13 Points of Light on each side of a eelie swimmer

[blondterror]

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)