I'm getting into making my own glide baits out of wood. I am planning on weighting them with lead inserts. Does anyone know how putting the weight in different locations will affect the action? I know it needs to be balanced to keep the bait horizontal but I am curious how the action will be affected by moving the weights closer to the joint vs. closer to the ends.

Take a hot glue gun and put a drop of glue on the weight and stick it in the area of the lure you want to permanently insert the weight.  Drop your lure in a clear bowl full of water and you'll be able to see the effect the weight has on the lure.  As far as the action goes you'll need an aquarium big enough to swim the lure.  There are some great videos on youtube showing how that works.

I use to weight wood crankbaits by drilling a hole and  melting lead solder into the cavity .