Is this the Place?

[numbskull]

Cool stuff, Dave. You might try relieving the edges on the jointed like Musso did on his jointed darters. Jointed plugs that bend to 90 degrees and stop cast better than those that stop short of 90 degrees.

Also, why the 4 lines on the darter? One for the hook, one for the slope starting, what are the other two? Are you weighting them?

[numbskull]

Trouble with maple and darters, Larry, is that the wood from each plank can be quite a bit different. Unfinished bodies vary as much as 1/2 an oz, even with wood that is dried to the same degree. They tend to approach each other when left in sealer a long time, but I don't feel I have any great grasp of how to time how long I should seal them.

Thinking I might go back to hard maple (or beech) instead. Though repeatedly sharpening tools becomes a pain when making quantities.

[BigFish]

I was curious about the consistency of the density of the wood one from the other before sealer? I have not used maple much less try building a darter.....never really fished them much? I know they rock but just have not been on my favorites list? Thanks for the info George......you have great insight!

[numbskull]

Time for you to make some Gibbs darters, Eddy. That black one you showed me swam better than anything I've built.

[Tagger]

Originally Posted by numbskull

Time for you to make some Gibbs darters, Eddy. That black one you showed me swam better than anything I've built.

I've made some Gibbs .. The 3 hook one .. I made one of those single belly I like (have fished enough to get fish approval).. reading your other post about going back to hard maple .. I'm done there .. Why not consider birch darters (gibbs).. Hard maple is to damm hard .. I swear some plugs split on impact of the water.. Weight is all over the place.. sux to work with,, thru drilling sux ,, tools hate it ... Only thing it has going for it ,, it swims well /no weight.. Birch dowel darter size are expensive $$ .. thinking about buying a board and ripping it up .. I bet you've done this ..

[numbskull]

Yeah, I ripped a lot of birch for the Hab needle copies I did a couple of years ago. If you want to get a 6/4 plank and bring it down here I'll slice it up for you......might cost you a darter though .

[Diggin Jiggin]

Originally Posted by numbskull

Trouble with maple and darters, Larry, is that the wood from each plank can be quite a bit different. Unfinished bodies vary as much as 1/2 an oz, even with wood that is dried to the same degree. They tend to approach each other when left in sealer a long time, but I don't feel I have any great grasp of how to time how long I should seal them.

Thinking I might go back to hard maple (or beech) instead. Though repeatedly sharpening tools becomes a pain when making quantities.

After my oversealing incident last year I cut the soak time on the soft maple to 1-2 hours.. I was using slightly thinned spar urethane and I did not have any splits.

[Diggin Jiggin]

Originally Posted by numbskull

Cool stuff, Dave. You might try relieving the edges on the jointed like Musso did on his jointed darters. Jointed plugs that bend to 90 degrees and stop cast better than those that stop short of 90 degrees.

Also, why the 4 lines on the darter? One for the hook, one for the slope starting, what are the other two? Are you weighting them?

Ya, I like that look better but these were already done so I had no square ends so while I could cut them in half I couldn't make that nice V shape with the band saw as they'd roll if I tried to cut them lengthwise with no square ends. I turned 2 more last night to cut that way.

One of the the pencil marks is the belly hook, the others are just drawn every 1/4" as a guide to help me when I get to the belt sander so I know when to stop. I did well with the ones I made last year but I'm still experimenting with the length of that slope. The black one in that picture is the shortest slope I did last year but I had some that went back an inch or so further.

The top 2 or 3 have wider tails as I was going to try adding a tail weight. I tried that last year on some with the thin tails but then I needed to add a chin weight to get it to dig. I was hoping with a thicker tail maybe I wouldn't need the chin weight. I'm greedy and always want to cast further than the other guy

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by Diggin Jiggin

The top 2 or 3 have wider tails as I was going to try adding a tail weight. I tried that last year on some with the thin tails but then I needed to add a chin weight to get it to dig. I was hoping with a thicker tail maybe I wouldn't need the chin weight. I'm greedy and always want to cast further than the other guy

I'll be curious as to what you learn with the tail weight. Supposedly tail weights are death to a darter, but I'm skeptical since bottles carry them and float about the same. I've not tried weighting any darters, I'm even afraid to mess with hook weight, but I'd love to lose the tail hook and will probably try a few of this run with a small tail weight instead.