Ive decided I want to have a go at making my own lures....or more precisely the heads...sounds really satisfying when you catch a fish on something you made yourself..

can anybody tell me where to get the resins etc for making the moulds and heads and what they are called

I was once told that nu plex industries in AK is the place to go...I looked on their website and there is so much stuff I wouldnt know what to ask for....also can anybody give any good advise about how to do it or  do you know a website with everything about making lure heads....im happy to buy skirts and experiment with coloures etc

TM - Just a quickie here. Jim Rizzuto's "Fishing Hawaii Style" Book 1 has everything you need to know about making resin lure heads. http://www.fishinghawaiioffshore.com">www.fishinghawaiioffshore.com.  I definitely recommend this book, it will save you a lot of trouble and give you lots of ideas.

Just another idea but you can turn them out of hardwood and finish them with marine varnish, I've seen some cracking wood heads in the past.  Very retro looking, especially when skirted with that naugahyde glitter vinyl stuff.

cheers - dustin

yeah ive heard you can get a good high off the stuff.....if you survive to talk about it

Quote: Originally posted by Kezza on 30 March 2006I have only ever made one 'myself' with careful instruction from a Ninja Master with a black belt with white tips in lure making...so can't offer to much real advice....but to say that extremely good ventilation is a must when mucking around with that crap!

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TM. i was in you shoes about 10 mth ago and now have a few molds for difernt heads and i also mold my own lead inserts for each head just for that veryashion in swiming style. I have given 3 lures too mates to use just to get the out there getting wet and im stockd to say all 3 have had fish on.I also came close to losing my verginity on 1 of my own lures but after a few short runs the marlin came back for the good old lumo sprocket I wasnt complaning trust me. I use a silicon compound to make the molds which you can get from a fiberglass shop its not chep about $100 per kg but is realy good to use. making the mold is the hard bit as once you have that right you can muck around with inserts and coulers till the cows come home. so go hard and good luck by next sesson you will be handing them out too your mates.

and do open the shed door!!!!!

tell me what you need TM will get it all at trade....

now there are a few resins to use...some will leave bubbles in the head as there viscosity is high and wont alow the bubbles to escape.

some like the epoxy stuff take for ever and a day to go off.

the stuff they use in boat building [polyester] builds up tremendous heat and for a laugh we would see how long it would be b4 it started smoking.

the casting resin would be the go me thinks....

ventilation is a must but really your garage would be fine and dandy just dont poor or leave excess in a container and for gods sake watch the MEKP it is wicked stuff also wear those medical gloves and get a fair bit of acetone for clean up.

the moulds are made from that rubber stuff and for a template use you favorite heads, hey this was how it was done and why most heads are the same they are mostley copies of someone elses.

Now a hint PM stormbringer he makes his own and sent me a few to trial, i had no hits on them as i did not give them the run they deserved but my mate i lent one 2 dropped two fish on them so they work.

Clear casting resin is the one you want. Another way, apart from moulding with rubber moulds, if you have access to a lathe is to pour a cylinder of resin in a film can or similar bottle receptacle and then lathe it to shape.  This allows you to get really imaginative with shape. It's a good idea to get familiar with how the different shapes of lures should run before going off and making your own. That way you will know if your home made plunger, or swimmer, straight runner or whatever... is behaving like the real thing. 

cheers - dustin <SCRIPT language=javascript>postamble();

Pakulas do not have lead inserts. The suction from the concave face helps keep the lure stuck to the water. I would also think if you weigh down the head it can slow down the head shaking movement of a cup face lure which is part of their attraction to fish.  But anything with a slant face, if you want to fish it in rough water, a lead insert helps.  A slant face lure swims straighter and more cleanly through the water.  The exact weight depends on how rough it's going to be.  Although you do have some longer heads like plungers that fish quite well in moderate conditions even with no weight. 

TM - I would make each mould separately.  It's easier to work with them that way. 

My stuff has done well for myself and friends, I don't want to toot my horn but let's just say I'm normally very confident fishing with my stuff, once it is tuned right anyway because I do still occasionally turn out a duff one that won't run correctly, that's the nature of hand production I guess.  I normally run just one or two of mine in a four or five lure spread. That way you can get some kind of comparison how the lures are working.

cheers - dustin

I would really like to find a black marker pen that allows me to write custom stuff on the bottom edge of the insert.  But all the ones I've tried the ink disappears once the resin is poured. Any recommendations?

cheers - dustin

Quote: Originally posted by dustin on 06 April 2006

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I would really like to find a black marker pen that allows me to write custom stuff on the bottom edge of the insert. But all the ones I've tried the ink disappears once the resin is poured. Any recommendations?

cheers - dustin

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Yeah, I know about those, but what I really want is to be able to write something personally for the custom touch. But thanks anyway mate..

Saturday one of my mates fishing Madeira had 2 hookups on a mini-peanut lure I made for him and released one white marlin about 65 lbs.  It's a tiny little jet black head which I often use to dump excess resin from big lures.  It fits a 6 1/2" skirt, ideally a thin "featherlite" like a Yamasheeta or Korean skirt, you can even skirt it with a 5 3/4" and most NZ guys would probably consider it just a skippy lure but this sort of thing is real effective on mahi, white marlin and spearfish. 

cheers - Dustin

Great stuff guys, thanks for that idea, I'll try it out this weekend. I was a little worried about resin leaking under the sellotape but it seems to work so we'll see how it goes.

cheers - Dustin

I've been looking at how to make my own heads for awhile now and this is awesome stuff! But I have to say I'm gonna try shaping some out of wood. May not look as good but me thinks I could get creative with some of the shaping a lot easier that way. Does anyone else do this?

Cheers Stefan

This used to be the way lures were made before plastics.  Poke around Peter Goadby's "Big Fish and Blue Water" and you can see old Hawaiian wooden heads with assorted skirting materials including rubber from tyre inner tubes, vinyl seat cover material and feathers. 

Wood is a relatively light material so you'll need to consider shapes and skirting that will hold the water well.  Cup faces should be good and so should lures with a flatter or blunt face.  A longer head (super plunger style) also helps stability.  If you give the lure a more aggressive cut you may need to use heavier skirts, hooks, leader etc to keep it tracking properly in the water.  I don't see why a lure head lathe turned from good heavy hardwood and given a good marine varnish finish shouldn't look and perform well.  <SCRIPT language=javascript>postamble();

Cheers Dustin thats just the sorta stuff I need to know. Am looking for a lathe at the moment can't wait to start having a go!

Stefan

Quote: Originally posted by Peter Pakula on 24 April 2006

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Do you think that many people would be interested in a 'how to make lures' article in Bluewater?

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ok guys here is my very first attempt at making a lure head (a little too much pigment dye )

The cosmetics are the last thing to concern yourself with. If you want to learn about lures, grab the ones you have that havn't caught anything and work on them with a hacksaw, file and sandpaper and watch the difference as you modify existing heads slightly.

Then if you are observant you'll realise what sharp, blunt edges do and what different angles do, different cup depths and curves all matter.

You'll learn more doing that than starting from scratch moulding stuff to look pretty.

You should also try and view your lures underwater. Trolling camera is great, but a swimming pool will do.

Just don't catch anyone onj thye hooks.

Hi Peter

I found an old hard head smoking joe made by you a couple of years ago in a lure sale, have also got the new soft head model,

Blue marlin climb all over the old model, Why the change? you probably been asked this a million times.

also a question for roddy, I read somewhere that you modified a zuker 5.5 by giving the nose some angle, there a great lure, but man I can't get anything to stick, but it pulls fish up, purple and black one looks shameless half the skirt missing bill scratches, mako teeth marks, big tuna teeth marks, but its never brought a fish to the boat.

mangre.

Actually Dustin, fish do kinda care about some of those things. How about we go through this one step at a time.

Where did you get the idea that leader holes should be centered? (Don't answer that) especially on a sliced head, where is the center? Center of tube diam or centre of face. They are not the same thing unless you have a 45degree cut which no one uses any more.

Mangre, Basically the newer ones swam better than the older ones and we could take advantage of custom sized skirts which enabled us to make heads that suited available sizes in 7691s hooks better. You'lol actually find by comapring heads that models actually changed shpe, evolved regularly, at least once a year, just people noticed when we changed materials, and i think i told them. ie there wre 11 beer barrels around 12 sprockets over the years etc. I still design lures and there are quite a few out there under various names. But there will be some major changes to lures over the next few years. I doubt you'll be using the lures you're using now in 5 or 6 years.

I did some heads with the leader hole out of center at the back and found they would spin or swim off to one side.  Some baits like scoop face kona heads aka conventionals the lure is designed to have the leader enter the face at an offset, but the center of a slant face lure intended to have a centered leader hole, like a tube, to me, is to look at the lure face-on and see the hole right in the center.  Maybe a cupped face lure is less sensitive (I've seen some Pakulas where the leader tube was out of center at the back), but in a slant face lure I do try hard to get the leader tube centered where it comes out the back.  Doesn't matter if the lure is run without hooks, I suppose, but if the leader hole is skewed out of center the hook rig will probably end up off to one side, especially if a stiff rig is used, and rudder the lure to one side or make it spin.  I've had the same thing happen when lure skirts were off to one side and remember once fishing a copy of a Hooker Rudy (a medium-large tube sort of thing) that I simply couldn't understand why it kept creeping ever so slightly to the left.  I was certain it was some fault with the skirting or the head (and very embarrassed because I had made the head, skirted and rigged it up), until the client noticed that the hook had been bent very slightly off to one side, probably having had some pressure exerted on it on the wire.  Changed the hook and voila, the lure tracked like a champ.  Having seen the hook point in an 11/0 being bent something like one degree to the side have an effect on the straight tracking of a lure gives me extra incentive to get the leader hole straight and true. 

Dustin

I think I have one of your lures, very similer looking to a 501, it feels oval around it, not cilindrical if you know what I mean.

These slight changes make a lure?

mangre

Mangre, none of the original sliced heads were round. They were all oval. The reason, as I'm trying to hint to Dustin, is that to make the face of a lure centered you need to work on the ellipse of that face to get it to do what you want it to. In a 20 degree straight slice with centered tube hole you actually end up with 20% or so more area below the tube. By adjusting hole position, once again none of the original lures had a center hole, and sides of the lure you could vary action and resulting action and depth considerably.

One of the ways a customer would pick a lure was by rolling the head on a flat table. (no lures in the old days were sold with skirts) Many assumed that that was to see how the lure was balanced, however the opposite is actually true. Although you want the head to sit straight, it shouldn't have a major center of balance, it should just verge on the balance and roll easily. There are countless versions, however very few offer great action, ease of use and great hook-up rates, all of which are part of the design process.

Hi Peter

That is most interesting, so your saying that a cut face lure, must be re centered after the cut has been made(on the lure face), on this lure it is dead center on the face, vertical, but slightly off centre horizontly, is this what you mean by just of balance, and would the same apply to a none oval shaped lure. EXCUSE MY IGNORANCE & SPELLING.

Mangre.

All this is starting to go beyond this simple home maker.  All I know is that when I chuck up a lure leader tube for all the slant face lures that I do, I want the lure to spin absolutely straight and true.  No wonking around, whacking my knuckles, I want to see that lure spinning nice and true.  That's what centeredness means for me.  The exit leader hole I try and keep center for the reasons I already mentioned.  The position of the front leader tube I can't do anything about.  I use the position of the original lure head and mould a channel into the mould to take the leader tube I'm going to be using in the casting.  I realize some guys do experiment with different leader hole entry positions but I'm not really one of them.  I just concentrate on getting my lures exact and straight.   I know what I want the lures to look like in the water.  If I wish to vary action and depth I'll choose a different lure shape and weight instead, or maybe skirting. 

Peter, if I'm not wrong the tube or straight runner lures which are probably the oldest slant face design of all WERE perfectly round in cross-section.  Weren't they?  After all they were moulded from cylindrical bar glasses or cut from round cross-section chrome pipe with a wooden dowel stuffed into them. 

cheers - Dustin

Dustin, none of the old lures I have are round. I had one of the pipe ones with wood insert, not chrome though it was made from a small artillery shell. It was also shaped on the sides, sadly I gave it away quite a while ago.

Dustin, I'm only passing on what I was taught in Kona, right from the beginning of understanding sliced heads. I'm not saying for a second that you don't know what you're doing, nor am I inferring anything about modern lures or their craft. There are not many willing to pass on this sort of info, though guys like Jimmy and Rusty Unger, Marlin Parker, Rope Nelson and 'Red' Butler, who has been stuffing around with lure makers almost since it began giving me a collection of some 200 lures including the ones from The Blue Hawaii which was Lee Marvins boat, Don Fujiwarra (old Yamas) were all willing to share their info, and one who is hardly known, Cpt Jack Ross, one who should be considered very high up, at least was by all those above was Tommy Futa through Roy at Charlies and there was also the Old Llanes, father of a great lure maker 'Bomboy' and the three generations of Issacs.

If you go to the trouble of asking politely, people will generally be happy to pass on information. Most of the above are not famous for making lures or designing them, but all were passionate about the craft. I was certainly and still am very appreciative of their time and information and most of all, their passion.

Peter I'm happy to admit I have no idea what I'm doing!  I'm not a lure designer or anything so cerebral.  Peter although I'm interested in lure history and lure design and respect all successful lure designers including yourself, my own personal interest is in moulding baits and fishing them, not lure designing. Peter although I'm interested in lure history and lure design and respect all successful lure designers including yourself, my own personal interest is in moulding baits and fishing them, not lure designing.   I certainly do agree that if you alter the sides of the lure and alter the position of the leader tube you are going to change the way the lure works (although I must admit I didn't realize that ALL of the old time slant face lures including tubes had shaped sides - but as you point out, today's more cylindrical cross-section lures catch fish effectively, probably better than yesterday's).  It's just not one of these things that I concentrate on.  I haven't reached that level yet.  I just find a lure that works for me, normally one with loads of big bill marks, then try and replicate how it works in the water as closely as possible.  Occasionally if the lure proves too light for the boat, sea conditions and trolling speed I'm working with, I'll add a bit more weight to hold it better in the water. I may reshape the tail piece to fit different skirts better.  That's the limit of my tinkering with lures. 

Peter of course I and everyone here appreciates the history and perspective on lure design that you have so unselfishly provided.  What I am trying to tell Stormbringer and any other beginner lure moulders out there is get the basics of lure replication down right; work on getting the stuff that comes out of your mould swimming as closely to the original as possible.  Become as familiar with the originals as possible.  Then you have a good knowledge base to start to tinker with lure shapes, leader hole positions etc, if you decide to get into that.  In other words, get to my level first before starting to think about getting to Peter's.

cheers - dustin

all this great advice floating around is awsome especially Peter & dustin got to see :)

ok Here is my second attempt it still needs finishing and buffing but i think they are getting there, i can see alot of water testing coming up over winter

own design just got to lathe the skirt collars

slowly

Thats awesome you should be well stoked!

Stef

an update! here is the 2 latest creations ready to test out :) both are cup faced

Damn, they almost look like Andromedas... Next time mate try a slice of lead on the bottom half of the lure and don't cup the face, just take a belt sander with a fine belt ... maybe 280 grit and put a very slight angle on the face - say just 2-3 degrees - and see how it goes!

For the cup face ones I might try a deeper cup... I think the deeper the cup the more head shake you might get? Also mate - you could try facing your insert the other way so you have the big end facing forward instead, and lathe the tail piece on the smaller end?  Put a cup face on the big end and that would give you a nice reverse taper lure similar to a Moldcraft Chugger or Pakula Beer Barrel. 

cheers - dustin