13 Points of Light on each side of a eelie swimmer
 

I am prototyping a Pitchney sand eel swimmer with 3/16" pieces of 18 gauge aluminium wire (Electric fence wire) along the lateral line starting behind the eye socket. Here is a pic of the plug as the sealer is drying. I will stain the AYC next after sanding smooth with 150 grit and stain with blue water based dye diluted in denatured alcohol to minimize raising the grain. The goal is to have shine coming off each of the 13 aluminium pieces on each side of the plug...

Each short piece of aluminium wire is dipped in 5 min epoxy before inserting into the predrilled and reamed hole .. spacing is every 1 cm along lateral line. After staining the plug the plug with be eTexed X2 to protect the aluminium from the salt environment.

The lateral line is involved with a fishes sense of balance/orientation if you guys forgot your HS/College biology....

Plug is weighted bewteen the 2 belly holes with .2OZ of 3/8 diameter lead.

Hoping that this crazy idea is worth it... takes some time filing the wire ends smooth with a bastard mille file...

I have some brass and nickel wire on order so I will try a cat scratch pattern (3 rows of lat line shiny dots) with the gold wire flanked by the silver (Nickel wire)

Nice. You need to connect each piece of silver wire with narrow platinum strand and bury a AAA batttery inside the plug (doubles as the weight), then your plug will emit electrical signals just a real fish...

cool idea chris.

after all that work, hopefully you wont be to scared to throw it. :smash:

looks like a lot of work.

I will definitely use it... but not when the Blues are around if I can help it... if I lose it then i will make some more... half the fun is making it

Lookin forward to some canal fishing in the next month... my canal cruiser is ready to roll...

That crap isn't gonna work. Send it to me once it's finished so I can prove it to ya.
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That is a ton of work. Beautiful work. I hope it does what you hope it is going to. You got my gears rolling with that. I don't know if you have ever shot a bow but they make sights that glow off of available light called T-dots. I wonder how those would look on a lateral ine

SuperLuminova

Google It

:tooth:

You're like a mad scientist of plug making. Cool idea!

Cool stuff... great app for watch watches and fishing lures... I could not find a paint made with it that I can buy to sample... would love to try it...

Found a product on line called Glow-On that comes in a small vial... might have to try it...

You can mix in the SL withing a small touch of epoxy or you can get a tinting agent to mix with then mix with epoxy.

Luminous Paste for Hands and Dials

Hopefully this doesn't anger the Moderation gods. It is a link to a site that sells the Luminova varnish kits.

I apologize if the link is unacceptable John.

We're pretty open with links as long as it moves the discussion forward and isn't self promotion or spam. Other places may block a choking person to the self-Heimlich instruction manual - but not us :tooth:

Cool I will post the Self Heimlich link in the DIY forum now :rotf2:

That looks awesome and makes a lot of sense.

Ron Muccie has been making plugs with a lateral line for a few years now. You can add tape to the plug as the latteral line and epoxy over it. Not sure it makes any difference.

if the goal is the light reflecting, couldnt you just use small reflectors or small shiny metal stickers? Glue them on?

here is the finished plug

looks really sharp!, nice job!

That's pretty cool Chris!!
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