for starters-
 

we got some darters :D

I am very very very happy with these :happy:

a metal lip :D

another metalip with temporary testing tailhook (thanks bigfish for the color tip)

a swirley needle-

darter closeup

Small darter (super strike clone)

All nice Eben:kewl: i like the needle:hihi:

Karl, I dont know if I can make it... the ol lady's been needing alot of my help with the baby. If I do make it up there, by all means, i will share all that I know. maybe its just me, but i think they are the easiest plug to make :huh:

Eben, The plugs look great:kewl: .You should try round nose pliers for the tail wraps makes it easier:) johnny

Ask throwing Timber how long it takes me to make one :hihi:

all I do is take a blank, drill it out.. turn it to shape. all the shape is is a cylinder with a nice tapered tail and a slight taper in teh nose. Then I go to the bamd saw and do the mouth cuts, which makes it look like a "V has been taken out of the front. Then I do another cut on the upper lip to remove 'some of the head'. From there its all beltsanding. The key is to rock it on the belt... if you stay too long you'll get a flat spot.

Rattboy- yes i know. I got some softer wire and all is good now. :D

Theres some good darter info on another board but Im not sure if I can post the link here.

By the way, the plugs look great...which one is mine:D

OH! and can I see a shot of what the front of yours looks like please? Thanks.

Sure :D and you can post the link.. we're a happy buch over here :D

another -

So, when do you sleep?
Absolutely love that first metal lipped swimmer. Tell me more about it!

nice,
i don't got no darters?

nothing special. I dont use a duplicator, so I take a caliper reading of the lip's width and make the nose first to match the lip's width. From there its all in where my gouge wants to go. No 2 swimmers I make are the same and they all act a bit differently.

For instance, I made a single hooked danny and moved the belly hook up in the front of the plug. The weight of the hook makes it sit nose down so it swims about 5 or 6 feet under on a fast retrieve. If i cut a slope on the head it will swim deeper..I've found that 2 hook jobs like that first one are best if you want it to stay on the surface because it balances the plug.. Also the more wood you have in the plug, the more your plug will stay on top(bouyancy). I gleaned that from Bassmaster. I couldnt understand why he made such fat dannies.. then I made a skinny one and found out :D

Nice work Eben.

:kewl: plugs. I always found darters easy to make too. It was getting them to run right that was the hard part :smash: :laughs: Have you test swam those ones?

Jigman

Jigman, Yes I tested them yesterday and today at the place we fished at this fall.. they swim great :D

Cool. You mean this spot.... :D

:rotfl: yeah thats the one.. man it was a dark night.... But we HAMMERED them :laughs:

Here's the link to a tutorial I found helpful. Hope someone finds it useful.

http://www.stripersonline.com/cgi-bi...c/11/757.html?

Yours look similar to the ones Ive been making. Ive got the same problem of the front eye tearing through the thin wood in the nose when twisting the tail loop. It just wants to rip through till it catches. :smash:

Looking good dude :)

U gotta drill the front hole straight down.well not straight down but on a downward angle.then pick it up from the rear.it gives alot more material on the top.i think also its another reason maple is a good fit for these plugs bein so hard.u could hang on mines it aint pullin out.thats the way i seen it on the musso i have.then I epoxie it in so i can catch multiple fish on em without the loop gettin messed up an rendering the plug useless.

Great work eben, all of them..The blurple darter looks shweet, can see it diggin in just looking at it.. :claps:

Nice job Eben!
Looks like you got them down now.

nose loop
 

The darters I have, I bought 20 on ebay for $5 apiece, have grommets? on the nose loop. The grommets would give you two to three times the bearing area and help quite a bit with tearout. IMNHO

He does knock them out quickly, I think his glass blowing helps him out though process wise. He just got out of Christmas ornament mode so he's going for simple with not many steps involved (production mode). He blasts through them now though, but by watching him you can see he's given a lot of thought to the steps in his procedures. I always thought they were wicked tough to do, but seriously once its through drilled he makes the rest look easy. After drilling the blank I'd say it takes him 12-15 minutes tops to whip out a blank, maybe less.

That reminds me, I'll expect 30 blanks by Sunday 15 regular eyes 15 squid eyes, now get to work! :lasso:

Vic you can have the bodies, but after you paint them and wire them, i'll take them back :devil:

Karl, just try a couple.. thats what I did, and I asked questions along the way. nib helped me out alot and I also had a coulple of comercial darters to look at for a guide. If you think you can get the shape down then what else is there to worry about??? noseloop. hook placement... thats about it. I used two types of maple.. hard maple and red maple. I cant tell any difference, so I'm sticking with red maple becuase its easier for me to find. As with anything repititoin is the best way to learn, so I made about 30 darters. Some were junk and went in the fireplace, but after the 10th one they all came out great.

A darta works on balance its the top with the water pushing down fighting the bouyancy of the wood.When U make something out of wood there can be variables in the weight of the wood.thats where the problems come in. Gibbs add belly weight to theirs so the room for error is even smaller.Thats why the plastic super Strikes basically work great everytime He eliminated the variables.Work off the Musso wooden styles the best ones made in my opinion.