# 3d printing lures and molds



## OptOutside440

I was wondering if anyone has tried 3d printing fishing lures or even molds with a 3d printer? I have been watching YouTube videos lately on people making them and would like to get into it. I already make lures from wood, fly tying, and even have successfully used polymer clay to make lures, but am really interested and excited in the possibilities with a 3d printer. If anyone has any advice on which printer and program to use I would like to know before purchasing one.


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## wedebrook

If you look on thingiverse.com (if it's working today), you'll find some baits that others have already designed for you to download and print. I just upgraded from a Qidi Tech X-One that I've had for about 3 years to a Creality CR-10S, due to the build plate size. If you do want to get into printing, I'd recommend getting something with a larger build plate, if you can. When I started with the Qidi, I immediately realized that 150x150x150mm build volume was very small and I was frustrated that I couldn't print a lot of the things that I wanted to because of this restriction. The CR-10S has a build volume of 300x300x400mm, which is just shy of 12in x 12in x 16in.


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## dgfidler

I hope to do this one day. For myself I decided I must learn to use a CAD program first so I’m not dependent upon others’ designs. I haven’t got past this step yet. The real value here is being able to design and print your own stuff. The 3D printing technology is definitely to the point you could do this for personal use. It would not be cost effective vs injection molding for production, but for personal use, the tech is there if you are good enough with CAD and willing to spend $500 or more on a 3D printer. 

I like to run shallow divers behind dipsy divers and leadcore for my walleye fishing and I’d love to print up and paint a bunch of shallow minnow cranks for my walleye fishing like I have done for spoons. My favorite late spring/early summer crankbait is the Reef Runner ‘little ripper’ and there is nothing like it on the market in terms of an affordable blank to paint. 

I like to have at least four copies of every color pattern I troll with so I can put that same color out on multiple rods when the fish are favoring certain colors. 


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## Snakecharmer

How do you adjust the buoyancy when printing lures? I'd be afraid they would all sink like a rock or is the material they use for 3-d printers naturally buoyant or do you have a choice of materials?


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## Shad Rap

Snakecharmer said:


> How do you adjust the buoyancy when printing lures? I'd be afraid they would all sink like a rock or is the material they use for 3-d printers naturally buoyant or do you have a choice of materials?


You buy rolls of what looks like weed wacker line..it comes out like a hardened plastic, you would be able to make the lure hollow or solid or whatever you wanted to do...it would probably be perfect for making lures...in other words, you would adjust the buoyancy through the program...


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## dgfidler

I envision a two piece design that’s hollow where you glue the two halves together. I actually went so far as to download one of the CAD packages that gives free license to hobbyists and was able to do some basic stuff like create two half spheres. I quickly realized it was not trivial when I attempted to make it two half spheres with 1/16 inch wall thickness. Now imagine trying to replicate a shape such as a minnow bait. I’m jealous of people who know how to design parts in SolidWorks. Mechanical Engineers have the edge here as it’s possibly part of what they do for a living. Almost every product in existence these days starts out as a CAD drawing, so there are people out there doing this, but it’s a lot to learn for a hobby. 


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## Snakecharmer

dgfidler said:


> I envision a two piece design that’s hollow where you glue the two halves together. I actually went so far as to download one of the CAD packages that gives free license to hobbyists and was able to do some basic stuff like create two half spheres. I quickly realized it was not trivial when I attempted to make it two half spheres with 1/16 inch wall thickness. Now imagine trying to replicate a shape such as a minnow bait. I’m jealous of people who know how to design parts in SolidWorks. Mechanical Engineers have the edge here as it’s possibly part of what they do for a living. Almost every product in existence these days starts out as a CAD drawing, so there are people out there doing this, but it’s a lot to learn for a hobby.
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> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I imagine some community colleges have courses in CAD instead to trying to learn on your own.


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## lmbchckn

Look up titans of cnc. He was giving free online courses on cad/cam design using Autodesk fusion 360.


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## dgfidler

There are really good tutorials out there for free. To learn it, you have to be open to learning what they want to teach and slowly build your ‘toolbox’ and you need a pretty good ‘toolbox’ to design complex shapes. I spent maybe 15-20 hours watching tutorials and doing exercises and was still working with basic shapes while my end goal was to produce drawings with compound curves and complex geometry. It’s not a trivial matter to design a lure in a CAD program. I lost interest and just bought the crankbaits I wanted. One thing that interests me A LOT is to come up with a floating diver like the jet or trutrip that releases on very small fish much like chamberlain downrigger releases or slide diver lite bite divers. 


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## Drm50

I’m working on ultra lite version of Whopper Popper. I know nothing about 3D printing, I’m the manager of this project. Have 3D nuts and son with printers. I surf and find the cad stuff and forward it to them. I guess up & down scale is no problem. The Corona has put us of track for this season. We have 3D printed the mold to make the tail prop section of lure. I’ve hand made main body out of balsa and it will be printed in halves, allowing for hollow body and passage for shaft of .051 wire. Making ultra lite lures is harder than making musky plugs. Tiny lures can look perfect and do nothing but follow the line.


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## dgfidler

I bought a cheap 3D printer to fiddle with at MicroCenter. My interests lie in making hollow body clear crankbait bodies, so I went with a ‘SLA’ printer which prints by strategically hardening a resin layer by layer and there are clear resins available. I just bought some cheap resin for the initial experiments. I’m still not up to speed with fusion 360, so I found something close to what I want to do to try it out. This is a Shad profile diving crankbaits with somewhat hollow body intended for thru wire construction. It was crystal clear when it came out of the printer, but browned a little after cleaning and post cure. I did the post cure with the same uv light I use to cure alumina-uv clear coat. I want clear bodies so the lip is clear. The file I downloaded even had a template to use when you paint it. This template exactly matches the profile of the lure. Kinda cool and very good idea. I think it’s just a matter of finding the right resin, (one that doesn’t turn brown) and learning the CAD software and the possibilities will be endless. I’ll post some pictures as I go thru the process of finishing the lure. I’m not that great of a painter, so it may end up looking ugly. 



























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## dgfidler

The lure painted up like any other plastic body you might buy. The printer was $200 and is the Creality LD-002r. The print volume is small at 4.7 x 2.5 x 6.5 inches. Larger print volumes are available at higher price point. You can orient the print to take advantage of the diagonal dimension. The resolution is .05 mm. That’s an extremely fine level of detail. Print speed is very slow. That crankbait body took 10 hours to print. The printer is silent. It dips a plate into a pool of resin, turns on the curing light for 7-8 seconds, raises it, then repeats doing .05 mm per layer. That’s why it takes so long. The crankbait is as tough as anything you’d buy in a store. The printer emits an epoxy like smell while printing. I’m going to build a sealed box that vents out a window before printing with it again. The density of the printed part is 1.07 - 1.13. This is notable as it’s in the same range as most casting resins. This means you can water test with a printed part then create molds to make the lures you actually intend to fish with without worry of changing weight/balance. 

In summary, a budget 3D resin printer is a viable way to make lures. If 10 hours of print time works with your schedule, you can just print your designs in a clear resin, clean up the parts with isopropyl alcohol, cure it some more with a 365-405nm black light, bend some hook hangers/line tie, glue the two halves together, then finish. The only limitations will be the small print area and your own skill to design your lure in a CAD program. You can fish with printed parts or use the printed parts to make silicon molds.










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## Drm50

Printing out bodies is no problem. The offset single blade on tail section of Whopper Popper is the problem. Also ultra lite lures are harder to design because they are not as forgiving when it comes to proportions as bigger lures. I made a lot of plugs 25 years ago, from scratch. I never made a Musky plug that didn’t run. They might take a little tuning as far as balancing with lead but worked. 
I made many ultra lite plugs that didn’t run. They just tracked the line.


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## dgfidler

I forgot to mention the weird behavior of the unpainted lip under the UV light. I noticed this when I clear coated the lure with ulumi-uv. The lip which is made of ‘photosensitive resin’ glows under a uv lamp. I compared it to some genuine Michigan stinger UV spoons and found the UV tape they put on their UV spoons reflects UV light like a mirror. The UV tape doesn’t glow like this crankbait lip does under UV light. Instead it creates an effect where looking at the lure is similar at staring directly into a uv light. I think the UV lures we buy reflect UV light and this material I printed the lure with seems to absorb and glow under UV light. Who knows what the fish catching implication of that is?










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## Snakecharmer

Drm50 said:


> I’m working on ultra lite version of Whopper Popper. I know nothing about 3D printing, I’m the manager of this project. Have 3D nuts and son with printers. I surf and find the cad stuff and forward it to them. I guess up & down scale is no problem. The Corona has put us of track for this season. We have 3D printed the mold to make the tail prop section of lure. I’ve hand made main body out of balsa and it will be printed in halves, allowing for hollow body and passage for shaft of .051 wire. Making ultra lite lures is harder than making musky plugs. Tiny lures can look perfect and do nothing but follow the line.
> View attachment 356269


Any progress?


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## Snakecharmer

dgfidler said:


> I forgot to mention the weird behavior of the unpainted lip under the UV light. I noticed this when I clear coated the lure with ulumi-uv. The lip which is made of ‘photosensitive resin’ glows under a uv lamp. I compared it to some genuine Michigan stinger UV spoons and found the UV tape they put on their UV spoons reflects UV light like a mirror. The UV tape doesn’t glow like this crankbait lip does under UV light. Instead it creates an effect where looking at the lure is similar at staring directly into a uv light. I think the UV lures we buy reflect UV light and this material I printed the lure with seems to absorb and glow under UV light. Who knows what the fish catching implication of that is?
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> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I have some Bandits that glow in the dark. Whole lure not just the lip.


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## Drm50

Snakecharmer said:


> Any progress?


Got as far as printing the mold to make rear prop. Because of CV19 probably won’t get done this winter either. I’m going to hand make a few. I had a whooper popper for a good while. Somebody brought me one from a sports show down south. It was still in package on my desk when they got hot. It was small size, black. My teenage nephew took it and was killing bass in local ponds and lakes. I want ultra lite for small small mouth in local creeks. The Heddon Tiny Torpedo, black is #1 top water in creeks down here.


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## dgfidler

I picked up this circa 1996 CNC micro mill off Craigslist about a month ago for next to nothing. It came with no software, but there were instructions on the internet on how to connect its internal electronics to a software package called Mach3. Those instructions actually worked and I now have a fully functional micro milling machine. The mill is based on Sherline and has xyz travel of 8.9 x 5.1 x 6.25 and supports 3/8 and smaller tooling. The spindle can be geared up to 10k RPM. It can mill plastics, wood, and aluminum. I’m just generally interested in CAD/CAM, CNC and 3d printing as a hobby so I couldn’t resist buying this thing. I see several on eBay for 7-10x what I paid. It came from the STEM program of a local high school. 

I believe it will be capable of carving two piece hollow body hardwood crankbait bodies with intricate gill and scale patterns as well as cutting the lips from lexan or aluminum once I’m up to speed with 3d design software. Once I start producing stuff with this, I’ll start a new thread. I think there’s serious potential with this new toy.


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## dgfidler

I’m slowly coming up to speed with my digital lure making. I’m starting with something real basic and will add complexity as I learn. My first project is a flat sided 5 inch Muskie crankbait. I have the initial design in Fusion 360. 










I’ve started with the lip. It’s coffin shaped 1/8 inch thick aluminum. What I’ve found is you can’t just buy a CNC mill, especially a hobby machine from 1997 that you hacked to run on modern software and expect to draw something and have it cut by the machine. I had to calibrate the three axis’, determine how much backlash each axis has, figure out how to hold the stock with a sacrificial surface beneath, learn about ‘feeds and speeds’, learn how to generate tool paths, etc. 

After a few failed attempts and one ruined end mill, I have successfully cut the 1/8 inch lip. My first attempts had been with a 1/8 inch diameter end mill. I reasoned a low power machine should use a small cutter because it will require less power. What was happening is the little tiny bit doesn’t generate enough velocity at 2k rpm to produce a proper ‘chip’. It slowly overheats, then the chips start melting. The smaller the bit, the lower the velocity at the cutter. Once it starts overheating, it starts chattering and going off track. I installed some 10k RPM pulleys, increased the end mill size to 3/16 inch and it cut reasonably well. My interest in getting a milling machine originates from a non injury accident attempting to cut this profile with a chop saw. This CNC mill has got to be the safest way possible to cut this profile. 










Here are some of the failed attempts:











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## dgfidler

The next step is going to be using the mill to ‘carve’ the body. I’ve got a lot of hard maple so that’s what I’ll use to start. I’m using fusion 360 to design the 3d model that will be exported to a program called ‘vcarve’. VCarve has the ability to generate two sided tool paths. I’ll run one side that will hollow out the interior of the crankbait, flip it, then carve the outer profile. If all goes according to plan, there will be some light sanding, bend the hook hanger, glue two halves together and secure the lip with a tapped machine screw. It’s really the same process as doing manual except it should be more repeatable. 

For the thru wire, I think I can mill out little exact size pockets to hold wire with crimps like this. 










Or I like the idea of something like this cut from sheet metal with the mill. I found this in another tackle making forum. To do this in stainless would be a pretty expensive hook hanger though. If you used feeler gauge type material, I think something like this could give a similar effect as the storm Arashi self tuning crankbait. 











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## meisjedog

dgfidler said:


> I’m slowly coming up to speed with my digital lure-making. I’m starting with something real basic and will add complexity as I learn. My first project is a flat sided 5 inch Muskie crankbait. I have the initial design in Fusion 360.
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> I’ve started with the lip. It’s coffin shaped 1/8 inch thick aluminum. What I’ve found is you can’t just buy a CNC mill, especially a hobby machine from 1997 that you hacked to run on modern software and expect to draw something and have it cut by the machine. I had to calibrate the three axis’, determine how much backlash each axis has, figure out how to hold the stock with a sacrificial surface beneath, learn about ‘feeds and speeds’, learn how to generate tool paths, etc.
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> After a few failed attempts and one ruined end mill, I have successfully cut the 1/8 inch lip. My first attempts had been with a 1/8 inch diameter end mill. I reasoned a low power machine should use a small cutter because it will require less power. What was happening is the little tiny bit doesn’t generate enough velocity at 2k rpm to produce a proper ‘chip’. It slowly overheats, then the chips start melting. The smaller the bit, the lower the velocity at the cutter. Once it starts overheating, it starts chattering and going off track. I installed some 10k RPM pulleys, increased the end mill size to 3/16 inch and it cut reasonably well. My interest in getting a milling machine originates from a non injury accident attempting to cut this profile with a chop saw. This CNC mill has got to be the safest way possible to cut this profile.
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Hey, I've built several 3 axis CNC machines that mostly use Mach3 to stream the G-Code and numerous other packages to create the tool paths. Admittedly though, I am a bit rusty with V-Carve as it has been a while.

Cutting Aluminum - You should have no problem cutting aluminum, given that you slow the feed speed way down along with the rpm. In the photo where you finally seem to be getting a good cut, your chips look a little small; but it is cutting👍. You might be better off getting a Harbor Freight hand router to replace that spindle and one of those speed controllers they sell - if you are on a budget. There will be a little runout with the bearing - mostly unnoticeable(except for the noise- heh!). You could get a better router or replace the bearings as well. 6061 likes an rpm of 8,000 to 10,000, and your feed rate needs to be super slow to start(15 IPM or so). Dial it up until you get a decent chip. You'll know when you hit the correct feed because you will hear a very low and consistent grind type of sound. What depth per pass are you cutting at? Your machine looks like it is more of an engraver than a mill, so you might benefit from getting some 8020 to beef up your Z-Axis to keep it from deflecting. It could be that spindle too! Also, make some type of flexible cover, ideally a bellows, until you see the cost. You need to keep the chips off of the screws as it will eventually destroy your backlash nuts, screws, stall the motors, etc.

These may be a bit pricey, but an Onsrud Super-O 1 Flute Upcut will outperform any bit and will cut it like butter!
65-018
Also, get some aluminum cutting fluid from Mcmaster(Tap Magic). It smells like cinnamon(btw), as it will increase your success rate by 80% or better. Yes, technically for tapping, but it works wonders.
McMaster-Carr

You are cutting dry, and you need the fluid, or you can get some of that blue flex hose and blow compressed air directly at the cut. I always did both depending on the thickness, and I have cut 3/4" 6061 at .1875" per pass on a Gerber Sabre Sign Router.

Do you plan on cutting the body with a 1/8" ball nose? Have you run a sim to see how many passes?


Not sure how much you know about setting the machine up to be able to easily flip parts and machine on both sides, so send me a message if you want some tips.


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## dgfidler

You’re right about it being more like an engraver than a mill. Sherline does market this as a ‘micro mill’ and it’s still sold today. The machine I have was a series 5000 micro mill converted to CNC and marketed to schools for STEM programs. The tooling that came with it was all geared towards engraving. I only paid $200 for it knowing I’d have to figure out how to get it working. The 10k spindle upgrade was purchased from Sherline. It’s kinda cool that parts are readily available. I spent a lot of time on places like CNC zone and other sites and a profound interest in CNC has developed. Now I want to build a 2x4 machine for my shop. I’m at the ‘thinking about it’ stage. A friend has an old Pitney Bowes mail sorting machine from his days when he sold these machines. I think it can be a source of free extrusion material to build a machine from. I have a 200 amp Tig welder, so maybe I can build the frame from box tube. I gotta figure all that out. I’m thinking build the frame and gantry myself and purchase a working z axis. I’d like a 110v water cooled spindle and want ability to do hardwoods and occasional aluminum. I’m thinking 3k budget if I can build something that’s functional of a commercial 2x4 machine like the Powermatic, Laguna, or Grizzly. 

I was taking .01 depth of cut and running 4ipm. The failures were all before I upgraded the rpm so 2k was max. It’s not a ball screw machine and I think my backlash settings are off because you can see little stair steps on one side where each pass is a small distance from the last. Sherline will sell me a ballscrew uograde for $1800. No thank you!

I added a stop GCode before each increase in depth to clear chips. I’ll try speeding it up and will buy some of that lubricant. I’m also going to get a dial indicator and determine exactly what the backlash values are. I use Mach3 for machine control and do like it. 

I have not previewed the toolpaths for the 3d carving yet. I’ll just assume it may be more than I’ve been thinking. VCarve allows for a roughing pass with large but followed by one finishing pass. I’m not there yet. I do know that my machine cuts wood very effortlessly though from experiments manually jogging the axis through wood. 

I may take the conversation offline as I really do have an interest in building a 2x4 CNC router. For example, I could blow out my entire budget on THK linear slides is that necessary? I could weld the frame, but how the heck do you get the slides to be coplanar using crude materials. That kind of stuff needs to be worked out before I start buying parts. 


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## dgfidler

I bought the tap magic and the upcut bit you recommended. .125 depth of cut, 1/4 end mill, 8k rpm 15 ipm. Truly did cut like butter. Loud butter maybe. I’d never expect to get advice on something like this here. I varied the feed rate during the cut and liked the sound at 15ipm, but it was cutting at up to 35 ipm surprisingly. I didn’t like the sound of that and seemed like it’d be hard on the machine. Thank you. So should I be using carbide tooling like this instead of high speed steel on aluminum? Being able to do this type of cut opens possibilities for this little machine











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## dgfidler

Cutting those aluminum lips on the little Sherline CNC got me interested in having a CNC Router that’s designed to cut plywood and 3d Wood carvings. I ended up building a 30 inch by 36 inch CNC Router from a kit called Gatton CNC. I took my time building it and attempted to build it beefier than the plans called for whenever possible. I used midrange electronics and splurged on a 2hp 24k rpm water cooled spindle that uses er-20 collets. Being a plywood machine I don’t push it too hard but it’s pretty accurate in my opinion. So far I’ve used it to build the base it now sits on and a self contained airbrush booth that exhausts into a large charcoal filter. Now that I’m equipped like I want to be and have learned how to use the machine on simple projects, I’m going to attempt to build some really hyper designed over done wooden crankbaits. My goal is to be able to tweak my designs until I have developed and built something better than I can buy. I want to be able to repeat the build at will. I want to build lures that are consistent enough that I can develop a dive curve. That’s why the CNC approach appeals to me. There’s things builders do when hand carving a bait that I seek to avoid for example I’m extending the lip way into the body and trapping it with milled pockets instead of drilling through and pinning. I’m routing a wire channel for thru wire instead of drilling hole through body and hoping it come out centered on the other end. We’ll see how this goes…


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## dgfidler

My first lure is going to be this shallow diving ‘down flash’ 7 inch crankbait. I’m building it just to have something different that no one else has for the fall brawl. The body is shaped like a yozuri crystal minnow and it has internal rattles like a perfect 10 and gets its lip angle and style from a perfect 10. This body has a V shape and reflects light downward when finished with a metallic finish. 


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## dgfidler

This is what I was talking about with the trapped lip and wire channels. I have this little 3/64 end mill that cuts that pocket perfectly. You can see 1/8 dowel holes that align it together when gluing. I’m basically building a wood bait like plastic baits are manufactured. Will that large hollow that I use to place the center of mass where I want it stay dry? I don’t know, but we’ll see. 


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## dgfidler

I learned the easiest way to design a lure body is a series of sketches at fixed intervals ‘lofted’ to create the 3d shape. Here’s an example











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## dgfidler

I am past the stage of ‘can this be done’. Even though I botched the final profile cut, it’s obvious the machine I built can carve a crankbait with enough accuracy that a couple strokes with 200 grit is all that will be needed to seal and paint. I’m going to explore going faster. This was 15 minutes to ‘rough’ and 11 minutes to ‘finish’. If any of you know CAM, I used a 3d adaptive clearing tool path with 1/4 flat end mill for the ‘roughing’ and 1/8 ball nose end mill and a 3d scallop tool path for the finish. This is exceedingly expectations and will definitely let me build what I want despite not being able to hand carve. 


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## cadman

Very nice, I have been following your progress in silent mode. I have a Creality 3 Pro 3d printer and looking to upgrade to a bigger bed (12 x 12). I'm kind of looking at the model you mentioned earlier in your posts. Did you buy that 3d printer? I am a cad engineer, and I use Solidworks to design all of my 3d parts.


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## dgfidler

I have the Creality LS-002r. It’s one of the early ‘resin printers’. It’s resolution is unbelievable but it’s an overnight proposition to print a lure. What I like about the resin printers is you can make two clear hollow halves to glue together and end up with a normal looking diving lip. Almost everything I want to make has a diving lip

I finally got both halves of my wood lure done. The wire channels inside worked, but I fiddled with it for 20 minutes to get the belly loops at the right spot. When you mill precise locations for that wire to go, it’s extremely difficult to bend wire to such close tolerances










I’m going to mill pockets to accept these barrel swivels and use them as the belly hook hangers bi think it will speed assembly because 20 minutes trying to bend wire won’t work. 


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## dgfidler

Cadman, I think you’re probably going to be good to go. I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to learn this software. (Fusion 360) I’m a business software consultant and consider developing business software and using computers ‘my thing’. I’ve been messing around a half hour here, a half hour there for a year to get familiar enough with the software to do anything useful. Now it seems simple. 


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## Hawg Wobbler 52

Am I wrong, or is this not a very cost effective way to make a fishing lure? Seems like a helluva lot of time and effort and maybe the final product doesn't have the right action to catch fish.


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## dgfidler

Here’s what the inside of that lure looked like. I’m removing the large pocket. This poplar wood I’m using seems to be light enough without the pocket. It’s actually so light it feels too light. Like it’s made of balsa or something. It needs to be heavier I think. I’m using 1/8 dowel material in pockets milled to .135 for alignment. 


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## cadman

Wow, I'm impressed. I can do a lot of designing and I currently only make stuff out of PLA. But if I made lure halves out of PLA, I don't know if it would float. Meaning that I would have to glue it well and then seal it to make sure no water would penetrate through. Designing for me is not the issue. It is trying to find time for all the trial and error. As you know it is very laborious to design parts, make them and then find out some things just don't work. I made some small parts for my boat that took 8 hours to run, not including design time. Your progress is really impressive. Let me know how it all works after you get it on the water. The final satisfaction will come after you get your first fish. I will watch your thread closely on your progress. Job well done. 

Below are some parts I made. I mostly make lead jigs and use certain fillers in my molds. Also I make specialty tools for taking apart fishing reels, so you don't scratch the body or the hardware when you remove parts. I found that PLA is really strong and it doesn't mar the finish.


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## cadman

You are correct to a certain degree. This is not about mass producing lures and trying to make money. This is about making something that is not available on the market, creating it and seeing if your creation works. It is also about the need to see your creation come to life and then when you create it and catch a fish, well that is the best feeling (icing on the cake). Kind of like Musky fishing. You don't go out and get a boatload of Muskies, you go out maybe a 1/2 dozen times and you may get a follow or you may get lucky and get a fish. The reward is in the process and seeing the results. I make a lot of items in the house that have broken. Should I throw the part away and buy new? Probably, however I always like to see if I can fix it first. If not nothing lost only my time. Also I can make things that are not available to the public that I find useful for me in my daily life. It all depends on what you want out of it and if you are a tinkerer.


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## Hawg Wobbler 52

cadman said:


> Wow, I'm impressed. I can do a lot of designing and I currently only make stuff out of PLA. But if I made lure halves out of PLA, I don't know if it would float. Meaning that I would have to glue it well and then seal it to make sure no water would penetrate through. Designing for me is not the issue. It is trying to find time for all the trial and error. As you know it is very laborious to design parts, make them and then find out some things just don't work. I made some small parts for my boat that took 8 hours to run, not including design time. Your progress is really impressive. Let me know how it all works after you get it on the water. The final satisfaction will come after you get your first fish. I will watch your thread closely on your progress. Job well done.
> 
> Below are some parts I made. I mostly make lead jigs and use certain fillers in my molds. Also I make specialty tools for taking apart fishing reels, so you don't scratch the body or the hardware when you remove parts. I found that PLA is really strong and it doesn't mar the finish.
> View attachment 497919
> View attachment 497920


Cool stuff you designed. Want to sell your reel tools?


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## RJH68

My son 3D printed me a lure similar to the split body one shown earlier. I put it on a harness I made and his girlfriend (wife now) caught her first FO walleye on it. 
Great accomplishment to catch a fish on a lure you made. Excellent hobby!!


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## dgfidler

RJH, that’s awesome to catch a F.O on a homemade lure. It is an excellent hobby. I enjoy it almost as much as fishing itself. It started for me by painting some spoons. One item on the todo list is an ultra deep diver. I question why we’re using crankbaits that float when our intention is to troll at 45-50 feet down. I’m talking about the August Walleye fishing off Ashtabula where we use 300 feet of (difficult to use) wire to get a crankbait down far enough. 


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## dgfidler

This lip has 90 degree inside corners. A CNC cannot cut an inside corner with tighter radius than the bit you’re using. That can be mitigated by using a tiny bit and multiple passes. WRONG. I no longer have a 3/64 end mill. Plastic melted to it attempting this cut and when I tried to pry the ball of plastic off, the tip of the bit went with it. 


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## dgfidler

Switch to a 1/8 upcut end mill and apparently the chips can be evacuated and everything cuts nice. I’ve got to change this design to deal with losing material due to the inside radiuses

The concept works though. 











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## dgfidler

Now that I can hold the prototype in my hand I don’t like it. It’s too wide and it kind of reminds me of the head of a cobra snake that’s getting ready to bite someone. I’m going to redesign as narrower and see how that goes. 


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## cadman

dgfidler said:


> This lip has 90 degree inside corners. A CNC cannot cut an inside corner with tighter radius than the bit you’re using. That can be mitigated by using a tiny bit and multiple passes. WRONG. I no longer have a 3/64 end mill. Plastic melted to it attempting this cut and when I tried to pry the ball of plastic off, the tip of the bit went with it.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


If you have access to someone who has a waterjet, you can make any profile you need. Including inside radii even .031 rad. All you need to give them is a .DWG or .DXF file so they can load it in their machine. Make sure when you give them the file that it is 1:1 otherwise you will get what is on the file.


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