trial and error?

[Jigman]

A few things to consider. How do you like to fish (surface, subsurface), what conditions do you fish, what is the bait like in those areas, and how does the bait swim. Now try to replicate that. Once I have a size/profile I like I'll try various lips, hooks, hook locations, weight sizes/locations to get the best action I can out of the plug. Usually that takes some tweaking at a test pond, or better yet, at the area you want to fish them. You can use screw eyes to aid in determining hook locations. Wide rubber band to attach a slug of lead so you can move it around and find the best location. Once you have a good idea of how much lead and where, the location of hooks, etc, you can turn a couple more to those specs and tweak some more from there. Most of my test plugs are either not sealed, or just have sealer. I'll sometime prime them so I can see them better as they swim. Even draw a line with a sharpie down the back and for the eyes so I can better judge the action. Once I have something down how I like, I'll turn a few more and paint, then show them to fish. The fish may give you some additional ideas for tweaking the plug.

Jigman

[GonnaCatchABig1]

YES !!! now i'm getting a good idea. the last two really helped out!
as far conditions. i dont have any. i have been every where, all types of geographical features. in all conditions yet to find the magic bullet. so i honetly don't know. wanna turn some basic for practice. (cept for my one complicated jointed with a very specific color scheme)

jigman's was really what i was lookin for. as it seemed tedious turning then drilling. only to fail then having to repeat many times.

colors are obviously my last priority, they just make em pretty. and maybe rare... ::evil smirk::

i dont wanna toss anything at fish i'm not satisfied with. or do i? lol. ya never know!

just wait... my pink, green blurble red tiger leopard super deep diving swimming popper darter will the shiznit!! lol

[Jigman]

Pick one type of plug that you like to throw a lot. Pick a set of conditions that you typically fish. Now make something to fit those conditions. Once you have one down well that is catching, move onto another type of plug/conditions.

Jigman

[Rockfish9]

My head hurts from reading all this... but I do admire your enthusiasim.

First off, I only scanned this thread, as I said, my head hurts...if you think, you can not "waste a bunch of wood" your picking the wrong hobby.... there will be waste..... as others have said, decide what it is you want the plug to do, where you are going to fish and procede from there.... your going to have to spend some time studying how bait fish react under various conditions, your going to have to keep notes, you will want to make your plug acts like a baitfish acts.... then by changing shapes of your plug, adding or subtracting weight you will begin to see patterns, the learning curve will quicken, but you must be willing to invest time, be studious and not be afraid of failure.. this site can give you a tremendous head start... but it's gonna take some hard work....

good luck
Roc