I want to thank all of you for sharing your knowedge.

I have been building basic poppers for a while and they work good for me.
I have limited wood working skills so I keep the plugs simple.

I have a lathe, a chisel, rotary saw, drill and sand paper.
I use krylon paint in the spray can.
OH yes, I use screw eyes ( shame on me )

I submit this post for the new plug builders out there as encouragement to keep building.

I just built a danny style swimmer and it actually swims.
I used a #5 colorado blade, a 3/0 treble up front, a 5/0 siwash on the rear and 1/4 oz lead in the center of the belly. it's 6" long and can in at 2-1/4 oz. I tested it in the canal yesterday and it did great.

The second plug did not have the 1/4 oz in the belly. It could not make up its mind what it wanted to do ( swim or rollover ).
I'll add some weight and see what happens.

Again thanks for all the advise.

I have attached pictures, hope they show up.......

They look great, you have to start somewhere!

Nothing at all to be ashamed of there..........

I make painted sticks, so to me they look beautiful. They'll even look better with some bass hanging from them.........

man! they look Great! love the yellow/white danny!:kewl:

Great job! They look great.

very freeking nice!!!!:D

Are you kidding me? Those are awesome! Keep up the great work!:D

not bad... not bad... if i was a fish I'd bite the danny:D

Nice,very nice work!:D

Very nice job!:D

C'mon now... those are good enough for the stores man.. nice job :D.

-DAve

I see nothing wrong with those, that's some really nice work.:D

They look great:claps:

Very nice. There is no shame in using screw eyes!.

Very nice first litter :kewl:

Bernzy

Good looking plugs :kewl: Certainly should be proud of those. If the striped ones like them, so much the better :happy:

Jigman

Hey Surfrod, those are really nice looking plugs :btu:
Glad you like the forum and could learn something.
Last summer this place was dead as a doornail during fishing season, but then fall came and the place livened right up.

Those plugs look awesome.

Paulno

Excellent work. Did you epoxy them? I have to start with spray cans when I get going. My buddy is going to Australia & New Zealand for 2 months, and is dropping off his Shopsmith tomorrow for me to use while he's gone. Any tips about spraycans would be appreciated. Thanks and welcome aboard!

Thanks for the kind words guys.

rocketman

The only problems with krylon spray cans is that you don't get a fine spray the way you would with an air gun so you can't be overly creative in painting. The other consideration is keeping the nozzles clean after use, follow the directions on the can.

I have used a spray can of polyurethane on some of the plugs.
The top popper has poly but the other 2 do not. 2 coats of poly will yellow the white but it does protect to paint job better.

Hope this helps.

the plugs look extremely nice.... very nice work!
question : ....how long a screw eye are you using....?
and 2. Are you using a bit of glue in the bottom of the hole first
or no?

Raven

I'm using 1" Stainless Steel eyes. I have used the 1 1/2 " before
but obviously you can't use the 1 1/2" screw for the belly of a
1 1/4" body. So I use the 1" now.
Yes I put some epoxy into the screw hole. I have also tried Elmer's Carpenter Glue ( It's all I had at the time), I have also gone with no glue in the hole. No Glue seems to work OK on hard wood but will probable cause problems on softer wood.
I have not had any problems YET. I'm sure I will someday. Actually, I'd be happy LOOSING a 40lb fish on a plug I made.

Hint: Drill a pilot hole about 1/2 (or less) of the size of the screw.
Then screw the eye in, put a little Soap on the threads first. This will reduce binding of the screw eye as it goes in. Then remove the screw eye and put the epoxy into the hole and on the threads.

Just a thought......Definitely use Stainless Steel Eyes not Brass.

but from an opposite perspective....when you catch your forty pounder be sure to mention that you caught it on a plug that was made with screw eyes . ok? I think it will hold...:btu:
thanks for the feed back

Yes thanks for the feedback also.