I got a whole set of cove bits cheap on sale I think 3/4 and 7/8 are the ones I use most.... you can go shallow or deep...I cut and face angle the thru hole sometime need to be alittle more than 1/8 I use a nail to make the hole bigger so the small tit the bearing sits on fits in the thru hole...then I put the drill press base up so when in holding the popper with a leather gloved hand the tail of the popper hits the base, so if the face is 65 degrees cut I hold it, if I'm right 65 degrees or what ever it is that makes the popper face 180 (flat)degrees to the cove bit I never push up to the bit, I use the drill press to lower the cove bit into the face of the popper

soft wood I just push the tit of the bit into the thru hole....the harder the wood I use a punch....if your making maple poppers you got to push harder to cup the mouth....I'm sure a vice for the drillpress is safer to hold the popper I don't use one and I don't wear gloves but a cove bit is a nasty thing to hit your hand... but that said it will cut the mouth of a popper clean you don't even have to sand the cup and do it in a sec or 2

Would something like this work
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-PCS-CNC-ro...-/180922414998

I was thinkig a box can be made to.hold the plug then the bit lowered in with the drill press.



Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

heres 2 done with a cove bit.....mouth is not sanded...with the cove bit the more of a face cut the harder it is... but after a couple its not hard...

skippy I'm sure that would work with the right vice setup, one of the things about a cove bit that I like is the tit that holds the bearing when put into the thru hold centers the cove bit in the popper mouth...its like a no brainer to me...I don't have to center anything as long as the tits in the thru hole you can't be off too much

Makes sense
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Only for small poppers and ones where you don't need to plunge too deep since the tit of the bit is at the angle of the face, not parallel to the center hole.

If you plunge cut centered on the hole then cut a slant you get a thicker lip at the bottom of the plug. If you plan to do it this way you need to plunge off center about 1/8" towards the bottom of the plug.

Even then, if you plunge cut a popper face you end up with a deep cup which you often don't want.

This thread will help if you plan to do it that way. http://striped-bass.com/Stripertalk/...ht=blue+streak

Skip: This is the hardwood mold I created for the W-Y slugs.

Nice, i.like that what is the quality of the slugs?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Typical, I suppose. They range from. 79 to .83 oz. They're about 3/4" tall. When through-drilled they weigh about .75 oz. They're 31/64" so they fit in the 1/2" voids, but I had to drill the voids almost 7/8" deep.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Two more thoughts on creating a shallow popper cup:

1. Sanding: Cut a 4" ring through 1.5" thick hardwood with a hole saw, mount it in the lathe and use the Vega template to shape the curve on the outer face of the ring (this would be like taking the middle slice of a 4" x 5" oval). This still requires attachment of sandpaper, some kind of jig to hold the popper, etc. Winter.
2. Burning: For $20 (including shipping) I ordered a hollow stainless bearing, it's 3.5" in diameter. The hope here is I can place it in a vise, run a torch on it and press a popper face into it for an even shallower cup than the carriage bolt head. I might even risk squeezing it in the vise to deflect the shape into an oval. Probably my last popper cup experiment this spring.

For some reason I can't post pics.
My steps are:
Drill thru hole
Turn plug
Drill face with modified speedbore
Cut angled face

I still have and fish a few of the large atom bottle poppers and they definitely swim, at least with a siwash and feather on the back. I actually did well with the classic blue head, white body scheme on a full moon fishing an inlet one night. Like someone else stated, I was basically just letting it swing in the current....

Bottle popper for a buddy: 5.25", 1.3 oz, WRC, floater.

The herring paint job is ridiculous with 12 different subtle pearl colors, took me forever but what the heck -- it's a give away. Can't see it because my camera sucks but it really came out nice.

I used a 1" ball rasp on the face, so it's pretty deeply cupped and probably wouldn't swim well if retrieved too fast. He likes to fish from the sod banks deep in our local estuary during the herring run so it should meet his needs.

This is my first bottle popper. It floats level with the waterline at the middle of the back. To keep the tail from sinking I had to slide the in-line rear weights forward to about the middle of the belly and add 1.25" of 1/4" tubular closed-cell foam just forward of the tail grommet.

Burning a shallow popper cup into the face of a W-Y popper (1.125" diameter) with a 3.5" stainless, hollow ball bearing:

Thought you were done for this year lol, i.love it man, hard to tell how deep it goes.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I like it; it's shallower than the 1/2" carriage bolt head.

You'll see it first-hand -- this one is yours.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I've had pretty good results cutting the 5 or 6 popper faces that I've done using carving gouges. I have 3 or 4 of them (different sizes) and find that I can cut just about any diameter and depth that I want with them. I hold the plug in my hand and a cutting stroke is a combination of tool movement and hand rotation. When I get to where I want the mouth to be, I sort of force my thumb into a small square of sand paper, press in and rotate left to right to smooth out the tool marks and any end grain burrs. Not always 100% successful, but paint helps fill in any hollows. On average, each one takes about 10 minutes, no noise, no heat, no power tools, etc., but I do wear a mesh type carvers glove and I always try to keep the gouge edges sharp.

The bits you can buy are called Kutz-all bits. They are expensive and have different grit bits available.

And yes, they do jam up. If you do buy them, the best thing to do to clean them is use a lighter and burn off the wood particles. I use a fostner bit to get started because the Kutz-alls will run on you if you are using a drill press and mess up the face of the plug.

It's not a perfect method, but its good enough.

You can also look at buying a quality ball rasp at your desired diameter. Good luck.