Got some plugs epoxied this week

Some pearl lavender pikies in 3 sizes, some jointed Donnys, a new pencil shape, maple slim Donny, giant pikies

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

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psvskdafd6.jpg

Giants weigh 5oz rigged

Surface slims 3.5oz

Medium slims 4oz

These jointed Donnys were a fun build, hide the belly weight under the thru wire like the old creek chub jointed pikies

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psiyhnmdl7.jpg

Still working on my lathe projects to try and collect as much chips/dust as possible

And still have a bunch of pikies to sand and paint
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Chris that pike a hand full. What lip do u use?

Pikie 4 Billy
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Those Pikies are close to the color Bassmaster used to swear by.

Chris, those are all beauties!

I agree, George. Manzi wouldn't throw anything if it wasn't that olive color for awhile. Wouldn't it be great if he made a comeback? Both fishing and plug making.

And thank you for remembering me last week, George. You are a gentleman, generous to a fault. And you make a hell of a darter! (as well as your other creations, but I am biased to your darters)

He, or someone, did well with a blueish purple over dark silver giant pikie at some point. Here is a picture of one that Flap gave me. Huge thing made of red cedar, no weight, big lip.

That is one of the first ones we did way way back where we made our own lips from some stainless backsplash stock we got from the depot. I got some 4x4 red cedar we made some huge stuff from but cut it down for others as well. Then after speaking to Mike Fixter, we started getting Alaskan yellow cedar for them. Dave was creative with his paint jobs

I love the color chefchris

Nice colors. I have one of those Bassmasters too.
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Those look great, I really like the colors. I need to start fishing metal lips more, I usually carry 1 or 2 but they are really not part of my 'goto' list of plugs.

Today I will paintthe last of tne pikes . All the others are sealed and will store for requests throughout the season. There is extras left w/tenons, & drilled . No weights , eyes or slope. Those we'll hang on to for specific requests. I find since the variation of weight in the AYC I have a chart to determine what weight to add to accomplish the specific type of water column depth. I turned every last piece of the last order of AYC from Liberty . Till next winter.

I'm getting towards the end of a wiring/epoxy marathon (my least favorite parts). It will be nice to get to the end. I still have a few things I want to try but wanted to get all the in process stuff done/out of the way first.

The darters are all ones I refinished, the one at the bottom is one of George's.

Second pic is some new needles. I had an issue with the green paint and the epoxy interacting so those look like crap but fish wont care. Larger ones are pine, smaller ones are maple. Both types are right around 1.6 oz.

Last pic is a shorter/fatter proto type version of a needle I usually fish in the fall. I made 3 of these last year (top one is the original which I did well on and took apart and refinished. I made a few more to try in different colors. Those are around 2 1/4 oz.

I also finished up with some other proto type stuff. I have been fishing some slope headed stuff for the past 4 or 5 years and done ok with it. So I kind of took that basic shape and tried a darter shaped head on it instead of just cutting the slope. I am refinishing all the slope headed stuff in the first pic so it will be interesting to see if the different head shapes make them fish any differently.

I upped the size a little bit too, trying to get them closer to 3. I got real close on the weight. I just hope the fish like them.

All look great and interesting too
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That last plug is something I, too, had been hoping to build this winter (and may get to yet although I'm petering out).
Eddy made and gave me a similar but shorter/fatter version some years back. I think he called it the "ditch devil". Casts and swims great although very deep. I think the neck recess and single belly hook improves aerodynamics significantly and is worth experimenting with. Nice job.

Chris - really nice pikies. I have a pike question.

Chris has the slot for his lip almost at the top of nose and the line tie is right there right at the bend. Fixter has his slot on some pikies a little further down. I have some Bassmasters where the lip slot is very high but the line tie is halfway down the lip and others at the top. Maybe has to do with the lip you use. Personal preference?

My lip slot is dead center of the plug, line tie is in the lower 1/3 of the body

When I made by first ones (2013) I went by a fixter Iand Mac I had for reference, both were the same placement, so followed what they did, same as the creek chub

Might be the angle of the pic that looks odd
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Rob have the line tie higher promotes a deeper depth. I use line ties high w/lip slot mid. I think Pike line ties that were in lips lower similar to a Danny were designed to stay on surface, head down tail kicking on surface.

Got some Salty supplies at RISSA. Hoping to finish drilling lip screws holes and installing lips.

I wrapped up all the stuff I was refinishing and very glad to have that all done and out of the way.

This week I've been messing around with small batches of a few different plugs. I made some broken back slope headed stuff to try in the canal and I made some needles in 3 different styles where i am pouring the lead directly into the plug and then topping that off with epoxy to fill the voids and sanding on the lathe. That worked great for the soft maple but the pine ones the wood was too soft I ended up sanding down the plugs more than I wanted. live and learn.

Next up for me is maybe trying bottle plugs.

Mix some a lot of saw dust into the epoxy to make a paste filler and I think it will sand easier.

I have been finishing up some of the Wadd style needles that I started a while back. I wired 6 of them and have 2 coats of E-Tex on them (drying) I also get a hold of some 1/4" stick on eyes this weekend. I added them to this batch of 6 plugs that got their first coat of E-tex on Sunday. I decided not to wire these ahead of time. I wanted to see which method I liked better. The eyes are a very small addition to the overall product, but they certainly do make the plug pop a lot more.

Looks very kev. Did you drill for eyes?

I thru drilled the eye w a small bit, those are stickers though. Used the holes to get the eyes lined up

Nice work. Those will be useful plugs for certain.

Today is paint a few more pikes. I did a few finish top coated w/KBS clear coat. Using a 1' foam brush did w coats w/in 5 hours for a chemical bond. The finish looks great. Not the depth of e tex but acceptable. Punched a hole in can and resealed w/ screw. No flipping. Less finicky than System 3. No the test will be which one hold up better or if equally. Like I earlier mentioned ,I never had issues with the finish on baseball bats. But other than ground rash we'll see on hook rash and fishing rash. I an going to take o e a scuff with a gray pad then recoat for a third cut. I would of done it as a chemical bond but wasn't around for the time period required. No more than 6 hrs to apply w/o scuff.

I finished the broken back stuff I wanted to try in the canal. we'll see if it works, wanted to fish them in daylight. (I had made similar ones 4-5 years ago but they swam 'too fast'. But too fast may be ok by day.

I also finished a small batch of needles and got the other needles primed.

I'm working on bottles now. For a plug I used to hate fishing as a kid they sure are a lot of work to build. So far so good. Bodies are turned and belly holes drilled. Im putting weights under the chin so will do that today and maybe drill for tail weights. Kind of putting off playing with the drum sander as I know I will end up screwing up a few before I get that right.

I don't know why..........but whatever.

:rolleyes:

So cute.
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