. Yes, it makes a nice undercoating on a Balsa bait. But there are other options that are less hassle.

I use relatively cheap quick cure epoxy (5 minute). It works fast, is strong. Just about any glue will get the job done.

Over the years there were two TU sources for prop pellets. One guy passed away. The other disappeared from the site. I’m sure there is cellulose propionate pellets somewhere but nobody seems to know where that is. I wouldn’t recommend trying plastic cups. Some reportedly work ok, some crack after application. As for prop itself - I’ve used it, it works ok but nothing special compared to other options like epoxy, MCU, super glue, etc etc

If you go to the Alumilite site, there is a video of a guy slamming a uv resin coated bait repeatedly onto a concrete driveway, with little if any damage. So the resin looks pretty darned tough. I think any of the three coatings have performed just fine depending on the thickness of the coating and how well they were applied. So it’s player’s choice depending on cost, ease of use, and your expertise with the coating you choose.

I use either a moisture cured urethane like KBS or a UV cured polyester resin, ordered through Amazon from China, or Alumi-UV a brand available here in the US. A slow cure epoxy like Eastman03 uses is also a decent choice. The most popular epoxies are Devcon Two Ton and Envirotex Lite (aka ETEX), but any slow cure waterproof epoxy is usable. I prefer MCU or UV resin because they don’t need mixing and do not Yellow over time.

I just never got the knack for gluing foil, so opted for thin adhesive foil, namely Venture Brite-Bak foil. It used to be available from art shops for stained glass art but no longer. The last I found was on EBay. It adheres very well, burnishes out nicely, and has good shine.

I understand experimenting to pass the time, seek better understanding of materials and procedures, or whatever. But I agree with Anglinarcher. It probably won’t result in a better bait than simply using one body material. Experience taught me that keeping things simple while building a bait results in fewer problems, less variability, and baits that work and catch fish.better. Just my opinion.

It depends on the hardness of the brass versus the steel and either metal can be tempered to similar or very different hardness. However hard temper stainless is tougher than hard temper brass and it won’t corrode. Jmho, we put so much time and effort into a hand built crankbait that the cost of raw materials like wood, wire and screw eyes is negligible. So I say buy the good stuff.

My suggestion is to make a close a copy of a commercial lure you admire first. After all, why reinvent the wheel? Then tweak that design to improve its performance. The hydrodynamics of crankbaits are quite complicated and you’ll want to experiment. That’s fine as long as you accept that some experiments end up in the trash. How many lures have been developed for the commercial market? Thousands. Most of them follow a common shape scheme. The commonality in lure shape is there for good reason: it’s what works. How much weight? Exactly as much that will stabilize the lure when retrieved while permitting it to swim in the manner you want it to, and no more. I use calipers, tracing, and a digital scale when copying a commercial bait and work put weighting to within 1/50th ounce. When I get the copy just right, then I start experimenting with new versions to make them unique.