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Location: Northern Wisconsin | i am looking for something to do this winter and im thinking about carving some lures.i have made
one lure before out of balsa wood which was fairly easy shaping the lure but adding thru wire and
e-tex without a turner was tough. this time im looking to make some type of crank/twitch and jerk
bait of out some harder wood. what kind of wood is fairly easy to carve but still can hold screw eyes?
for harder woods do i still need to add e-tex or something to keep if from absorbing too much water
or is that not a problem. and for you guys who carve lures what do you use? i have heard pocket knives and wood carving
knives work but im looking for more insite(brands, prices, sizes). im not going to make 100's so i
dont need power tools or anything like that and i dont mind taking time to individually carve each lure out.
as you can see im pretty lost and confused in this subject so any thing will help.
thanks for any help. |
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Posts: 480
| Hi Fish4,
Some of my first muskie lures were chip carved and used a utility knife. Just keep changing the blades out to keep a sharp edge. I used a photocopier to inlarge baits until I had a size I wanted, glued the paper to a blank and banded sawed out a rough shape. I carved the blank (any soft hardwwod- pine, butternut, red alder...) then used a rasp to smooth out the chips. I used a few coats of tung oil to seal the wood, enamel paint and clear enamel over that. I caught 8 fish in June a few years back on that one lure and this winter a gave it to a friend's son to use and hopefully make his own someday. Just start out knowing you'll make a few that don't work, some will work and they will get better and better. Fish don't care about fancy paint jobs and finishes, soon you'll be as obsessed and many are on this board. |
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Posts: 137
| I do a little bit of carving with small chisels and knives, but, the vast majority of carving I do with a dremel tool. Using sanding discs and carving burrs, you can carve out nice baits in no time at all. And dremels are very economical, too. It does help to use a jig or band saw to cut out the basic profiles of the bait, and sanding belts are nice too, But a small hand saw and sand paper works too, as that was what I used to carve wood with when I was a kid and too young to be allowed to use my pops power tools. |
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Posts: 501
Location: Norway | Im also thinking about starting to make some bait, mainly to fill up some spare time. Used to be a flyfsiher and tying flies was timefiller then.
I have a question about the shapes.
Does "cigarshaped" bait glide wider (i.e Manta) and tallshaped baits (Dropbellyshaped?) roll more/belly flash more, move more irradic?
Ive found a few sites which tells HOW to build the baits, but not which shape gives me this and that action, if any...
The obvious answer is offcourse the shape of the natural bait fish in a given lake, but... 
Michael
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Posts: 479
Location: Eden Prairie & Pine Island | Basswood is pretty good for carving and holds screw eyes well. I made my original Lunker Ducks from it hand carved. Depending on your priming & painting, you still will want to use a clear coat when you're done.
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| cedar is a good wood for lures |
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