Designing lips....
 

Thought I would post up this question to you guys and see how some of you attack this..

I've been learning to make handcarves and I'm sending a couple out to some guys to fish. I've made a template for a lip that works, but I have a hell of a time keeping the lips the same each time I make one.

What I was wondering is when I make a lip, what should I be keeping in mind when it comes to the lip's size? Stainless is a little hard for me to get and I have a good sheet of it now, but I don't want to destroy too much testing bad ideas.

Here are my 2 latest builds and these lips are a bit shorter than what I've made before. I can't swim them due to all the ice around. How do you guys think a shorter vs longer lip will affect the swimming action, or will it?

Is there a good way to test these lips without gluing them in? I can't really think of what I can do to lodge it in there and have the lip survive the cast without falling out.

I have goopy Etex issues, I know. :yak5:

Ted is really the one I've learned all this from. I notice his lips are longer than mine. I'm guessing they will dive deeper? Ted makes this look easy, lol.

Your gonna have to test them so glue one in and give it a shot rather than just make more without knowing how they perform. Some sacrifice is always the norm when building something original and untested. They sure look nice? Take a prototype unfinished body for a swim before you put all the finish work into it. They sure are good looking plugs and lips! My bet is they work fine but only one way to find out! Good luck!:uhuh:

Thanks man. I have made a couple of these with that lip. Seems like these latest lips came out a bit shorter, so now I'm bugging out a little. My gut tells me that the width of the lip is going to give it the wiggle and the length gives it the depth?

I'm hoping so at least, or I'm going to look more stupid than usual, which I would of thought impossible, but here we are, lol. :buds:

Having never made any lips by hand, other than the trial by fire advice Mokes I can't offer any other insight other than I think you are correct on the width and length comments. When I size a plug for a particular lip I generally do not want the lip to be much wider than the widest part of the body. That being said the pics of your plugs look right on par! Go swim one and let us know how you make out!:)

Did I mention how beautiful your work is??:uhuh:

Put a piece of tape around the part that fits in the slot, it will fit snug enough to test swim it, just toss it in the water, don't try for a world record cast and you'll be fine. The length of the lip is very important, 1/8" will make a big difference in how it swims. I always test swim with different length lips to find which works best and as Larry states width is also an issue follow his advise.

When I build a style for the first time, I make a half dozen bodies, for lips, I start with one roughly the width of the body and go smaller , larger and longer... each plug gets a differant shape or diameter... I'll also play with the weighting at this time taping the weight in place... six bodies gives me a start... then I work from there...I make lips out of both lexan and titanium as well as stainless... titanium works gret on smaller hand carves because it adds very little weight...

I'm trapped in a frozen tundra now. Bill Couch is getting one and another kid is getting the other. He was asking for one a couple months back. They know these are pretty protoish.

I've taken 2 for swims last fall, but those were the 1st 2. These are my 2nd. I'm wicked slow building these, lol. Bill said he can get his in the water the weekend if I can get it there in time. I'm sure he'll report back and be honest.

I'm going to try and make a better template to cut lips. Right now, all I use is a little piece of paper for it.

I need to make one for me next so I can test it in current. Haven't been to the Canal all winter though. My whole thought with these is to make a smaller swimmer for when the tiny bait is around.

Thanks Larry....coming from you, that's pretty awesome. I love your work. I was fondling some last year. Amazing how clean it is.

Good idea. I can do that.

Eventually, when I get brave enough, I will through-wire these so I can hang hooks easier and play with the design. Right now I just pop a 00 shot behind the belly hook eye. Seems like that area is good for a pivot point. Maybe I can test out some chin weighting to see what happens though and make some longer lips to see how far I can get them down?

I guess I should work on making sort of a test kit to take to a lake. These bodies are made from a template Ted showed us how to create, so all the bodies KIND OF come out similar. Depends on how badly I sand them, lol.

The 1/8" thing has me nervous Rock. It's too late to turn back now. I'll mail these out and take my lumps if I screwed the pooch. Maybe I'll get lucky though. I'll report back as soon as I hear.

two other weapons in my testing arsenal... screw eyes and hot blue gun....screw eyes make cahnging hook posistions easy....hot glue gun can hold lips and weights in place for testing... apply a little heat and the goo can be removed...

You got lots of good answers here already, if it were me, I would go the route FrankR was heading and shim the lip in place. remember, you are just test swimming it, not fishing it. If you were test fishing it and did not want to put it in with epoxy, drill a 1/16" hole thru the body and lip from under and lock it in place. I do that anyway since the thrashing fish is just gonna knock the lip out anyway if just glued.

here is one example of a fish knocking the lip off during the battle

http://www.bmwoodworking.com/brucefi...e25lb52607.jpg


one of these plugs here in this pile
http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripert...bunkerpile.jpg

Yeah I do, lol. Glad I asked here. What I'm going to do is actually take this advice and apply it to few different plugs I am learning. I guess the 1st year you build, you get all excited and try cranking out stuf and rush to hurry and try them to see what happens and you're really building and learning so many things it all gets muddled.

I think this is the year I slow way down. Take everything I've been taught thus far, and build a bunch of new protos it spend a day on the lake just testing. Now that I can make stuff, I can actually try some new ideas and use my past experience to move forward.

I don't think everything needs tweaking, but with some of the learning curve be lessened, I can understand what's going on better now I hope.

Are those yours Slip?? Mama mia!!! :love:

Ryan Smith of RM Smith plugs made those for a swap in 07

Okay.....now they look familiar. You don't much of him doing handcarves. Pretty awesome work. I'm happy if it's semi-round, lol.

those almost look like a lunker punker

Black Dog Baits Lunker Punker

The length of the lip does not do as much for depth as the angle and position of the line tie. Think of a redfin that has a long thin lip, and a rebel deep diver that as a wide horizontal lip.

The wider the lip, the more roll (often useful in handcarves that tend to have tight wiggles). Think of the bigO that has a flared lip. Particularly on these lazy-shaped square sectioned "handcarves" (as opposed to the thin deep finnish minnow shapes) that people turn out with a bandsaw and sandpaper, a wide lip may be needed to force the square belly and associated chine to roll a little.

The position of the line tie on handcarves is complicated with regards to depth. Vodkaman has a complex discussion about it over on the TU site. It is a vector problem. In general, the closer to midline the deeper you go for any lip set up, which is why top running baits usually have the line tie under the nose a bit. For true deep running baits, the line tie needs to be on the lip and as close to midline as possible (I think).

Wow. I just kinda wung it, lol. Kinda second guessing that now. :biglaugh:

Good info. Vodka is a SMART dude. He constantly confuses me with intelligent stuff, lol.