Chris that's a whopper of a pencil. Being so long I wonder on the catch rate with the belly hook location. Have you fished and caught on this version? Realizing the back half is in the water and tail hook in the zone just wonder how often the head strikes get a solid hook up. How's it cast?

Yeah built a bunch in 2009/10 and did really well on em, when the plug is swimming back in the belly hook stays under water and most of the fish get a clean hook up on it.

One of the first days I was testing them back then was off fort Adams throwing into 20 feet of water and had fish launching out from the deep for it, was pretty cool in clear water.

I did well with them back then and didn't have left, got an original from the old baker i use to work with.

They cast really far and don't wiggle on the cast.
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Interesting how the fish view pencils from the deep. It must piss them off to charge from the bottom to strike. I see with the body vertical at rest and action maintaining the lower half in the water so the head is not moving forward in a way to strike the nose. I notice that the smaller styles like Gibbs the hook is closer to nose and assume a frontal take since they seem to work the action across the body angle with more of the nose in water. I often thought the same on big needles with 1 belly hook i.e. Habs 9" . If fish strikes front it needs to swallow half the plug to hook up. Nonetheless they work and catch. Another note, I like to do a couple Donnys for myself. Where would I find some dimension specs?

I got the specs for all of the Torpedos Billy. Tell me what size you want and I will post them for you.
I will say this I, and a few others, have manipulated the diameters on a lot of the plugs I have spec'd out over the years. Sometimes they turn out really good, even better, and sometimes not. They may need a smaller lip change or lighter weighting but it is fun to experiment a little with historically proven winners to see if you can get something that fits a specific profile, or action the more meets what you want, or think you want. After you feel like you got plug building down pretty good it can get stale or repetitive after a while, some loose interest and never come back, and this tinkering puts back some of the fun back in it, at least for me.

Got all my pencils and odds and ends, sanded and primed on Saturday, 31 plugs in all.

Feels nice to see the pile going away.

For odds and ends I had 1 pichney darter 3 hook, a handful of modified bigfish prey style swimmers, 3 atom jrs (2 fatter and 1 thinner than the original) 1 Donny, 2 wadd needles, some tiny eelskin metal lip bodies i got from
Saltys a few seasons back.

Go in to focus on painting and epoxying them all this week.

Unless I make a run to NJ for the sandeel/bunker bite thats going on.
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Paul that would be fine. I hear you about redundancy. Dupes make you get that way. I have a couple changes to my pikes lip and wood specie to test. Looking for a different look on the lathe. Hand turn some Donnys. You know what they say, "variety ' s the spice of life" !

Glad to see this thread back! I got a late start last year, so I'll be finishing up a bunch of stuff I turned last winter. If I get them finished I want to attempt some darters.
Spent more time this year fishing needles and did well with some of the stubbys and hab's 2oz.

Nice job on the habs clones!

For those of you using System3 as a top coat or sealer, which flavor are you using?

System 3 clear coat. Liking it so far. Much harder when dry the e tex.

Good stuff Ryan
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Billy, are you using it for sealing too? Or just top coat?

I was thinking of ordering a set from Amazon to try it out.
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Ryan, liking those Habs clones. What wood are you using? Your post reminded me of the 2 I have from a builder who shall remain nameless which expanded when wet, hence the epoxy sealing question.

Which style darter are you thinking you'll try first?
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Thanks guys.
Ian those are birch.For what it's worth I have never had any plug swell and crack using spar cut with turps. I haven't messed with epoxy sealing yet.
As for darters I'll prolly try a musso style in ayc or soft maple.
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Ryan nice job. The clones look great. I too cloned them years back. Really like the 9" version. Have specs if you like. BTW ,I have birch in 5/4 diameters. Milled to your dimentions. If you need some please let me know.

Ian, I use value oil or spar varnish cut with pure turns for sealing. Tried a few with e tex for sealing but for me it was too messy. I will say if you want a soft wood hardened, that would help. Maple is a wood that requires penetration with sealers. Heating the wood then pouring thinned epoxy into the thru wire hole and hook holes would help. One thing to remember when using belly grommets is if you cut the wood when installing them, you open up unprotected wood and give water a way to enter and split the plug. Had it happen a few times. Prefer using birch for this reason if you need hard wood.

missed sunday morning
 

I missed sunday morning post but I've been continuing on my jerk bait project. Made a dozen more, have them sealed, wired and sanded now.

Attachment 63566

The first one I made swims awesome, then slimmed down the next 4 and those weren't as good... i over-estimated weight i think. Hopefully i can swim these soon and get a better idea of what I'm looking for.

The "Beast". You'll get the combination. This unique design will be fun to get swim and then put through it's paces.

Those look pretty cool Matt! Good luck getting them to swim how you want them.

Here's what got done this week, I think this thread is helping me finish stuff!

31 plugs painted, mostly big 9.5" pencils but some odds and ends finally painted

7" skinny pencils, 1.65oz unrigged epoxied. They cast like a needle and sink but come right up and work easy, have a few back bay spots in mind when I built these.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...psqg9tb069.jpg

9.5" 4oz jumping pencil epoxied. Yellow top and sides and chartuese belly, with black and orange "scales", retro eyes and gold pearls.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...pskecksgum.jpg

Stuff in the rack is drying, painted on Saturday, so those will get rigged and epoxied this week.

Got the lathe set up to turn some zeke needles, original came from DZ

Got a bunch of ss darters and redfins and some blank minnow bodies to strip, sand and paint too.

Need to build a deflector for the lathe and some side pieces to help contain the chips now that the garage is clean.
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Awesome Chris that chkn scratch is on point. Ditto on the thread motivation
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On my way to Chatham to see Capesams, yes he is still alive, to buy an old Delta bandsaw off him.
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Pics please.... regards to the ol phart

little tid bit for you guys. New England Tackle is shuttin down. Got told yesterday by a friend that sells his lures through them. Good place to go direct to as they liked dealin with the little guy too.

Time to prime a bunch of stubbys. Have the small Jet set up for turning smaller plugs. Look like I'll be converting the big Jet dupe from baseball bats to big plug tirnings. That's the only P.I.T.A. With the dupes. Mounting brackets for my set up don't allow the tailstock to move close to neadstock. Minimum set up is 24", end to end. It's just a matter of removing bracket to put tailstock inside bracket. The pain is rezeroing the head and tail spurs. Really not but I got have it "0". I have now to start turning pike bodies. Already getting the requests..
I also have been requested to turn drumsticks. I have a slender turning adapter and plenty of rock maple. Setting the dupe will be a trick with an original but I'm thinking of adding tenons to accommodate the mounting.

Tried some double coatin with e-tex and system 2 an 3 on some plugs as was asked for some plugs done this way. Almost all bubbled up when left in the sun in a hot truck. All the bodies had been painted for over a month-Derby Time. Seems like too thick a coat won't flex like is needed.

Experimenting with weighting on metal lips to get one with will run at a medium depth of 3-6'. I've been doing well with surface swimmers, a subsurface swimmer that gets down around 2-3ft and a deeper diving maple that gets down 8+ feet so looking to fill the gap for when there isn't enough water for the maple but I still want to run pretty deep.
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Try up sizeing the tail weight. Depending on the body an lip type it will make a difference. Even helps in the casting dept

The musso pine ought to do that for you with some tweaking of the line tie. The issue becomes the speed of the retrieve and how much action you want although you can get around this some with the pine by downsizing the lip and sing or losing a tail hook.

Thanks guys

What I want is something that will cruise at that depth at a slow retrieve and with a lazy swimming action. I’ve made a couple of plugs based on the Musso pine with different lips but they are too buoyant to stay down that deep unless they are in current or being retrieved faster than I would like. I love the way the ones I made of maple hang down near the bottom even at crawl but they run too deep for some areas.

JLH I made a copy of the creek chub 7400 surfster but used a pikie 3 lip, 11 gram belly weight and 3 or 5 gram tail weight and it gets down into that range. Might be another option for design.

If you want I can sent it to you to test for yourself and see what if it fits the niche
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