[fishing bum wannabe]

I've made wooden molds for tail and body weights for as long as I've made lures. The problem with wood is that they are only good for a few pours before they distort from being dried out by the heat of the lead. Most of my tail weights are either 5/16 or 3/8 diameter and the body weights are 3/8. I was bitching about it when Slipknot suggested that I buy a blank mold from DoIt and make my own metal molds. So I thought why not and ordered a blank mold.

It was fairly easy. The toughest part was flattening the top and bottom of the mold. They were not only rough, but formed a slight V as well, neither of which was going to work for me. I loaded a sanding disk into the table saw and spent 15 minutes flattening the two surfaces. Then I laid out what I wanted and drilled pilot holes that will also be used to position rods that will create the through holes for the through wire. Then using two bullet point drills that are 1/32" undersize I drilled the weight holes. I also flipped the mold over and drilled 3/8 holes for body weights. For other size weights, which I don't use very often I will continue to make new wood molds.

A trick I learned from making wooden molds is when drilling the pilot holes to clamp the mold shut but loosely so there is a paper thin gap between the sides. The pilot will follow that gap and will end up being perfectly centered. Clamp the mold tight and redrill and the pilot will ream out the first drilling and also be perfectly centered. The bullet point drill used to drill 5/16 and 3/8 have a small pilot of it's own and will follow the pilot hole perfectly.