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Posts: 4266
| Last year while I was suffering the effects of a pulmonary embolism, a lumber man who I know asked me if I was interested in some Redwood that they reclaimed from an 1850 silver mine. He said that he had me in mind when he took one of the beams and cut it into 3/4" and 7/8" boards. I jumped at the chance and received 3/4 and 7/8 boards that were 12X30. The grain on those slow growing Redwoods was so fine that sometimes what looked like a dark stripe was actually a group of 20 rings of little or no growth so close together it took a magnifying glass to count them. I gave up trying to count the lines and talked to a retired Botany Professor who said that if the wood was used in the 1850's that it was 400-450 years old at the time it was harvested. So I am sitting on boards that are 500+ years old.
I sent 3 of them to my friend, Mike King, and he made them into lures that sold to collectors on ebay.
I already made a small batch of 12" trolling lures for my friend at Cass Lake and I have outlines on the remaining boards, except for one that was a bit under 3/4", and I made that board into 25-5.5" lures that I will use for walleyes and bass.
Some guys that I ask say to make lures for collectors. I like to make lures to be fished with....except for the highly figured Redwood lures that I made that nobody seemed interested in. "Why should I pay $40 or $50 for a pretty lure that I will hang someplace?" that were also made out of 500 year old reclaimed wood.
So I take it to the basement....What would you do if you were handed boards that were that old and were perfect for lure making?
Right now every board is covered by stencil marks, and I've already rendered all of the boards into strips for making lures from 6-10". Do I bother with collectors or sell them to fishermen who might lose them on a rock or a snag, or God forbid ....a fish.
The 12"ers I made are on their way to Cass Lake. When I get the report at the end of the week, I'll know whether they are true working trolling lures, and if they are I will finish the 15 that I have in production. Send them to ebay or to the BuySellTrade board for fishermen to use?
Who would you share this amazing find with? |
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | Funny I just completed a handful of figured wood baits with a bunch of small pieces of exotics I had laying around. I will post pics in a couple of days. As a wood worker as well as a builder and collector I think baits made to show the beauty of the wood are cool. But I was also wondering about if others were interested in such a thing. I say make a few high end baits for those who appreciate them. |
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| Is it quilted, laced or burled redwood? If so, I wouldn't make lures out of it just due to its value. If it's regular redwood, then by all means make lures out of it. Redwood is superb wood for lures! I'd use it if it were easily obtained and not really spendy. |
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Posts: 4266
| I've already made a bunch of lures out of figured, laced, tiger striped Redwood that guitar makers use. This is plain old Redwood that was used for shoring.
I've used several of the tiger striped lures and caught fish. I also tried to sell them, seeing as they were not only beautiful but made from half century old wood I thought that I could sell them with no luck. Right now I have a box of 50 blanks sitting right here all made of the tiger striped Redwood, but nobody is interested in them. I thought they would sell. Guys would look at them and oooh and ahhh, but they wouldn"t buy them because "What would I do with it?"
Edited by Beaver 10/20/2014 6:05 PM
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| yep. would have been better to sell to a guitar maker. I have 4-5 slabs of old growth redwood perfect for coffee tables that have been sitting in my garage for 30+ years. If I thought guys would buy em for their beauty, They would be cut up by now and turned to lures. Its silly, but guys will pay for pretty paint jobs, when really simple, 2 contrasting color lures are just as or more effective than putting fancy scales and gill plates on lures. more so, the lures action is more effective than color IMO. Redwood is great and much like cedar but even better due to its better resistance to water rot. Paint em up, they will sell. |
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Posts: 4266
| I couldn't force myself to paint over a pattern that is already beautiful. Brown Perch trimmed in gold, and God made it. I've been making lures for 10 years and have never used a stencil or tried to make a lure look like it was alive. Live fish have a natural camoflauge built into them, I want lures that stand out from the school not lures that blend in to it.
I'll finish them and clear coat them and some day in the future my daughter can sell them all.
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| ^cant argue that! |
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | I would be interested in a tiger pattern red wood bait for my collection |
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Posts: 833
| I'd buy one. They sound exquisite and one of a kind. |
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Posts: 1202
Location: Money, PA | make planer boards |
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| Post pics. I'd take/buy a couple blanks. |
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Posts: 196
| Hey Beav!
I remember you posting about this.
How about a couple of those blanks and a bait for some UW hockey tickets a couple rows off the ice?
Hope all is well!
Chuck |
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Posts: 4266
| I already have tickets for 8 games. Which games are you talking about?
Send me PM's with your phone # and I'll send you a picture. I can't get the pictures from my phone to my computer but I will text them to you. |
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Posts: 8716
| Something like that is a work of art. That said, lures are meant to be fished. If I had one, I'd fish with it on special occasions. I'd likely name it, and then when I did decide to fish with it, I'd tell whomever I was fishing with the story behind it, where the wood came from, how old it was, etc. There are lures that are just lures, even the ones that have caught multiple fish or your biggest fish. Those can usually be replaced. But something like this? Novelty item. Something you keep forever, and use on special spots or throw back at a giant fish.
I wouldn't worry about losing it. I probably wouldn't fish with it in places where I was likely to catch it in the rocks or snag it on a stump.
Maybe selling the blanks is the wrong approach. Finish them, sell them as something that can be used. I doubt there's many musky anglers who wouldn't buy something like that to have a one of a kind lure with a story behind it. Some guys may not fish with them. I would.
Edited by esoxaddict 10/22/2014 1:00 PM
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Posts: 4266
| I wasn't going to sell the blanks. I better re-read my posts, because I don't want to sell the blanks. The figured wood I might paint the belly and that's all, but if a guy wants one for a collection then he would have his choice of paint or no paint.
As far as the wood reclaimed from the silver mine, I'm going to paint them and sell them. Of course I'll be keeping several, but the ones that I sell will be like limited edition because of the scarcity of the wood and the number of the lures that I can make.
For instance, I'm making 12" trolling lures right now. I'll only have 9 or 10 to sell, so I'll make 3 of 3 different color patterns and sell them. I have a few 10" that are big shad body lures that I am going to paint in a natural shad pattern maybe with a chartreuse belly. Then I have 10" and 8" Alewife body styles that I will paint in a few different colors depending how many I have. I also made some 6" and finally I made 20- 5.5" Blue Back Herring shape that I'm going to keep for my daughter and myself for Bass, Walleye and Pike. I'll make 20 different colors out of them.
The rest I'll sell here when they are ready depending on the interest.
Right now I have about 40 of the highly figured ones and I'm going to make them all into functioning crankbaits, the buyers can do what they want with them. You can search this forum, I'm sure that I put up pictures of some of the tiger striped lures. I tried to sell them once before and didn't sell any, so those just might go to ebay. When you pay a lot for one board that is absolutely beautiful, most guys don't want to spend the money on some home decor. I have 6 that I use, anyone else who has one got it from me as a gift. Nobody wanted to purchase one.
We'll see what happens this time around. |
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Posts: 4266
| Tried to post a picture but couldn't. Oh well.
Edited by Beaver 10/23/2014 12:30 PM
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Posts: 4266
| What do you guys use to resize pictures taken with a phone?
Edited by Beaver 10/23/2014 1:15 PM
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Posts: 8716
| This is just a thought, and not necessarily a good one at that...
Maybe making crankbaits out of them is what's turning people off. Lost baits trolling, busted lips, hung up in rocks... Not that that's the only use for a crankbait, but trolling beats up lures a lot faster than casting, and from what limited experience I have trolling it's also a much better way to lose lures.
Maybe make walk the dog lures or gliders out of the redwood and go from there?? The redwood lures you posted some years back were beautiful. Something akin to the old 8" HR Shakers, but made of redwood? I'm sure a lot of guys would pay $50 for one of those without even giving it a thought.
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| posting pic of lure on behalf of Beaver 
pic a little grainy, not sure why.
Edited by mnmusky 10/23/2014 5:38 PM
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Posts: 4266
| I've been making gliders for a long time. Though Redwood is a little denser than Cedar, it would still require a minimum of 5 or 6 ounces of lead to make an 8 or 10"glider. That means drilling 4-5 or 6 holes in the belly of the lure big enough to accept weights or have lead poured in them, then they all have to be filled, so that means that they have to be painted taking away from the whole "natural" thing. I add one weight to a crank bait and when I fill it I mix sawdust into the epoxy so it resembles the wood. I've been making gliders out of Maple because it takes alot less weight to take it down. The cranks I make are shallow runners with custom 3/16 lips. I'll just target collectors because all of the lures that I've given away are hanging on mantles or pieces of driftwood that have mounts on them. Most of the PM's say that they would like one, maybe for a Christmas present, but they would never fish them. |
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | Funny this thread came up. As I said in the earlier post I have been working on these for a few weeks now between painting. I ran across a box of random pieces of wood. Much of which were exotic woods. I thought I would make a few natural wood gliders and topwaters. This glider is Tiger Maple with American Cherry inlayed plugs over the weights to dress it up a bit. I will post more pics tomorrow once these are assembled.
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Posts: 4266
| Very nice looking. I like the plugs to cover the weight holes. I made gliders out of Big Leaf Maple because it has the weight and density needed to make a good glider. You never have to paint a Brown Perch pattern, God already did it. I still have some pieces of BLM out in the garage, but some of them are almost 2 inches thick. I'll have to go through all of the boxes that I have out there. I've been idle for a few years and I know that I have lots of wood out in the shop that needs to be transformed.
I've used Purpleheart and Osage Orange, and one of my favorites that is waiting is a few pieces of Lacewood that I have. That stuff looks like some big scaled fish. I always thought of using some light Kandy Kolors and doing something like a Carp with it. But for the next few weeks I'm going to concentrate on the reclaimed Redwood project. My friend in Cass Lake who got the first four 12'ers called me and told me he was extremely happy with them, trolling them from slow to almost 4 mph. with no problems. He asked me "What are you going to call them?" I hadn't given it much thought. I just wanted to have a name that reflected the wood's age and the fact that they were made from Giant Redwoods, so we settled on calling the rest of the 12" models....Giants....no hint of The World Series involved. It's supposed to be nice this weekend, so I plan on painting and testing the rest of the Giants that I have left.
It's nice to know that other people have seen fishing lures in exotic pieces of wood like I have. Again, those plugs really dress up that glider.I had been keeping some sawdust and mixing it with 2 ton epoxy,but those contrasting colors really look very nice. I'll have to go through all of the boxes of wood that I have outside, I'm pretty sure there is some BLM laying out there.I gave away all of my Purple Heart to a couple of high school students who were looking for "different" hard woods to make duck calls. The Purple Heart was created to make beautiful duck calls, I'll tell you that.
Once again, beautiful lure!
Beaver |
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Posts: 4266
| Just an FYI, that Redwood lure is balancing on a piece of Redwood grain that separated from the rest of the board. There are 8 pieces of that wavy grain that fit together like a puzzle. |
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Posts: 157
Location: Lincoln, NE | I wouldn't waste that wood on a lure that would get painted over or snagged and lost. Redwood makes gorgeous bookmatched guitar tops. Make lures out of regular wood that isn't old and rare and valuable. I paid a lot for a piece of Claro Walnut that I used for the top on mine. The guys on the mylespaul forums would eat that up. If you do make it all into lures I'd finish them clear for show pieces. |
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Posts: 399
Location: Burton, Ohio | Beaver and Trophyseeker50 , Those lures look amazing! I love seeing the natural wood lures. |
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Posts: 4266
| All of the highly figured Redwood lures that I make are for display only. Sure it makes beautiful guitars and violins and other stuff, but the first thing that I saw when I looked at my first piece was "Brown and Gold Perch". Like I said every lure that I've given away or donated is hanging over a fireplace or on the driftwood of a mount. All the wood that I used was considered scrap pieces by the guy I got them from. I'll take 10" x 4" x 3/4" pieces of "scrap" anytime. Many lures have odd shapes because I found the outline of the lure body within the grain of the wood and cut along it. I've taken a few of them and painted the bellies white and used them. I made one for trolling and two smaller ones for casting and even caught a fish on one. When I finish them all I'll contact the people who PM'd me and might post some here, but I think most will go to ebay under collectibles. I sent one of the big ones (like the one in the picture) to the guy who I got the wood from and he loved it and has it hanging in his office. He says he gets comments about it all of the time because most people in Oregon have never seen a muskie lure or even know what a muskie is.
The wood that was reclaimed from the silver mine doesn't have any figuring, just the tightest grain that I have ever seen. It is the best wood I have ever used in my life.
Tigger- Thanks. Any compliment from you is always well received.
Beaver |
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Posts: 1529
| ive seen lotsa wood. that stuff beaver is magical.. theu the years my brother in law builds guitars/violins and my own odesseye but like I said, what you have is ir-replacable. |
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Posts: 4266
| You are right Woodie,but I don't want to keep them all. I have some favorites of the highly figured stuff and I will keep a few of each size of the reclaimed wood after I get them all painted. Right now I'm doing the 12" and 10" trolling lures so if guys want to use them, they will get them before freeze up. I've had a few requests for Christmas presents of the figured ones that would not be fished. I have a Smallmouth crankbait I'll have to post some time. If ever a wood looked just like a Smallmouth Bass, this is it.
I'm sure you have seen just a few types of wood during your career and retirement.
Thanks again for all of the help you have given me over the years.
Beav |
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