Did it all by hand it’s a little off, going through the motions on it anyway just to play. Only took about a hour to get that far. 

Be careful if that is balsa as the area between the top of the lip and top of the bait is thin. 

 

Allen

It’s poplar. I messed up the slot bad. I put the line tie through the bill into the bait I can fill the rest in pretty solid I think. We will see. Attempt number one was fun. We’ll see how it swims. 

Anyone know if hobby shops have the right kind of eyes. 

You can use the backs of drill bitts to make eyes. Make sure you use something like Devcon 2ton 30 minute epoxy on that lip to secure it in place.

 

Allen

How did you ballast the belly weight BTW?

 

Allen

I didn’t do that yet I was thinking I could use 60/40 lead electrical solder.  Other ideas are welcome. I was gonna fill up a fish tank and add a few drops at a time until it slowly floats. It already weighs 5/8’s I’ll down size my next one a little bit. The line tie is screwed through the lip so it’s pretty solid just needs to be filled in. Yes I’m going to use epoxy. Thanks for any help. 

Field and Stream has eyes in their fly fishing dept.

 

Karl

Welcome to lure building! It’s definitely a trial and error process. In the future you can cut the slot for the bill with a narrow tooth hand saw and then widen it with a crosscut hand saw. Keep it up!

 

Also, you don’t have to weight crankbaits if you don’t want to. Just depends on the action you want.