Good stuff Ryan
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Billy, are you using it for sealing too? Or just top coat?

I was thinking of ordering a set from Amazon to try it out.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Ryan, liking those Habs clones. What wood are you using? Your post reminded me of the 2 I have from a builder who shall remain nameless which expanded when wet, hence the epoxy sealing question.

Which style darter are you thinking you'll try first?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Thanks guys.
Ian those are birch.For what it's worth I have never had any plug swell and crack using spar cut with turps. I haven't messed with epoxy sealing yet.
As for darters I'll prolly try a musso style in ayc or soft maple.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Ryan nice job. The clones look great. I too cloned them years back. Really like the 9" version. Have specs if you like. BTW ,I have birch in 5/4 diameters. Milled to your dimentions. If you need some please let me know.

Ian, I use value oil or spar varnish cut with pure turns for sealing. Tried a few with e tex for sealing but for me it was too messy. I will say if you want a soft wood hardened, that would help. Maple is a wood that requires penetration with sealers. Heating the wood then pouring thinned epoxy into the thru wire hole and hook holes would help. One thing to remember when using belly grommets is if you cut the wood when installing them, you open up unprotected wood and give water a way to enter and split the plug. Had it happen a few times. Prefer using birch for this reason if you need hard wood.

missed sunday morning
 

I missed sunday morning post but I've been continuing on my jerk bait project. Made a dozen more, have them sealed, wired and sanded now.

Attachment 63566

The first one I made swims awesome, then slimmed down the next 4 and those weren't as good... i over-estimated weight i think. Hopefully i can swim these soon and get a better idea of what I'm looking for.

The "Beast". You'll get the combination. This unique design will be fun to get swim and then put through it's paces.

Those look pretty cool Matt! Good luck getting them to swim how you want them.

Here's what got done this week, I think this thread is helping me finish stuff!

31 plugs painted, mostly big 9.5" pencils but some odds and ends finally painted

7" skinny pencils, 1.65oz unrigged epoxied. They cast like a needle and sink but come right up and work easy, have a few back bay spots in mind when I built these.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psqg9tb069.jpg

9.5" 4oz jumping pencil epoxied. Yellow top and sides and chartuese belly, with black and orange "scales", retro eyes and gold pearls.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...pskecksgum.jpg

Stuff in the rack is drying, painted on Saturday, so those will get rigged and epoxied this week.

Got the lathe set up to turn some zeke needles, original came from DZ

Got a bunch of ss darters and redfins and some blank minnow bodies to strip, sand and paint too.

Need to build a deflector for the lathe and some side pieces to help contain the chips now that the garage is clean.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Awesome Chris that chkn scratch is on point. Ditto on the thread motivation
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

On my way to Chatham to see Capesams, yes he is still alive, to buy an old Delta bandsaw off him.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Pics please.... regards to the ol phart

little tid bit for you guys. New England Tackle is shuttin down. Got told yesterday by a friend that sells his lures through them. Good place to go direct to as they liked dealin with the little guy too.

Time to prime a bunch of stubbys. Have the small Jet set up for turning smaller plugs. Look like I'll be converting the big Jet dupe from baseball bats to big plug tirnings. That's the only P.I.T.A. With the dupes. Mounting brackets for my set up don't allow the tailstock to move close to neadstock. Minimum set up is 24", end to end. It's just a matter of removing bracket to put tailstock inside bracket. The pain is rezeroing the head and tail spurs. Really not but I got have it "0". I have now to start turning pike bodies. Already getting the requests..
I also have been requested to turn drumsticks. I have a slender turning adapter and plenty of rock maple. Setting the dupe will be a trick with an original but I'm thinking of adding tenons to accommodate the mounting.

Tried some double coatin with e-tex and system 2 an 3 on some plugs as was asked for some plugs done this way. Almost all bubbled up when left in the sun in a hot truck. All the bodies had been painted for over a month-Derby Time. Seems like too thick a coat won't flex like is needed.

Experimenting with weighting on metal lips to get one with will run at a medium depth of 3-6'. I've been doing well with surface swimmers, a subsurface swimmer that gets down around 2-3ft and a deeper diving maple that gets down 8+ feet so looking to fill the gap for when there isn't enough water for the maple but I still want to run pretty deep.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Try up sizeing the tail weight. Depending on the body an lip type it will make a difference. Even helps in the casting dept

The musso pine ought to do that for you with some tweaking of the line tie. The issue becomes the speed of the retrieve and how much action you want although you can get around this some with the pine by downsizing the lip and sing or losing a tail hook.

Thanks guys

What I want is something that will cruise at that depth at a slow retrieve and with a lazy swimming action. I’ve made a couple of plugs based on the Musso pine with different lips but they are too buoyant to stay down that deep unless they are in current or being retrieved faster than I would like. I love the way the ones I made of maple hang down near the bottom even at crawl but they run too deep for some areas.

JLH I made a copy of the creek chub 7400 surfster but used a pikie 3 lip, 11 gram belly weight and 3 or 5 gram tail weight and it gets down into that range. Might be another option for design.

If you want I can sent it to you to test for yourself and see what if it fits the niche
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The pikie lips seem to make a big diff with how the plugs hold in current.Danny lips work good for it if you tune them at the tie and go a bit heavier on the tail weight. I've tried the lefty lips . seem to like to dredge in fast current and roll easier. Just so you can laugh it took me over 2 yrs to get most of the bugs out of my jr so have fun.

Thanks Chris - maybe I can check it out at Demo day if you will be there? I been trying to limit the number of different plug styles I make but I do plan to do a pikie or some sort eventually.

I hear you man, I'm trying to make less plugs but have them do more with design tweaks.

Got another 11 epoxied last night.

20 more to go before Sunday :)

Told myself I can start the lathe up until I get these finished
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Well it's a beautiful morn. Too nice to stay in the dungeon. What I have brewing besides my coffee in the shop this week is my redesigned Wadd style needle. About 5 yrs ago I made a few with a twist to the weighting style. Now mind you this is a little out of the box and somewhat time consuming. The results from what I seen and was told by users ,worth it to try again. The normal weighting consisted of 3 belly weights distributed 1 front and 2 rear . My design thought was to eliminate the belly drilling in which you need to drill 1/2" holes deep enough to accommodate 7-8 gram weights. Fill, sand etc. I took a chance to drill from the rear at a point 5/16 " below center w/a 17/64 bit to 1/8 " before hook hole and insert a 1/4 " lead rod 3" long weighing approx.24 grams. Glue in a birch dowel to plug hole and also drilled my hole hole. All measured from the nose mark. Put on lathe and turn. Dowel cut along with blank and tank tested drop and attitude. Swam it with desired results. A have a model od the blank with the distant markings and with hook hole drilled. I'll get a picture of the model blank up shortly.
I did paint some stubbys and primed the rest. Took 8 pike bodies which I had extra for emergencies through the summer and weighted and filled. I make a few extra of those for anyone in need after my building season is done. Once my lathe is converted back to turning baseball bats , plug turning isn't an option.

3 views
 

Front a nd rear views show center for dowel and wire hole.
Side View showing sectional markings . Notice rear 3" for weight.
This weighting allows plug to ascend on a less than 30 degree attitude when reeled slow to semi slow and shallow sub surface. The same dimentional proportions and weighting in AYC turns this plug into a surface needle. Fished super slow over boney areas.

Billy if you finish an extra one of those... Cough, I know someone who's interested, cough
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

So got 9 epoxied this week, another 13 wired up and hoping to get epoxied today after a day of errands.

This is the full batch

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psrwinggys.jpg

2, 9.5" pencils
2, wadd needles
2, atom jrs, tail weighted. 1 is thicker than the other
3, bigfish prey clones from like 3 years ago, different weighting and pikie 2 lips on 2, surfster on the other
2, 6" skinny pencils at 1.25oz

Close up of the 9.5" pencils, raccoon came in at 4oz and red head at 3.75oz
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...pshkigbg5c.jpg

Wadd clone shape with my weighting. Loving the black rainbow color, they sink level and stay down.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psw3mcdbg4.jpg

Atom jr close up, tailweighted, the blue one is fatter and heavier than the raccoon scheme. Pikie 2 lips on both.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...pswbmjzbtb.jpg

Hoping to start up the lathe this week and get some new stuff turned/started
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Neat stuff.
Do you do well with the black orange (sea robin) scheme?
Needles at night have worked for me in that color but I also have some swimmers painted that way which I never seem to use since they'd get fished in the day and I just can't get the faith to try them.

Black and orange has been a big producer for me since I started fishing. Always did really well on the lobster colored afterhours needle and black/orange ss darter

That scheme on those is black/copper/white similar to the BM Raccoon pattern, done well on that pattern too.

I usually carry a black/orange needle at all times, think it matches lobsters and sea robins which are all over my usually spots
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Was able to get a few more pencils epoxied, would have finished them all but only had two brushes left.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...pskqli671p.jpg
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Got almost all my plugs epoxied so started the lathe up and starting turning

First up, some Masterlure staright eel clones, used Numbskulls how to for the specs and had a Habs stixx on hand for reference.

Took some nice fish on the habs this season, but it doesn't cast great.

Going to test a small tailweight in one and see how/if it improves the casting without killing the action.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psjugkblym.jpg
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Chris that brings back memories. I did an exact clone including making an original lip design. Yes it doesn't cast. I guess it was a nice top water swimming troller in it's day. They do slither nicely on top in calm water. Good point adding a tail weight. I would try 7 gr. If it needed a little help, try a different lip. BTW what lip have you used?

The habs i fished swam down about a foot, casted ok on the gsb

I was thinking a 7 gram tail weight myself.

Pikie 3 lip is what was originally used and habs used it with the standard bends, I might try downsizing the lip and see if that also helps casting distance
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Nice work Chris!
Anybody ever try a high slot lefty 2 on the musso Donny Sr.? I made a few slim versions in pine but I want them to get down a few feet or so when there's some surf..
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Yeah. It works fine, particularly in current. Not sure why you'd want a smaller lip for surf, however. There you want the plug to dig (how much you can adjust by tweeking the line tie) and the standard pine set up is ideal (although maybe I am misreading your question and you are using a thinner than normal body in which case I've done that as well and it also works fine but the plug tends to go a lot deeper than a few feet).

Yeah the thinner than normal ones I'm working on are 1.325" so quite a bit thinner than original version. The musso pine sounds more like what I was going for. I've only built and fished the surface swimmer.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I am about done with targeting stripers for the season, at least seriously, so I finally found a little time to clean up the shop and turn a few plugs. First up this building season is some larger pine needles. I made a few larger needles in pine and maple (light and heavy version) to try out this past year and they ended up producing very well for me and a couple friends. By the end of the season I was kicking myself for not having made more of them. I will likely do a batch of them in maple next and then start on some Donnys.

I like the high slow lefty 2 a lot on the version of the Donny that I have been making but I'm not sure if it is very true to the original. I've built them with the Pikie 3 as well and they do get a little deeper and hold better in rough water/surf with the Pikie lip.

Jay, what do the pine needles weigh?

Slow sink ?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Right around 2.5oz on the pine and the maples are around 3.5oz.

Slow sinking on the pines.