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Posts: 342
Location: Passaic, NJ - Upper French River, ON | Hello-
Looking for best species for some jerkbaits I'm making. Was thinking that pine and cedar are too soft. Anybody use poplar maple or birch ?
Thanks-
Gimo |
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Posts: 941
Location: Freedom, WI | Pine and cedar are not to soft, just glue the screw eyes in and seal the wood properly. Birch is very inconsistent in weight and needs to be sealed very well as it expands a lot when wet. Soft maple is lighter than hard maple and both need to be treated differently. I build lures out of all of them, each type gives you different action with the same shape. It is a lot of trial and error. For consistent action you need to keep the wood from getting water logged. |
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Posts: 400
Location: North/Central WI | Hard Maple works well but is not very buoyant. It is more suited to gliders. Turns well on a lathe and fish cannot easily sink their teeth in it. |
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Posts: 4266
| I'm learning lots about wood lately. I've cut blanks from Western Red Cedar and Eastern Red Cedar. I've used Spanish Cedar, Port Orford Cedar and California Redwood. I've got some stuff from Africa and some from South and Central America. Hard Maple and soft figured Maple. They are all different.
None of them is unusable, but all of the light woods take a lot of preperation and a lot of lead. I found a great sealer for the lightest woods....Western Red Cedar, Soft Figured Big Leaf Maple, Port Orford Cedar. Spanish Cedar isn't actually a cedar, but I think that if you don't want to add ounces and ounces of lead, it would be the lightest that I'd use with any regularity. Oh yeah, the sealer.......it is a 2 part epoxy that can be thinned, and is used to help restore rotted wood but it maintains some flexability. That is a must for anything that you use on or in a wooden lure. I can mix it up and thin it out so I can brush it on. If I apply it to any of the soft woods that I listed, it will penetrate a half inch or more before setting up and drying. It actually improves the strength of the wood. I plan to use it on every blank that I use, even the hardest. It's the best sealer that I've used.
I've got some woods from Africa that are close to perfect, as they barely float and just the weight of the hooks will cause them to sink. Unfortunately, all of the best woods that I found are expensive. That's not going to stop me, because they are just what I was looking for as far as woods that require very little paint to become a lure.
For someone who wants to make gliders for himself, I would tell them to go with hard Maple, it's tough and doesn't require a lot of weight. I'd also go with Eastern Red Cedar for it's hardness and workability. It takes sealing very well, and though it takes more weight than hard maple, it doesn't require a ton. But ERC has a life to it in the water. Probably because it's trying to float. Afterall, isn't that what makes the best gliders? Finding wood that you can make neutrally buoyant so it seems alive as it struggles not to sink or float.
It's a constant give and take. Softer woods are easier to shape, but harder to make neutrally buoyant. They also need to be sealed and strengthened, either by using a tough sealer or multiple layers of clear coat. Harder woods are easier to weight, but they are harder to shape unless you invest some of your wood money in good tools. I'm going to save the lighter woods for crankbaits or twitchbaits, and use the best hardwoods for gliders. I even have some woods that are too dense and heavy, and I might have to drill holes and add cork or balsa wood to counteract the weight. First I'm going to see if I can make those "real deep running gliders" that everybody asks about. I guarantee that some woods will get down to 15' easily, but I don't know how they will move.
Want to check out about 15 kinds of wood? Come on over and look in my garage.
Beav |
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Posts: 342
Location: Passaic, NJ - Upper French River, ON | Probably going with the hard maple. Never heard of Eastern Red Cedar, heard of eastern white cedar though.
Beav - I've got some 100 yr old Texas Long Leaf Pine I'll send you for your collection, very hard, and tight grain. PM me your address. The boards are 3/4" and 5/4" thick, and 10" wide. |
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Posts: 101
Location: Northern Illinois | As a former worker at a millworks shop, I have dealt with many types of wood. I made a Suick out of Wenge, a denser than water, extremely hard, African wood. Talk about a deep jerkbait, wow! |
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Posts: 388
| I'll third the maple vote for jerk baits.
For bouyant lures, I'll add a vote for basswood. Density is about the same as cedar with an easier grain to work with and less tendency to split off the finish when fished. |
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Posts: 4266
| wenge is beautiful when you get a piece with nice grain. big logs floated down the Congo River so that some small pieces can turn into muskie lures half-way around the world. Zebrawood is the closest to neutral that ive found so far, and snakewood is the most beautiful and will fish to 20 feet easily and needs no paint to look alive. would have to charge $60 for a ten inch lure just to cover the price of the wood.
so many beautiful woods out there. |
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Posts: 400
Location: North/Central WI | Ever try jatoba (also known as Brazilian Cherry)? Very dense and not quite as pricey as most exotics.
Edited by NateOz 2/25/2009 7:14 AM
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Posts: 351
| Poplar is an excellent all around choice for a variety of baits. Its readily available reasonably priced, has a pretty consistent grain, carves and shapes well, and is fairly easy to weight.
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Posts: 724
Location: Southern W.Va. | Ever try any wild cherry? Got a "butt log" about 5' long and 10-12" thru, seasoning out in out building. Ought to be about ready , been there for 3 years, just need to get off my duff and work with it.
Mauser |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | Hard maple, poplar, or western red cedar depending on your personal preference.
Jed V. |
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Posts: 4266
| Jed, you like the WRC? I bought a bunch of tight grained, old growth stuff from a dealer and was disappointed with how light it is. Going to have to weight the heck out of it to make gliders, but I bet that they will be lively. I bought some sealer that penetrates almost a half inch into that stuff, and I'm hoping that it improves the toughness. Easy to work with, that's for sure. Any tips for when I start using it? I was planning on using lots of it and learning how to make crankbaits.
I bought so California Redwood, and that wood is my favorite so far. Heavier than WRC, and when I dropped a blank it sounded like a bowling pin hitting the ground. Didn't get much, so those will be earmarked for my box.
Still have to get a router table when my hands are done being overhauled. |
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Posts: 136
Location: Chicago | Here's a copy of a 8''HR Shaker made out of 3/4'' Bubinga.
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Posts: 342
Location: Passaic, NJ - Upper French River, ON | Beav-
Finishing up down here with that long leaf pine. I've got some 3/4" Ipe ( Brazilian Walnut) cut offs to go too. Heavy as heck, you could throw the stuff a mile. Carving it would be tough though, as it's one of the hardest woods.
Gimo |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | I don't really like WRC Beav but I mentioned it because some very talented builders use it.........Trueglide, Hughes River, etc. I have built a fair number of gliders out of WRC and it works fine but I personally have always liked the action of heavier woods better for gliders. I LOVE working with WRC though becasuse you can shape something super fast, fun to watch something take form so quickly. It is light and I think you need to be careful with the screw eyes making sure they are secure and if clearcoat is over them all the better. It is also hard to hide the grain of WRC as you can see in the pic of the Shaker above but in some ways the wood grain adds to the realism.
Jed |
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