questions about starting a new lure design
jim engen
Posted 12/10/2008 6:57 PM (#349098)
Subject: questions about starting a new lure design




Posts: 2


I'm brand new to this forum but have been playing around with making lures out of wood. I've made about 15 different baits and theres only 1 that actually swims good. I draw out different designs and then just cut and carve out, paint, and topcoat. I enjoy doing it but it would be nice to be able to use some of them.
I guess my question is.
How do you go about designing and figuring out how to get the lure balanced and designed right so they swim like you want them to? Crank baits seem to be the toughest. I think that I'm getting everything square but not having much luck. Also when you do get a good one it must be very difficult to make another one just like it?

If it's all just trial and error i guess thats ok i still enjoy doing it. I just thought i would throw that out there to see if anyone has any suggestions.

Thanks in advance for any advice
Great web site

Jim
Kingfisher
Posted 12/10/2008 7:47 PM (#349103 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: RE: questions about starting a new lure design




Posts: 1106


Location: Muskegon Michigan		Jim, The trick is to make patterns of every design you come up with, I make patterns out of 1/16th lexan and plexiglass. The patterns can be shaved and down sized so I normally start a little on the large size. I also base some of my designs on other baits that already work great. My Rippin Shad for instance is very similar to a tuff shad. It is smaller and has a different lip design but the basic Idea is the same. It is deep diving small crank that pulls from the lip. Trial and error to fine tune and then replicate. Also know the characteristics of certain woods helps a lot. Light bouyant woods like cedar and Balsa wood make great cranks because they are stable but build the same lure out a heavy hard wood and the game changes tons. My big Deepthreats started out as Parrywinkle clones but many prototypes later and they are totally different. All my own now and getting better every year. It takes years sometimes to perfect a design. Other times first try and you have a winner. My Little Claw twitch bait was a mistake. I was trying to build a crankbait out of Oak and it just would not run. Buyt when I jerked it wham!!! That mistake turned out to be one of the best twitchers ever made in the 6 inch lure class. Many tournement wins and big Muskies caught all over the range on this lure. I sell about 500 of them every year and it keeps getting more popular as more guys try them. But the bottom line is, that lure was a mistake. I might have tossed that design but I got angry one day and jerked it real hard instead of slow cranking it in and a 37 inch Musky blasted it. We started twitching and jerking them from then on and the action was second to none. It is one of my go to lures now. I have several Guide that depend on the Little Claw twitch bait to put fish in thier boats . I only had to fine tune it once I figured out what made it do the tricks it does. Its all about the wood. I hope this helped some. Ill be in Chicago at the show in the Pastikas booth. Stop in and chat. Mike King ,Talonz Wooden Lure company
Tigger
Posted 12/10/2008 7:52 PM (#349105 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: Re: questions about starting a new lure design





Posts: 399


Location: Burton, Ohio		Hey Jim and welcome to the site. The cranks can be the most difficult for sure. There is so much that could go wrong with a bait design.

Here are a couple base rules that I use:
- The lip has to be a no smaller than the widest part of the bait. ( I am talking the width of the lip)
- When doing a line tie nose attachment the bait has a better chance of working with it attached slightly to the underside of the nose. This helps in stablizing the bait it seems.
- I believe the base line angle for functional lip is about 42 degrees off the center line. (going off memory?)
- Lips that are shaped in a more rounded manor have a more rolling wobble. But......... are less stable.
- Lips that are more square in design are more stable than the rounded ones. They will also have harder wobble action.
- Deep diving crankbaits.......... The lip works great when the angle of the lip matches the angle of the head.
- Lip line ties are more difficult. "fatfingers" showed me that on a line tie loop not to have it pass the mid point of the exposed lip length. It can be done but special weighting is involved.
- weighting.............. Smaller crankbaits may not need weighting. I like to the weight the cranks to stablize the bait. It really helps on the bigger baits. Some of the larger baits will not run at all with out any weighting in the belly / underside. I like to weight the body in the area of the front hook attachment.

Welcome to the madness! LOL I hope this helps a little.
John

Edited by Tigger 12/10/2008 7:54 PM
Norway pike
Posted 12/11/2008 7:37 AM (#349155 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: Re: questions about starting a new lure design




Posts: 39


Use a metal lip, then you can bend it, if it’s not working perfectly. This gives more room for correcting small errors that may occur when cutting lip slots with a band saw. Bending the nose tie may some times also be a good way of fixing lures.

Great forum, been reading it for some years now.

Oskar
jim engen
Posted 12/11/2008 1:43 PM (#349216 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: RE: questions about starting a new lure design




Posts: 2


Great tips guys, thanks again. I actually just finished a new bait. jerkbait hopefully. I'll tub test it but i'll have to wait till spring to get a real test. I'm excited about it because I tried a foil finish on it with just a hand painted scale pattern. Looks kind of cool. I'd like to post some pictures but my camera took a dump on me because i dropped it on the ground. Oh well.

I look forward to chatting and learning new ideas and getting a new camera.

Thanks again, Jim
woodieb8
Posted 12/11/2008 6:33 PM (#349278 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: Re: questions about starting a new lure design




Posts: 1530


jim. the thrill is building them. the buzz is getting a fish to slam your lure. read, cut wood and like many here heat your house with the flops. we all started where your at now.
it is great fun isnt it.
Yake Bait
Posted 12/20/2008 11:11 AM (#350649 - in reply to #349098)
Subject: Re: questions about starting a new lure design





Posts: 388


One of my lessons learned is to do the testing on the lure before you finsh it.  Go somewhare that you can get at least 1/2 full cast length to be able to evaluate how the lure will run.  Tub tests and short tosses don't give you enough feedback.  If you are unhappy with the results you can tweak the bait before you spend a lot of time on the finish work..

 After forming the lure and installing the hardware, I seal coat the wood with 2T epoxy before doing any paint. This allows me to test the lure in any open water that I can find this time of year. There is turbine discharge below a local power dam that stays open where I can toss lures and evaluate. It is not too big a deal to add or drill out some weight at this point in time for fine tuning. Keep in mind that you will always loose bouyancy after paint and final coat. I have yet to make a lure that came out "too light" and almost always come out heavier than I was shooting for.

 Also, try to limit your work to the same pattern. I spent a lot of time making different shapes and going through the inventing process over and over again. I was less than 50% in terms of lures that I liked the final action, and lures that left something to be desired. Last year I stuck to a few proven designs and my results were much better although I still have left room to improve...

 Finally - keep good notes on your recipe for each lure design so that you can make it the same way next time. Placement of weight, amount of weight, depth of holes that you drill, etc. I use poster board templates with drawings of where everythign goes and how many lead sinkers I melt into each location. I like the lexan idea mentioned above even better than poster board (more durable).

IMO, crank baits are probably the toughtest to make because of their aggressive diving characteristic and potential for thigns to go awry.  Twitch baits are easiest because you need only worry about adding enought weight to stabilize and can cheat by keeping the weight forward of the "center of bouyancy".  Glide baits are somewhere in the middle because the "center of bouyancy" is very important, and it is very difficult to hit the near neutral bouyancy that you want for this type of lure.

When I describe the "center of bouyancy" this is the spot where you can grab the lure with a finger on each side and sink it with it's back level to the horizon.  I usually mark this spot and add lead here to keep it level.



Edited by Yake Bait 12/20/2008 11:21 AM