# Progress on my bait-making endeavor...



## Young Whiskers (Feb 23, 2005)

Since this is my first crankbait, I decided to post a few progress pictures and ask for pointers/feedback from those of you who know what the heck you're doing. This is the same bait for which I posted a 3D model a couple of weeks ago.

I'm just kinda flying by the seat of my pants right now, and I'm probably making mistakes while I'm at it, but anyway...

Two pictures for today... one of the body with cutting and sanding finished and with hook hangers installed, and one of a dry fit of everything put together. I found these eyeballs on the internet, and I think they are gonna really make this lure when it is done. I am in the process of purchasing materials to build a spinning drying rack, and haven't bought E-tex yet, but my airbrush should come tomorrow or Thursday, and I can't wait to start messing around with it.

As for the paint job, I'm hoping to paint metallic silver base with a slight purple hue, maybe some purple accents, and a black back with red gills. This seems to fit the look of a lot of the shad that I see in the GMR near Hamilton. This paint job, however, is probably much more difficult that I am envisioning it.

Anyway, here's the pics.... Enjoy! There will be more to come as I get further along in this process.

Feel free to leave any suggestions you might have, I'm off to seal the body and attach the lip permanently.


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## Jim45498 (Dec 17, 2007)

I wish I could make crankbaits that nice. I can't wait to see the paint.


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## jerkin (Apr 3, 2008)

Looks good, just make sure to try it in the tub before you get too far. Probably going to need some belly weight for that profile.


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## triton175 (Feb 21, 2006)

I have only been lure building for about a year and what I did when I first started was to go through and read all of the threads in the tackle making forum. It took a while, and would take longer now, but it was well worth the effort. The amount of knowledge shared in this one forum is absolutely amazing. You can find several posts of step-by-step instructions for building and finishing lots of different types of baits. And some of these step-by-steps are done by the real masters.
So take some time and do some reading and I'll bet it will really pay off.

Brian


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## jerkin (Apr 3, 2008)

We must think alike, I did the same thing! It took 2 nights just to read Vinces "fired up the airbrush" thread, lol. Absolutely worth every minute you spend here reading though. The knowledge here is priceless, 10 years ago guys would have killed for this kind of information.


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## musky2much (Mar 30, 2006)

Looks Great. Of course I would like it, it has cat eyes!! Nice job.
Cliff

www.alleycatlures.com


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## goolies (Jun 28, 2007)

Nice work. It looks like a smothly shaped body and the eyes are cool. I would 2nd what jerkin said. If you haven't already, you may want to tub test it before you invest more time in the finishing steps. It can be deflating to put a nice paint job and clear coat on a new lure then watch it flop on its side in the water.


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## Young Whiskers (Feb 23, 2005)

Sealed it, tested it, and it didn't work.... of course! Simple enough fix, though. 

I hung various weights from the front hook hanger in order to figure out that I needed just under 1/8 oz. to make it stand.

I then fixed it in a vise between two scrap pieces and cut a slot just behind the front hook hanger to put some lead in it. I then flattened out two 1/16 oz. split shots with a pair of needle nose pliers so they would fit in the slot, and then epoxied them in and resanded....VIOLA! A bait that now stands up in the water like it is supposed to. My first success!  

I took it to the river yesterday, and you can tell that it wants to work, but I don't think that the lip is long or wide enough, so I took that one out and am in the process of making another larger one. Once I find an acceptable combination of thickness, profile, lip size and angle, I am going to start a new one from scratch, b/c I have some super sealer coming from Swede. This one is starting to swell ever so slightly from testing it.

My airbrush, paint, and rotisserie motor came yesterday, so I am excited about moving forward in this process; however, the rotisserie motor I got on Ebay does not work, and this will probably delay me a little bit, although that is the last step in the process.


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## Cutt'em Jack (Feb 17, 2008)

Whiskers,
I got my rotessiere motor at Wal-mart. they are in the barbeque section and are like 20 bucks.


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## jerkin (Apr 3, 2008)

Kind of hard to tell the size of the lip without a front shot but it looks like the back of the lip is the same width as the lure. If so, then the lip is probably of sufficient size, it may just be that it needs moved up more. I would have cut a couple different lip slots then soaked the whole thing in sealer so water didn't get in and then took it to the river to test it when you could have tried a couple different size/shape lips in a few different positions.

I think you have your head in the right place but you're kind of putting the cart before the horse so to speak. Get a working model before you worry about making it pretty. Bassinjody would be the person I would ask if I had any questions on a bait like that, he makes some really nice baits with that type of profile.


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## bassinjody (Aug 25, 2005)

First let me say welcome to the madness, start off by saying the body looks great, good shape, good eyes, good looking bait. i dont know how long or wide the body is but my bodies are 2.5'' long by 1/2' wide, the first thing i do is drill a hole in the center of the belly ,i put a screweye in a bullet sinker,like in this post, then use 5min devcon fill hole 3/4 push in bullet sinker till it runs over the top of the sinker, usally i put a 1/8 oz sinker in mine .































.
as for the bill the angle looks good maybe the bill justs not wide enough and long enough ,these bigger belly baits has a lot of side force to them i think the wider and a little bit longer helps out kinda like these pics.








heres a more round bill .







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.
and last alway float test before going out side to test there aint nothing like being cold and your bait dont want to work right.as always the more you build the more u learn, u can ask any body on this forum for help, a lot of tallented builders here.good luck, i didnt mean to ramble on thought.


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## Young Whiskers (Feb 23, 2005)

Well, I took the advice of jerkin and bassinjody and finally came up with a working prototype, if that's what you want to call it. 

It is a little smaller than the original concept (actually, it's a lot smaller), but I took it to the river this evening, and it works very well for being roughly done. The bait has a very tight wobble with little roll, and dives to about 3'. There is still some inconsistency in how it runs, but I think I can fix that through the next few iterations.

Thanks for the advice guys, it was actually very rewarding to see one work after several failures in a row.


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