First Time luremaker

[AhiSlayer]

Aloha Anthony How ya been?

I thought the same thing about the 1st lure. Making the steps smaller won't help that skirt. The hub diameter is too big.

[WahooKing]

Ahi

PM sent...

[nautiduck]

Tabasco on your last one are your eyes decals stuck on or are they molded in? I didnt see them in the pic of just the head.

[tabasco]

those are decal eyes. To get the colored head with pearl tint you cant get the eyes to show through clearly. So i figure next best thing is to stick em on. If they come off, i'll stick new ones on. On other ones they've held up alright. Also this head is heavy w/lead and rattles that took up a lot of room in the head so not room to put internal eyes.

[astrobud311]

Those are awesome Tom. I'm gonna have to get with you and check out your operation. maybe you'll be able to help me out with a couple problems I'm having. Thanks again for the sword trip.

[eyefish2good]

Originally Posted by tabasco

those are decal eyes. To get the colored head with pearl tint you cant get the eyes to show through clearly. So i figure next best thing is to stick em on. If they come off, i'll stick new ones on. On other ones they've held up alright. Also this head is heavy w/lead and rattles that took up a lot of room in the head so not room to put internal eyes.

If the eyes fall off a good trick to help them stick is a little clear coat nail polish. After you stick them (2) light coats will hold the eyes on forever. Nail polish sticks to the resign heads pretty good and when dry there is no edge for the water to get up under.. Where about in FL. do you live??

[ReelSmith]

WOW! They look great! Nice job for a first timer!!!

[clt_capt]

Originally Posted by tabasco

those are decal eyes. To get the colored head with pearl tint you cant get the eyes to show through clearly. So i figure next best thing is to stick em on. If they come off, i'll stick new ones on. On other ones they've held up alright. Also this head is heavy w/lead and rattles that took up a lot of room in the head so not room to put internal eyes.

Another couple of ways to get permanent eyes;

1) Make the lure slightly undersize, stick the eyes on and then pour a clear final layer over the whole head...

2) Once the head is set, Bore a hole on each side with an end mill the size of the eyes (flat, with no taper) Insert the eyes, pour clear resin to fill, polish out as normal.

[tabasco]

Originally Posted by eyefish2good

If the eyes fall off a good trick to help them stick is a little clear coat nail polish. After you stick them (2) light coats will hold the eyes on forever. Nail polish sticks to the resign heads pretty good and when dry there is no edge for the water to get up under.. Where about in FL. do you live??

thanks for the tip, live in Jax and fish out of St. Aug

[Fishing Hawaii]

So you want a method that will allow you to inset eyes into a solid-colored lure permanently with professional results. Here’s a technique we’ve been using for 40 years or more.

Check out the pictures of the pearl lure with the red stripe and the large yellow and black eyes.

I molded the red stripe by setting the mold on its side after pouring in some red-tinted resin. After the red resin set, I filled the mold to the top with resin mixed with pearl pigment.

When the resin hardened, I now had a solid-colored lure with no eyes.

I used a band saw to make the saw cuts you see marked in black lines. These cuts removed some of the solid-colored material on each side.

Then I glued the eyes to the saw-cut surfaces on either side, put the lure back into the mold and filled the voids with clear resin. Once the last pour was hardened, the eyes were embedded forever as part of the lure head.

The final steps were to sand and polish the hardened surfaces.

The lure you are looking at is similar in shape to many models on the market today (the Moldcraft Reel Tight comes to mind), but lures of this shape go all the way back to the early 1960s.

I made the one in the picture back in the late 1960s.

This lure is actually the back half of one of the famous K. O. Dean style lures that were standards back in the 1960s. K. O. Dean was a trophy maker who made lures as a sideline and sold them through Donald Fujiwara – then of Yama’s and now of Kona Fishing Tackle. The K. O. Dean lures had a long snout with a scooped face. (Captain Billy Ross calls them “alligators” which gives you an idea.)

They caught a lot of fish but the front scoop got busted up easily. When that happened, fishermen cut off the scoop and cut the lure back to a length they liked. That, for example, is how Capt. Kenny Llanes came up with his very successful “locknut” lure.

Note the generous length of the tail stock and the depth of the ridges. Both attributes aid skirting with any kind of material. Back then, the standard was an underskirt of red inner tube rubber with tapered “wings” cut from sheet vinyl.

To illustrate this discussion, I marked the head with black pen to show where the saw cuts went. Unfortunately, I used a CD/DVD marking pen, which leaves a “permanent” mark. No matter. The marks came off when I rubbed the surface with a little dab of toothpaste. That same trick will also help you keep your lures clean, shiny, and minty fresh.

A long tailstock might move the hooks back further than you might like. If so, drill out the center of the tailstock so the crimped sleeve and loop ride up inside.

Jim Rizzuto
www.FishingHawaiiOffshore.com