joetheplumber

X2 on the Pumpkin Seed,I never have painted one that I liked. Craw patterns are a pain as well but I don't think there is really a wrong way to do one. I love Blue Gill patterns but I think my favorite of all is a Blue Back Shad pattern I do.

"Reaction Innovations Method Crank". Very good lures and not easy to come by. They usually run about $15-$25 each.

You get what you pay for. Those dealers selling the cheaper blanks are selling them cheaper for a reason. I'll be sticking with Dinger blanks myself.... And y'all just wait for those new popper blanks to get here....SWEETNESS!!!

I think the 1.5 crankbait platform would be a major design to expand upon, increase durability, Flat sided models, ect... A great popper style bait that sits in the water similar to the original Rebel P70 would be another good one to have, these are fish catching machines. Personally I would love to see a lipless suspending/slow sinking twitch bait like the Rapala Twitching Rap or Mirrolure 17MR models, these would be very popular with the salty inshore guys on the East Coast down to the Gulf. Good luck and I look forward to the possibility of buying USA made blanks!!!

Didn't know they made rednecks that far north.... LOL

Sharpie makes water based paint pens now and they work well for more than just signatures. I purchased a 3 pen set of pearl silver, pearl gold and pearl copper and use them for all kinds of stuff and haven't had any issues with them running.

I'm not sure what your regular clear coat is but you could try to apply one coat of your normal CC, scuff it up, then try dipping it in the matte lacquer clear and see what happens. Seems like I've heard the best results came from using the matte Plasti-Dip but I haven't tried it before.

Excalibur was purchased by Booyah. I'm not sure if Booyah will be picking up production of the entire Excalibur product line or just the top selling products...