Lots do Bill....guys making darters and dep divers/swimmers use maple alot or birch. Use what you got Bill......try contacting #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& as he might ship you some AYC.....check out his website! Pretty sure he ships wood?

Morning guys.
Bruce coincidence i am working on same type of tail weight mold.:smash:

Well....good mor....err.....afternoon Lou! Sleep in a bit??:)

Bill, give Medford Cedar a call, he carries 2x2's! Not sure if he got a new load in yet, I'm going to try to get him to get some thicker stock also.

I bet it won't take you 2 years :hidin:

good luck with it

LOL Bruce trust me when i say that a certain builder has been waiting patiently for over a year for me to make him something so i can sympathize with Paul.Geez i still owe Pbadad a decent wire bender.:smash: Hey Paul i'll race you i bet i can have mine built before Armageddon in 2012. :rotf2::rotf2:

Thanks, I stopped there this fall on the way back from fishing but he was closed. I'll give him a call.

Also, thanks Larry will shoot Scott a pm.

Bill

Those Donnys look good. I just did a bunch of sr's myself in pine.(inspired by Numby, of course) Fortunately I did have one original donny sr in my stash to copy. After disecting the plug and pulling out the belly weight I found out the belly weights were hand poured into the plug body and weighed almost exactly 1/2 oz. I found the same thing on the donny pine jr too.(hand poured belly weights, not glued in)

My hook positions are the same as yours, no tail hook, but I might insert 6 grams of lead(what the trebles I'm using weigh) into the tail to help it fly.

What type of lip are you using?

They use a lefty 2, but the lip is mounted above center (on most musso swimmers of various sizes). Slot is .32" down from the top of the head....on both the Jr and SR.

The large SS also uses a lefty 2 mid slot lip. The Maple and the Pine use the Pikie 3 lip.

:eek5::eek5::eek5: Mike, before you "dissect" any more plugs check with me, I can probably save you the sin.

The tail weight is a good option if you are leaving off the tail hook.

Will do, you'd disown me if you saw some of the plug building sins going on in my basement right now. I think its called learning by your own mistakes..:gorez:

Don't get me wrong, I haven't succumbed to any bodily injuries, but some of my classic plugs are, shall we say, two piece...:angel:

Hopefully some good will come from it....if not, there always my fall back bait....

I'm not a tail hook fan either. I like what you did with the donny sr's and am implementing the same setup, meaning sans the tail hook.

One word of caution, in places with a lot of current, bass seem to end up on the tail hook more than I would have guessed.

Paul..glad u could make it down and got something usefull out of the visit....your welcome to come again when time allows.

Larry.....thanks for the plug....your work is very clean and neet.Keep up the good work.:kewl:

Steve you are more than welcome! How did you like the box? LOL! That was fun as I have never made a box before......after that one I know what I will do differently for better results! I hope I will see you at PlugFest?? It won't be the same if you are not there??

Hey Flap ...

more

Hey Lu, No biggie on the bender. Just remiind me how to use the old one. It's seems to escape my memory. No matter what I do I can't get both sides right.

Tagger those are sweet, I'm sure Flap is smiling seeing them.

Eddie, those are freakin awesome!!

yeah that :claps:

Thanks . i decided a Flaptail is a plug I'll never make a jig for, so no two will be alike .. It will be my fun plug ... just wing it .. That little single hook job was a double hook .. just kept getting shorter ..

Shoulda made 'em cross-eyed.

put a pair of glasses on them. Very nice job Ed.

Giving a plug building lesson to a kid and his father today .. I fish with them down the canal .. more the kid than the father ,, He's a natural . Won a Jr. State pin for Albie .. Good kid ,, there's still hope in the world ..

Top of the morning all. Finished with the painting of the battalion. E-tex'd a few last night. I wish I could find a proven 1 part waterbase finish. Dip it and forget it. I've done some searching but with mixed thoughts. Anyway I got out yesterday to swim the 5 new finished models. All performed great. Excited over the replica Atom 54B. It swam swaying under the surface 1-2'. With the eye bent up it constanly swam under to 2'. Adding some current from the stream it held it's own. I still am surprised a tailweighted only swimmer can swim that well. I used a 7 gram plus 1 cut in half. Approx 10-11 grams. Been reading the past and present posts on spray booths. Still undecided on "HOW". Mostly for createx but thats not the problem at home. It's the fumes from spray bombs and shooting Zinseer oil base primer. Personally to make a booth not to handle these "stinky" paints is pointless. I use a good respirator while spraying but when I use to spray cans , it seems odd to watch to others in the house "stagger as they walked."

Tagger great job on the flaptail. Nice site "fishmaster". Many fun ideas to make when get "bored" with the standards!!

Hello. Tested a bunch of stuff this week (the break in the weather was great).

Medium Pichney dannys with tail weights (and the available oversized lips) were fine.

Small version of my skinny donny was fine (but now I wonder why I want them anyways)

The Musso lipless swimmer and Musso bottledarter were unimpressive (probably just not right since I don't have originals)

Swam an original Pichney A40 that is much bigger than his more common version (looks like it was built on a conrad body). Very impressed.....off to the xray and cloning dept for that one.

Tried out Back Beach's rumor plug, the Musso Eely clone, that I'd never had heard of until he sent me searching. Jackpot there! Big time I suspect. Came home and started a mess more immediately. Way cool bringing something like this back to life. I'd thank Mike, but to think I learned something this good about plugs from an eel guy is more than I can bear.

The plug that was a disappointment was the large Pichney SS. Although as exact as I can make them, they don't swim like the BM versions (that have a slight concavity to the front 1/2). I think the flat/convex forward shape of the Pichney may be planing the head of the plug up and lifting the lip requiring a faster retrieve to keep it working. Whatever, it means more tweeking.

Numb has a good point about back hooks .. couldn't figure out why but have had occasions where bass where on back hook .
Had one eve where 4 bass up to 25# ended up rear hook??
conditions where shallow rocky Ripping water . I'll keep my back hooks. And tha plug only had a siwash :biglaugh: