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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | Have you guys found a good way to cut lip slots? I am guessing that most of the guys that build a bunch of cranks are using either a router or a table saw. I have trying to cut them with a bandsaw and it's tough to be consistent from one to the next.
jed v. |
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Posts: 680
Location: Muskoka Ontario,Canada | I use my band saw without any problems. I don't make as many crankbaits though so I can take my time doing them. I'm sure there's an easier/faster method. |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | I'm been using the bandsaw too but because the bandsaw requires several passes it makes being off square just a tiny bit very easy to do. I have found that squaring the table to the blade and also keeping the blade tight helps but even so there is some room for error. I probably need to buy a tablesaw....just what I need, another tool, lol.
jed v. |
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| I borrowed a table saw from a friend who has lots of tools.
He likes to fish, but isn't into muskies...yet, but I showed him a crank and gave him a box with glider reject bodies in it and we played around...with placement, depth and angle. It was fun, but not something that either of us would like to spens much time doing. Our objective going in was to make something that had lots of vibration, and very little depth achieved. He got kindling for his wood stove and I got some idea of what it takes to make a Crane bait, only fatter....work! What else?
I think that I'll stick with gliders for myself for a while.
Beav |
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Posts: 680
Location: Muskoka Ontario,Canada | Funny thing is Beaver that guys with no experience building gliders probably want to stick to building crankbaits! There's just as many nuances to making a glide bait dance perfectly.  |
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Posts: 786
Location: Minnesota | On the few Grunt prototypes I tried fitting with a lexan bill I used a table saw. Worked great! I attached one of my old blanks I still have laying around.
Just make sure your balde width is the same as your lexan. It was a tight fit and once the glue set the bill was not going anywhere! At the end of the day though I went with the metal bills. My big lures have a much wider woblle with them and the metal helped other things as well.
James
PS-One extra point, if you don't work with wood a lot you may not know this. Put an extra piece of wood behind your bait as you run it through the tablew saw. This will keep the bait from splintering on the back side. Using a band saw you will not have this problem. By the time you get to this point you don't want to f-up your work... wait until you paint your lure to do that! lol
Edited by Grunt Lures 2/3/2007 9:40 AM
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Posts: 2112
Location: The Sportsman, home, or out on the water | I used to gang a bunch up with a "Pony" clamp, and run them over the table saw, after rounding over the corners. Very consistent. |
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Posts: 351
| Jed, I crank the blade up all the way on the table saw, then check it with a square to make sure I get a perfectly square lip slot.
One problem I haven't dealt with yet is the fact that because the blade is rounded and I'm just laying the blank on the deck of the tablesaw, I get a longer cut on one side of the blank... and then I go to the band saw (which is a much thinner cut) and run the bandsaw blade back through the same slot a few times until I've removed the material necessary to get a perfect slot.
I suppose I could make up a jig to run the blank in at a bit of an angle so as to get the same depth of cut from the table saw in one swipe, but once you get the hang of it, what I'm doing now is rather easy.
The table saw blade is precisely the same width as the lexan I'm using so that works out well. (1/8 inch if I recall correctly)
Today I started trying making lips out of stainless steel. Not nearly as easy as polycarbonate, but I've never used the stainless before and I'm curious about how it will affect the action on my flatshads and the fat minnow/twitch baits I make...also curious as to how the muskies in the waters I fish will react to the extra flash. Anyway, the bandsaw blade seems to make a perfect cut for 22guage stainless lips, which is going to be nice.
Hope that helps. |
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Posts: 2112
Location: The Sportsman, home, or out on the water | once I got the angle that worked, I made a gauge that I could check the blade angle and height, as well as distance to the fence. every 30 baits, I would shut the table saw down and verify everthing was still in order with the gauge. |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | So are you just holding the lure at an angle then as you slide it toward the table saw blade? Or have you built some kind of a jig to hold it at the correct angle? The lure is laying on it's side as it's being cut, yes?
thx.
jed |
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Posts: 351
| That's just how I do it, Jed. Its pretty easy, which is why I haven't bothered with the jig. The jig would allow for easily repeating precise angles, but I've done enough of them that I can duplicate the angle within a degree or two.
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Posts: 2112
Location: The Sportsman, home, or out on the water | my bodies were stacked belly down, flat on the table, with their tails against the fence, all ganged together, 10 or so at a time clamped together with the pony clamp. |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | Some great ideas for me to experiment with guys, thank you.
jed v. |
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