Dug up the tools my father has and took a shot at learning the tools and took my first shot at making my very first Darter blank.

I don't own a lathe, can't get one as there is no room around here. I made a rough shape and gave it a whirl after doing lots of homework on what a darter should look like and how it should be built. Things on paper always sound great, in practice you learn to avoid paper as I was quickly remembering that lesson too late. So the setting of this was: a 1x2x2 maple plank, a mite (sp?) Saw, a dremel with the circular sanding bit, a hand held sander, a triangular file, and a vice. The goal was to make a skinny profile Darter. I'm not one to admit failure but this is a pretty bad first attempt. Xmas gift to all the masters and veterans of plug building as I'm sure you can remember your first attempts and have a chuckle. On a building note, can it be saved at all or just try again? I deliberately did not drill or do fine sanding and was not sure when to stop rounding. To me, the tail is the reason why I deem it failed since I dremeled the wrong sides and tried to fix it, the mouth notch is sloppy (had a minor misjudgement), and I don't think I can make it more cylindrical than it is on the back after fine sanding. I submit to you guys my frankendarter with my head bowed down.

Top, side, closer view on side. Black stuff is from the dremel and not fine sanding.

Other side, mouth.

Do yourself a favor. Start with a hardwood dowel. Find the center and use a compass to draw concentric circles on each end. Use a rasp (or microplane tool even faster) to bring your diameters down to the line, draw another concentric circle and bring it down some more, until you have the shape you want. Then mark off your slope and chin shape (use a papertowel tube, cut it length wise and reduce the diameter to what you need, draw a profile and cut it out). Use a coping saw (they are cheap) to rough it out, then your rasp and sand paper to get it right.

Better yet, start with surface plugs that use softer wood and leave the darter for later.

I admire your bravery... that is a tough undertaking for a first plug.... numbskull has given you some good advise, start at the bottom and work your way up... most of us started with surface poppers made from dowels ( or broom handles) and latter worked our way into swimmers then lip less plugs.... only after we understood how each process ( weighting, hook placement, plug shape etc.) affected the plug we desired to make did we advance to the next round... keep up the effort,you will be rewarded...

One of Mac's first plugs was a (working) darter with a jacknife ,,but he got lucky . That plug can be very discouraging to a seasoned plugbuilder . You can make that plug as pretty as a picture only to have it roll out . (come in upside down ,hooks up ).. I applaud your bravery . Starting with a popper or even easier a spook will have you catching fish and learning a few things .

It's your first attempt; I think it's just not finished yet. You could find easier way about getting an end result but then you won't learn as much. I would shape it till your happy then put some hooks on it and see how it swims, use screw eye's so you can remove them and reshape untill you either get what you want or have gone too far and can't fix it. My first attempt wasn't very pretty but I learned alot from seeing it through till the end.
pre-internet:37350

I do appreciate the advice and it is noted, that one was square maple that was laying around, I have been told to start with poppers first but after years of fishing them and having enough in my bag to pray for a blitz to rip them off my line, you know the feeling. On the other side, me being me, I start with difficult and always work with difficult, just how I go. I am working with Poplar now and found more tools, the Darter advice you gave me numb definitely made things easier.

Here was the second attempt from yesterday, I didn't fine tune the lip obviously and I am pretty sure I took too much off the bottom beneath the slope to the lower lip. The slope needs to be evened out more but at least I am happier in saying this looked at least much closer.