Home Made Lures

[Red Bull]

Hi snagking,

I have recently got into some serious lure making, and am finding it's quite an addictive pastime, and saves me a fair wad of cash too, especially as the lures I make are for species that are notoriously hard to land.

I got myself a crappy GMC wood lathe and now turn my lures on the lathe, using various scraps of wood I can find. Best types I have found are pencil cedar and hoop pine. Never used beech, but I hear it's good stuff for this type of thing.

The method I use for the attachment points is a through-wire construction, where a twisted loop is made in one end of a length of 316 stainless welding wire, passed through a belly swivel half way along the lure body which has been drilled down the centre, then out the tail of the lure. A sinker (or sometimes half sinker) is then threaded on and glued in place, and then the tail loop is formed in the wire to finish and hold the whole lot together.

The area of lure making I am still experimenting with is the sealing of the wood. Currently, I am using a 2 part marine epoxy, which is very hard and resistant to GT bites. However, it's hard to mix consistently, and takes a while to dry. Also, it forms lumps when drying, if it's applied too thickly. So I do numerous coats of it.

I can see why those top shelf GT lures are as expensive as they are, because a lot of work goes into each lure. But I enjoy it so would much prefer to make these myself, rather than buy the $50+ jobs.

Oh, and painting, I have an airbrush for my other artwork, so I use that with"createx" paints.

See below

Hope that helps in some way

RB

[snagking]

Thanks red bull!

Fairly soon I'll start making a couple, but it'll take me a while because I have no lathe

[Red Bull]

snagking, the most recent capture on one of my poppers was this trout (below). The lure seen in the trout's mouth is the same popper pictured 2nd from the top, left hand side of the previous pic I posted.

Regarding the lathe, I got mine for 90-odd bucks, so it doesn't cost the earth to get into it. A few well made lures and the machine has basically paid for itself. Well that's what you can tell the missus anyway.

Cheers
RB

[snagking]

Yeah thanks for that, tommorow i'm going to start on a popper, useing crappy wood, then, If I get it right, use better quality.

Getting a lathe isn't really a matter of conviceing the missus, more a matter of affording it (being 14 and all) but then again, I spose I could save up a little bit

[oldboot]

To Improve the accuracy of your epoxy mixing, use suringes.

I buy mine from a first aid supplier and they are cheap as chips.

for rerasonably small batches 12mL suringes are the go.

On the subkect of suringes..... aparantly they make excelent poppers.


I like the idea of the swivel for the belly loop.

to weight the lure drilling out the front , bak or whatever and inserting a barel sinker works well too.

bothe durain and meranti are better to work with than pine and easy enought to get hold of... need to be sealed though.

cheers

[nuggstar]

red bull thats awsome work. love the paint jobs you have done there, why is one blacked out, is that the sneaky one that catches all the fish. id love to try them pencils they look sic.

[Red Bull]

Hey nugg, thanks mate. The blacked out one is actually an old Nomad cubera popper, but I figured I would confuse people if I included it in the photo! And yes, it does have a few serious battle scars. But I am starting to get a few of my own lures chewed up too.

I have just started to experiment with holographic finishes too, and this is very exciting for me. The stickbaits below can be seen with this finish, however the range of adhesive foil patterns from my local tackle shop is a bit limited.

I am trying to base my schemes 'loosely' on the nomad wahoo stickbaits. I made one stick that was a blue version of the pink lure below for my last trip up north, and in a moment of both pure joy and absolute mental agony, a 30kg+ GT exploded onto it as I twitched it over a huge bommie, and in the space of 3 minutes, running 12kg of drag on 24kg gear, the beast buried my new lure in the coral. But I was happy the lure wasn't a 50 buck job!

snagking, sorry mate, I didn't realize you were such a youngster.....maybe you can ask your parents to get a 2nd-hand lathe for your b'day or something, out of the trading post?

RB

[finga]

I have just started to experiment with holographic finishes too, and this is very exciting for me. The stickbaits below can be seen with this finish, however the range of adhesive foil patterns from my local tackle shop is a bit limited.



RB

Have a yarn to a signwriter.
Holographic vinyls available easily enough
here's a few types http://www.signwarehouse.com/c-VH.html or http://www.averyvinyl.com/cgi-bin/st...tegory=1001-Bc
etc etc

[snagking]

Thanks all for your great help!

Would a good width for a popper be similair to the width of a cricket stump?

[Red Bull]

Thanks all for your great help!

Would a good width for a popper be similair to the width of a cricket stump?

if you were chasing larger fish like GTs, then yes snagking, that sort of size would be about right. But a popper of that thickness would be too big, in my opinion, for estuarine popper-eaters like tailor, small trevs, tarpon, jacks etc.

[snagking]

if you were chasing larger fish like GTs, then yes snagking, that sort of size would be about right. But a popper of that thickness would be too big, in my opinion, for estuarine popper-eaters like tailor, trevs, tarpon, jacks etc.

Ok thanks for that

[Little grey men]

Always creating something hey Red Bull ?
Love your work mate.

[nuggstar]

that is awsome.

[spearking]

someone once told me a simple silver spoon with a tri hook in one end and a ring in the other works well with trolling for peagics ... has anyone tried this?

[oldboot]

The old spoon tale is partly true.

you need to do a bit more work than that.

It has be well published that you can get two good lures out of a desert spoon, one from the handle and another from the bowl.

But expect to trim the sides off the bowl a bit, and you are looking for a more modern spoon rathere that the old style with the deep bowl.

Never tried it but aparantly that is the poop.

tooth brishes too cane be pressed into service.. aparantly.

Lots of these home made efforts from the sixties and seventies are far less worthwhile these days when you can buy slices and spoons for $3 or $4.

cheers