Bout to do some paint!

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Big Rebel Minnow that TWBryan threw in the box with the vintage Ambassadeur 5000 I bought from him.
It was blaze orange. I kept it with me so that I could toss it around with my UL rig every now and then just for the funny looks I'd get from other folks

But I've decided to paint this bad boy some more natural colors and see if it'll actually catch a fish!  I'm going to start with a pearl white base coat, some chrome fine flake on the sides, then either dark forest green or a midnight blue flake on top. Since Connie's the artist between the two of us, she'll be doing some gill slashes for me in "Stylish Lillian" red. It'll be finished off with a gloss top coat.
I'm using UV activated gel coat nail polish by the way. That stuff hardens like glass.
I'll be replacing the hooks with some black chrome hooks from a big, deep diving Strike King crank bait. I never use it because it just goes too deep too fast for the waters I fish.

I'm kinda thinking about getting some glue on googly eyes for it :D

Dang thing's bigger than a lot of the bass I catch! Haha!

[bigjim5589]

Looks like a great project! 

I have a bunch of them big Rebels, and some Redfin's that I use for Striped Bass. The paint doesn't last real good on them, but they do catch fish. 

Be careful with nail polish on those lures, I've done that too in the past & some of the plastic used in lures melts because of the solvents used in the nail polish. Be sure to test a small spot first. 

Please post some pics of your progress & the finished lure.   

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Lol, I already have, accidentally.
See, I attempted it last night and botched the hell out of it.
Cheap Walmart polish that you'd give to someone else's daughter as a last minute Christmas gift? Trash.
Expensive professional grade stuff that the part time manicurist in the house donates to the cause because she never uses it?
Good stuff!

It took me a while with some sandpaper to smooth out the damaged plastic. Now here's something interesting; it's very clearly plastic, but smells unmistakeably like fir.

[Lipripper]

Sounds like a great project and I'm glad Connie is an artist  Can't wait to see the finished product. Your right that is bigger than most of the Bass you have been catching. 

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Hehehehe... this is hilarious!
Connie came home, had thrown her back out by sneezing (that's not what's funny, that part sucks), so I just did the whole thing myself (that's the funny part).

I cooked us all some dinner, doped her up, and gave her a massage until she fell asleep. Then I decided, well, I'm not going through her paint without her, so I used what I already had in my box.

Lol, with the paints I had and without her steady hands, it came out looking like a kindergarten art project! HAHAHA!
Wonder if a fish will bite it?

[gshappell]

Hope she feels better!

But i think your art job looks just fine and fish will probably love it!

[SteelHorseCowboy]

She said the same!
It took more layers of paint to get the right coverage than I expected and it didn't want to set up the way it's supposed to. I'll be checking it when I get home and see how it looks. If it ain't cured out by tomorrow afternoon, I'll peel it off and try again, or try something different. I noticed the pearl white over it's natural color left it with a golden sheen and the chrome shimmer on top of that looked pretty darn good too! That blue flake seems to be what may have been the "one too many". So if it ain't any good, I may just do the two colors, or just go with much thinner layers. I wish I had a little air brush!
That's one huge benefit of the type of nail polish she gave me: if ya mess it up, it's designed to peel off. Just have to carve a little nick through the paint with a nail file and get it started with a tool of some sort like a needle or dental pick. On nails, she uses a cuticle scraper.

[Lipripper]

Sorry that Connie hurt her back when she sneezed but at least you were there to take care of he and give her a it don't look real bad and it might have caught a fish on it you never know it might have caught a bigger fish for you. 

[bigjim5589]

Pics don't always do justice to paint on lures, but it looks to me like some old school Striper lures I've used.

If I was a betting man, I would bet it would catch a few bass! 

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Lol, the pics did too much justice to it! At least fish aren't art critics!

[SteelHorseCowboy]

The final result. First two attempts didn't work out, the clear coat was going bad apparently.

[Lipripper]

Looks good now SHC Now go get them wet.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Lol, told Connie I won't use 'em till she gets to see them. Don't wanna risk losing them or messing them up before I get to show off my "art".
And, I'm actually on my way home. Stopped at a store for smokes and redbull. The tip I glued on the junk spinner came off! I know what happened though. Glued it on crooked, then heated it a couple days later just to straighten it. Shoulda took it off and remounted it.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

So here's the torpedo I painted up. I thought this paint job was really cool. Unfortunately, the clear coat refused to cure. Got my hands on some more sub par, cheap and old crap. Oh well.
So it's been stripped down and I'm trying again. Different colors, similar scheme.
One thing I'm doing a bit different is the eyes. Those eyes are plastic bead. I split one in half and sanded the pieces to shape and size.
This time around, I took a couple of red faceted glass beads, crushed them in a vice, and I'm using one of my diamond sharpening stones to do the same thing in shaping and sizing a couple of shards to fit.
I've set up a color pallette, going to back them up with whatever color makes them "pop" the most.
I also took a picture of the Baby 13, but I haven't taken a picture of it's special feature. Hopefully I'll remember to snap that and post it later.

[Lipripper]

That turned out nice SHC .

[SteelHorseCowboy]

That turned out nice SHC .

I thought so! I was really disappointed to find the clear coat refusing to cure. But the next iteration will be similar and hopefully a bit better.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

And I'll tell ya what... that red and white spin tail pictured above, I've used it quite a bit around stumps and logs and whatnot (not much left round here in the way of lilies).
Part of the reason for this clear coat I'm using is to protect the lure from it's own hooks. Every single hard lure I have and actually use, has little nicks and dings where it's own hooks are hitting the body.
My Zara Puppy has crescent shaped rings above the front treble, from the hook swinging side to side and nicking the plastic. I'll post a pic in a few minutes.

This clear coat though? Done right, with quality gel and cured properly? That spin tail has NOT ONE SINGLE MARK ON IT. I've held it in my hand and rotated it back and forth to make the hooks swing, and they bounce off that clear coat with a "tick" sound like they're hitting glass. On all my factory finished lures you hear a "tap" and can visually see a minor hesitation from the hook points hitting the plastic and wanting to stick to it.

[Oldfart9999]

Keep up the good work, you'll have some baits that will catch fish!!
Rodney

[bigjim5589]

Cowboy, I really like that green paint scheme! 

I've been looking around some lately at some wood lures various guys are making. Some have a flair for realistic which is fine, and some have a very old school look to them, like they were made back in the early 1900's. Don't know what it is, maybe I'm just getting old, and "mass" produced doesn't have the same appeal as hand painted, or maybe I'm being nostalgic. I can find many lures that look natural & "real", yet I'm liking this old time look more & more!  Might be because it's not what you see everyday! Likely the fish don't either!

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Cowboy, I really like that green paint scheme! 

I've been looking around some lately at some wood lures various guys are making. Some have a flair for realistic which is fine, and some have a very old school look to them, like they were made back in the early 1900's. Don't know what it is, maybe I'm just getting old, and "mass" produced doesn't have the same appeal as hand painted, or maybe I'm being nostalgic. I can find many lures that look natural & "real", yet I'm liking this old time look more & more!  Might be because it's not what you see everyday! Likely the fish don't either!

That is definitely one thing I noticed over the summer, and read a few articles on. One article I read said that fish can remember what lures they've encountered for up to six months! Of course we know that doesn't mean they won't hit the same lure multiple times, some times the temptation is too hard for their primitive minds to resist.
I think that's what a lot of lure makers these days are trying to do, put a new spin on time tested lures.
I think a prime example of this is the whopper plopper. Mine has seen plenty of half hearted strikes and a lot of attention, but no takers.
What is a whopper plopper? Nothing more than the tried and true buzz bait with a slightly different "plop", and it floats.
Hmm... that's giving me an idea...

This is one of the reasons I'm choosing a couple of these paint schemes. I've seen similar designs on jerkbaits that I've used on the torpedo, but usually reversed, with the stripes going down from the top instead of up from the bottom. Then my "Little Flamer", inspired by the colors of a candle burning. The most popular baits seem to be some of the most unsuccessful for me. HB Frogs! A few strikes, some of which would have be awesome catches had I not botched the hook sets, but I haven't had nearly the luck that most people have.

I've mentioned Black Bayou Monroe before. You simply can NOT catch a fish on a popular bait there. It's right off a main highway, has a couple of fishing piers, and everyone who gets a new piece of gear stops there on their way home to try it out. And usually leave in disgust. If you're not using something that everyone else ISN'T, you're lucky if you catch something. They got to the point where they wouldn't even hit live worms.

Anyway, here's the pic I promised yesterday of my Puppy, and the crescent shapes the hook is leaving on the sides. You can see it better in the first pic, where the marks have managed to get dirty.

And here's the Baby 13 I was working on.

"But SHC, why'd it take you so long to paint such a small lure plain white?"
Because I didn't.

I applied numerous layers of glow paint.
My thinking is this; I know bioluminescence plays a HUGE role in the food chain of saltwater fish. Exactly how much and to what purpose, I'm not positive. But I know some fish feed on biolume plankton. So I figured it's worth a shot. A glowing pop bait at night.
Maybe they'll hear it, and "Oh crap, Billy Bob Bluegill, I think I hear food on the surface!"
"Wow Mr. Bass! I think I see something! I ain't never seen nothing like that before! Why don't you go get a taste!"
At least that's how I imagine the underwater conversation may go.

I got the new paint job on the torpedo. Left it under the curing light last night when I went to bed. I'll take another pic when I reattach all the hardware later.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

The little crankbait I picked up got a real simple makeover. Gold flake base and blue glitter topcoat, then the hardened finish. I forgot to paint eyes and gill slashes and take a pic though. I'm just gonna use it as-is.

[bigjim5589]

What you've done looks real good to me! 

I feel this way about the hook marks on the sides of lures, it's going to happen. I've changed to inline single hooks on some to replace trebles & they still make some marks.

If you look at many of those older wood bass lures, they used hanger cups between the screw eye & lure body & that limited the treble movement so that it didn't scrape up the body.

Do they not use them now because the technology of making lures has changed, because those little cups aren't needed & are just another cost item, or because they know after the lures get scraped up they'll eventually be replaced & all lure companies want folks buying more of their lures?

I'm only speculating, but perhaps a little of each. 

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Yep! The Torpedo and the little crank have cups, and all three of the 13's have a sort of heavy duty bracket to mount the hooks with.
I would prefer to have a bit more play than the 13's allow, but I also wanted to keep the original mounting hardware. It wasn't until AFTER I reinstalled the hardware that I thought about the fact that I could have just added split rings. What made me realize that is that I had to add one to the rear of the Baby 13. The bracket wouldn't fit through the new hook.
Oh well. The screws are glued into place. I can remove them, but it ain't worth the hassle at the moment. I do believe I will add split rings to the Torpedo before snugging everything down.

I think another reason that modern lures are sort of semi disposable is because they're cheaper to produce too. After accounting for inflation, some folks back in that day probably felt the same about these lures as I do about whopper ploppers now.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Well I figured out why I'm having trouble with the clear coats. Because I'm applying it on top of acrylics. Need at least one layer of gel coat on top of the acrylics before applying the top coat.

Anyway, here's the final result on that Torpedo. It would look a bit better (up close and in person) if I'd caught that mistake before, but I'm tired of fooling with it for now. I'm gonna use it till the paint comes off, then either rebuild/repaint it again if it ain't just worn slap out, or get a blank of basswood and copy it. I'll salvage the mounting hardware one way or another when the time comes, just cause it's so dang cool.
The eyes are glass, made from shards of a faceted red bead that I think are for c-rigging. I buffed the props a little bit, but was concerned they may be chrome plated brass like the bottom hook mounts so I didn't get too ambitious with them. I preferred the two-tone green from earlier, but being tired of working on it at the moment, it's easier to get good coverage and a nice coat with black.

Since I figured out the problem with the top coat, I've stripped the other big 13 down again and going with all gel coat on top of a primer. I'm thinking of a classic hot rod paint scheme, gonna see if Connie can put some flames on it.

[SteelHorseCowboy]

Whatch y'all think?