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Vodkaman

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Everything posted by Vodkaman

  1. If the buoyancy part of the lure could be re-positioned higher up, it would serve the same purpose as the lead by keeping the lure in the right attitude. If this worked, you could eliminate the lead, this would give you more lee way with your buoyancy problem and choice of materials. Just my thoughts.
  2. I would like to here your reasons why not, then we could help to find a diferent solution. There is always a solution to every problem.
  3. I only use balsa, but this technique is used a lot in the wood industry. I make a 50/50 mix of wood glue and water (UK pva, USA elmers), keep it in a large jar with a lid. I place my lure in the jar and give it a good shake for a few minutes, replave the lid and the mix can be used a hundred times. Mop the drips off with a paper towel and leave in a warm place for at least 6 hours, a day would be ideal. This sinks into the wood and gives a good seal and also raises the grain. A quick going over with fine sand paper and the job is done, sealed anyway. If the wood was very grainy, it may be a good idea to repeat the operation until the grain is fixed. For harder woods, this is good enough to paint on, but from your list of toothy prey, It might be a good idea to lay down a coat of neat epoxy. I do this on balsa every time. The wood glue sealer technique solves 99% of the epoxy bubble problem and the surface is ready to paint. I always go over it with wet n dry or fine sand paper as I am always wary of the shiny surface, but acrylics do stick to it nicely. If time is an issue and you do not have the patience to wait. Skip the wood glue part and seal with 5 min epoxy. It will bubble. At least give it an hour then smooth off the lumps with a flap wheel attachment in a mini drill or dremel. It's now ready for paint. As for plastic, I would imagine that a quick scrub with wet n dry would be enough. Personally, I never undercoat, sorry Tally!
  4. With a lure shape like that, it is dificult to know exactly where the x axis ran. If it had good roll before the mod and the roll reduced after, then the axis probably ran through the tail. This would be good design. By raising the tail, you have pushed it 'into the wind' as far as roll is concerned. You have introduced a side load with a distance from the rotation axis and stifled the roll action (re-the stick and weights experiment). Unless I am misunderstanding your modification.
  5. Vodkaman

    Is it O.K.

    I nearly suffocated reading that. Even though it is an old discussion, I think it should be aired on a regular basis so that new members get the message. It should even be laid down in the site rules.
  6. Vodkaman

    Is it O.K.

    What you are saying is true, unfortunately. But should I ever have a good idea and post it, the thought of someone making a business out of it without even having the common decency to ask is gut churning. This is an age old debate. I'm just a nice guy in a cruel world.
  7. I notice that the more useful pictures are shot in slight perspective. In photoshop, have you tried free transform? Select - all Edit - free transform Then drag the 'handles around to get the proportions that you require.
  8. You will have to extend the picture vertically to have enough material to wrap around. Photoshop can handle that OK, is that what you are using or are you looking for help.
  9. Vodkaman

    Is it O.K.

    Sorry, misread. For personal gain, definately not without permission.
  10. Vodkaman

    Is it O.K.

    I would say yes as that is the idea of this site, we all learn from each other. But personally, I would send a PM requesting permission out of respect.
  11. I know, I shouldn't give up so quick. I have endless patience for prototyping and development work, but after five minutes of chasing creases around the bend, the lure's in the bin and I'm in the bar. I promise I'll practise some more.
  12. It's a beauty! That is what it is all about. Thank's for sharing.
  13. Dimmer switches are built around an electronic component called a triac. These are power rated, therefore, those fitted to dimmer switches are only designed for loads upto about 150W, drill motors can draw 600W or more. There are other problems using inductive motors with dimmers, the link below describes triacs in more detail, but basically, a dimmer for motors needs to be designed specifically for the purpose. Having said all that, several TU members are successfully using light dimmers to control small motors for drying wheels. A large drill motor may be pushing it a bit, be prepared for the worst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIAC
  14. Foiling sucks. You can have mine too.
  15. Placing the weight in the keel or the lowest point of the body is my preferred choice. It gives good static or motionless stability as the centre of mass and the centre of buoyancy are kept as far apart vertically as possible, the lure will stay upright. This is also a good arrangement if you are looking for yaw action or 'waggle'. The ballast centre is lying on the z axis, therefore their is no moment distance to hinder the motion (re the stick experiment in my previous reply), the towing and water pressure forces prevent the waggle from becomming unstable. However, if you are looking for roll or wobble action, a low slung weight will reduce the wobble due to its offset distance from the wobble axis (x axis). If you move the weight up too far ie close or even in line with the x axis, the roll will become unstable and turn over. Once the action or movement has started, their has to be a force to stop it or it will continue. In the case of yaw or waggle and pitch or porpoise, it is the pressure of water. In the case of roll, it is the vertical stability caused by the distance between the centre of buoyancy of the wood and the centre of gravity of the ballast. Instability As with the ballast instability, for each type of movement (yaw, roll and pitch) their is a point of no return, an unstable condition. Unfortunately, if you are searching for a maximum effect, this occurs just before the unstable condition takes over. At this point, the lure no longer returns to centre but continues its movement and rotates about its particular axis, out of control. The point at which all these instabilities occur is at the centre of forces, where all the axes intersect. Yaw and pitch instabilities are most unlikely ever to be experienced unless you position the line tie half way down the back. At which point the line tie would coincide with the z axis and the yaw or waggle would become unstable. The line tie would be at its closest to the y axis, therefore the pitch or porpoise effect would be at its maximum, close to instability. Roll instability This is the biggest cause of lure failure. The lure spirals out of control. Some call it 'death roll' and to be brutally honest, I am still trying to get my head around it. Explanations have been posted but I have yet to be convinced of a good explanation. In keeping with the previously discussed instabilities which are easy to picture, including the ballast instability, then the roll instability must be tied in with the intersecting axes, the centre of forces. Unfortunately, this majic point takes on a new life of its own once the lure is moving as more forces are acting on the lure, therefore its position moves accordingly. At this point the brain starts to hurt. By far the main force that changes everything is the weight of the water acting on the lures surfaces. Another force to join the mix is caused by curvature, the same type of force that allows a wing to lift a 747 off the ground and is not to be ignored. So, after all the technical research, prototype experiments and discussions, I am no closer to predicting roll than when I started all of this, several months ago. But when I find a lure that rolls, I get a little excited, an opportunity to search for the explanation why. I would like to collect everyones 'rollers' and continue the search. I would definately like to hear everyone elses opinion on roll over.
  16. I could imagine modelling clay combined with the groove method giving a good deal of added stability. Cling film the lure to prevent soiling from the clay. Just an idea, I have not tested it.
  17. All the rotations are through a centre point which is the sum of all the loads affecting the lure. A major piece of this is the centre of mass of the lure and the ballast. Another is the centre of buoyancy. As you retrieve the lure, the line will also be trying to keep the lure central. This last weekend, I built some lures with rear mounted ballast as I am working on the 'cast-ability' of my design. Looking down on my lure revealed all the above. The extreme rear mounted ballast caused the crank to yaw or waggle from the rear end, the reverse of what we are traditionally looking for. It was shaking its head quite dramatically, as the lure has a very wide yaw or 'waggle'. I was surprised that the line load did not limit the movement more, in fact the line effect was hardly noticeable. I digress, enough about my project, back to the point. It is easy to accept that roll occurs about the x axis and quite easy to imagine the pitch or porpoise effect happening about the centre of the bait at the y axis, rather than at the line tie. But for some reason, the yaw action is much harder to accept. I think a lot of it is wishful thinking or hoping that it waggles about the line tie, we think that this would be more fish like. A lot of discussion has gone on about ballast position and its effect and its importance, some of it quite heated or enthusiastic! The fact is that ballast plays many rolls in the action or movement of the lure. It determines whether the lure is a sinker or floater. If part of your fishing strategy is to pause the bait, the ballast position will determine how it sits in the water, if you want it to sit horizontally then it must be directly under the intersect of all three axes, roughly, the centre of gravity of the wood as this is also the centre of buoyancy. The distribution of the hardware will affect the location of this position. If the ballast was placed at the axes centre, the lure would remain still in the position you placed it (in theory) as the lure no longer has information as to which way is up. My own, rear ballast casting lure points to the sky, that is my choice. At the end of the day, you have to decide what properties are important to you and design your lure accordingly, the hard part is getting it to do what you want it to do, rather than saying, ‘that’s nice, I like that’. But no matter where you put the ballast, at one metre per second retrieval, it will have virtually no effect on the angle that the bait swims. The slower the retrieve the more the ballast plays. This is because the effect of the weight of the water on the working surfaces of the lure are far greater than the ballast. The distribution of surface area above and below the line angle is far more important. The sharp edges of the lip have a much more pronounced affect due to the strong vortices generated behind the lip, which create the action of the lure and totally destroy any ideas you might have of calculating the areas to reveal its secrets. As for multiple ballast positions, if you split the ballast in two and move one forward, the other rearward equal amounts. The resulting centre of forces will still be in the same place but the action of the lure will be reduced. To demonstrate this, take a thin stick, attach two equal weight sinkers at the centre, grip it in your hand and twist your wrist back and forth. The stick moves easily with little resistance. Move the weights to the ends of the stick and repeat the experiment. The action is much harder to perform even though the balance point has not moved. The explanation is inertia, the reluctance of the body to move. It is not just the amount or weight of the ballast, the distance from the centre of forces makes things worse. In calculations, it is called ‘taking moments’. The mass is multiplied by the distance to give a true representation of the load, balance or inertia. Surface area has a similar effect on the action of the lure and will be affected by the distance of the centre of the surface to the centre of forces. If you are looking for a wide yaw or waggle action then deep, flat sided lures are not the way to go, same applies to roll. Deep, flat sides would be a good shape for pitch or porpoise action. Not every lure designer is looking for maximum action, most are looking for something a little more subtle. Personally, by searching for the maximum, I have learnt how it works and what effect each component of the lure has on the result. You could argue that my lure is more likely to scare the fish away rather than attract them, but rest assured, each lure will have its day. You can really get in to the science and mechanics of lures, for me it is the most enjoyable part of the design process. Are my lures any better for it? The fish will be the ultimate judge.
  18. Cheers Rick, I appreciate your time and I take your points, all well made. I can't wait to try out some pops, my design is ready and I have a gallon of the glue in my work shop. Actually, I have done pop before, it was a three foot diameter piece of art, my brother is a sculptor and I worked with him most of last year. He carved the avatar, couldn't figure out where to position the ballast.
  19. This sounds like an ideal application for 16lb foam. I have never used it but read everything that tu has to offer as I will be using it in the near future. It's reputation is hard as rock, so it should be strong enough. You are already into molding, so that is not a problem. As for floatation, 1 cm3 weighs 0.25gm, this means that for every cm3 you use, you gain 0.75 grams of floatation. Obviously, you do not want to be making molds or even buying materials for a trial and error situation that, at the end of the day, may not meet your requirements. But it is possible to calculate the result very cheaply using only a couple of jars, some plastic tube, plastic cups etc. By measuring the volume of your lure and the weight of the lure, it is possible to calculate how much foam you would need to float it. I intend to post an article on the subject soon, but if you feel upto it, I can send you what I have so far. It includes making a set of accurate scales and equipment to measure the volume. I can add a section for your application too. Let me know if you are interested, I am using the system and it does work.
  20. Their are three movements available to the lure designer, as in aircraft design and submarines. These movements are called yaw, roll and pitch. Like you, I am totally confused by the terminology used on this site. I am convinced that people are referring to diferent interpretations. A standard needs laying down, but why create a new standard when the world outside lure building has got it covered already. Here follows industries definitions and what I think the tu word is (but could be wrong on the latter). Axes x axis represents a horizontal line from nose to tail. y axis represents a hirizontal line from side to side. z axis represents a vertical line from bottom to top. Yaw is rotation movement about the z axis. Looking down on the lure, it 'waggles' or 'wiggles' from side to side. Roll is rotation about the x axis. Grip a pen between finger and thumb and roll it, this is 'roll'. TU members refer to this motion as wobble, but very often people use the word wobble when they actually mean waggle. Pitch is rotation about the y axis. Looking at the side of the lure, holding the lure between finger and thumb at the centre, raise and lower the nose so that the lure rocks like a see saw, this is pitch. TU does not have a name for this motion, in fact I have never read a single word about it and yet it is a valid movement, easily achievable with the correct lip design. As for what lip generates each shape, Horisontal lips produce near pure roll action. Vertical lips produce near pure yaw action. Lip angles between these two produce a combination of roll and yaw. I hope this basic introduction to the movements helps. I would be interested to hear everyones interpretation on wiggle waggle and roll so we can all talk about the same thing without confusion.
  21. Great looking lures and the pics too. I really like that horizontal pivoting tail idea. Never seen it before, is it yours or is it out there already.
  22. I've never dropped one, but that is just a matter of time. I'll be thinking of all the above stories every time I epoxy from now on. But, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take the epoxy brush application advice, I normally use a spatula. The problem was, the only brush I had was my half inch that I use for the art work and I didn't want to risk that. I found some felt material and decided to make a 'throw away' brush from a one inch strip and a masking tape handle. It really looked like it was going to do the job. I did not take into account how sticky epoxy is. The resulting lure is called, 'Hairy frog' and hangs on my extensive 'wall of shame'.
  23. Gotta find me one of those and I'm not talking keyrings!
  24. You must have a very inventive mind, Fatfingers. What do you have to build to justify it? You must have promise her something.
  25. I agree with fatfingers. This is costing me a small fortune!
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