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Great post Allen!!

Thanks for sharing!

Good advise ... The only thing I might add is getting a decent air brush like a paasche for $50-75 might save some headaches in the long run haha... I haven't used the harbor freight one so it might be just fine but back when I started making crankbaits I used a cheap airbrush and wasted so much time and effort trying to make my baits look like I wanted ... I actually dug out that old airbrush the other day and tried to paint a cull bait I carved. I really just wanted to see if it was me or the airbrush that was crappy in the early days ... Turned out it was a little of both but even with good technique that airbrush didn't paint up to par...

Good post!  We save a ton of money pouring our own drop shot weights, tube jigs, and wacky jigs.

If I used a lot of shaky heads, I'd agree as well.  But I don't, so we don't pour them. Instead of paying over a buck a jig, and two bucks (tungsten sinkers in NYS), we're paying pennies each.  A good source of clean lead helps, of course.

Tungsten? That sounds ambitious. I thought you needed a pretty expensive press to work with it.

You talking about putting the tungsten powder mixed with lead? Or have you been able to find a way to work with just tungsten from home?

 

I've turned this from a one mold deal just playing around to now I got a box full and just make what I need. Just ordered the Pony head mold so I can get my crappie box going this winter. Looking at some more soft plastic molds to go with my grub mold.

I bought the worm nose jig mold to make mushroom jig heads for using the Ned rig.  Some of the lakes we fish in this area have zebra muscles so it is far cheaper to pour your own than spend $1 on each jig.  

Tungsten powder mixed with epoxy like these.

 

http://www.keitechusa.com/catalog/super-round-super-football-tungsten-jig-heads.html

 

Forming solid tungsten takes special industrial equipment that is why only bullet weights can be made that way.

 

Allen

 

Sounds like a tall order, as I've often read that Tungsten powder and epoxy mixture has a specific gravity of less than 5 g/cc.  Lead alloy is around 9 or 10.  Steel is 7.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think this something you can improve on with home engineering?

If I wanted to design my own plastic jerkbait that suspends nose down in the water, what would be your advice?

Make one from scratch or modify a current one?

 

The easiest thing to get a jerkbait to nose down is use floro line or add a larger split ring to the line tie.

 

Allen

Make one from scratch.  Just wanting a good base knowledge before I start really researching it. 

If I wanted to design my own plastic jerkbait that suspends nose down in the water, what would be your advice?

 

Go to make lure * and check out the videos on making molds and then look at the Alumalite products, they have the resin you need to mold a plastic bait. A few things about making the plastic jerkbait you want is fisrst, you have to make a wood model that you can get to work right and it will be trial and error until you get the weights right. Once you have that you can use the wood mater to make a mold but you'll have to make 2 molds, one for each side because you are going to have make a hollow bait with 2 sides that will be glues together so you can put weights and/or rattles in it. There is a lot of making a plastic jerkbait from scratch but if you are serious and have the time, money and ability, you can do it but I'll say it is going to take a good bit of time, good luck.