Crankbait Making My First Attempt

Making Crankbaits Using Free Lure Templates

I Decided To Buy A Lure Making E-Book

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the first things I did when I originally got interested in making my own lures was to do some research on the internet to find out as much about lure making as I could. There is  of course plenty of lure making information around the web but you will find that it is scattered all over the place. I decided that I would buy at least one book or ebook on the subject of lure making which might shorten my lure making learning curve. After having a good browse around on the internet to see . . . . .
. . . . . what lure making books, ebooks or videos were available I decided on the ebook Make Your Own Fishing Lures - Wooden Lures by  Australian lure maker Greg Vinall. 

The First Lure Making Ebook That I Bought

I plan to write a review of this ebook in a future post to let any of you that may be interested in this book know exactly what I thought of it.  I will give you an idea as to what is and what is not contained within it's pages and also give you my opinion of the overall quality of the ebook in general. Prior to buying the lure making ebook I had signed up to an email newsletter over at Greg's website. His very first email contained two free crankbait templates which anyone can get simply by visiting his site and signing up for the newsletter. (Edit - It seems that Greg has changed his website around a bit and the newsletter is now unfortunately not available, however you can still check out his website by following this link).

Using Proven Crankbait Templates

The Templates That I Used For Making The Crankbaits

Despite the fact that my first lure making project had been all about jerkbaits and that I really needed to make a few more of them for my pike fishing I couldn't resist having a go at making some crankbaits as crankbait making seems to be the most popular lure making topic online. I printed out the two free lure templates mentioned above and started to make the two crankbaits using the techniques described in the lure making ebook that I had bought.

Items For Making Lure Templates - Template Printouts, Scissors, Cardboard and Glue

The first step in making these two crankbaits was to print out the templates, glue them to some cardboard and then cut out their profiles using a scissors. When working on my first lure making project (jerkbaits) I used 4mm thick hardboard to make the lure templates. I can see now that using such a 'heavy' material for the templates was not necessary and that using plain old cereal box cardboard is much simpler, quicker and easier to do. Another lure making lesson learned!

Lure Templates Glued To Some Cardboard And Ready To Be Cut Out

Once I had the lure templates cut out and ready for use I had to get some wood to use for making the lure blanks. For the jerkbaits I had made previously I had used poplar for no reason other than I had lots of scraps of the stuff lying around my workshop. I have since found one or two other lure makers who have made reference to using poplar as a lure making material for their lure making projects and so decided to use it for making these crankbaits also. Another reason that I decided to stick with poplar as the material of choice for making these crankbaits is that the jerkbaits that I had made in my earlier lure making project  displayed fairly nice actions and even caught me some fish on my first day out with them!

Marking Out The Crankbait Blanks

I will of course experiment with using other woods for making my lures at a later date but for now I will stick to using poplar. Before using the lure templates to mark out the lure blanks I cut the poplar down to the correct length, width and height for each of the two lures. Doing this would reduce the amount of material that I would need to remove during the shaping process, ie less cutting, less filing and less sanding. With the lure blanks cut to the required dimensions I next marked out the centre lines along both the sides and the top and bottom of the two pieces of wood. These centre lines would help me to locate the lure templates in the correct positions (centrally) on the wood blanks for marking out the lure profiles.

Marked Out Lure Blanks And Lure Templates

Cutting The Throughwire Slots

After I had the lure blanks marked out and was happy that all the profiles I had drawn onto the pieces of wood were in fact properly centred I went ahead and cut out the slots along the length of each of the lure blanks that would hold the through wires. I had decided on through wire construction for these crankbaits rather than screw in eyelets as most of the waters that I fish contain pike, some of which may be strong enough to snap a small poplar wood lure in half!

Clamps, Handsaw And Padsaw Were Used To Cut The Throughwire Slots

I clamped each of the lure blanks in turn to my workbench and used a fine toothed handsaw to accurately cut along the centreline I had marked on the 'belly' of each of them. The saw cut produced by the handsaw I used was not quite wide enough to allow the throughwires to slot into the bodies of the lures so I used a padsaw to widen the saw cuts in each of the lure blanks.

Lure Blanks With Throughwire Slots Cut Out

Cutting Out The Diving Lip Slots

With the throughwire slots now cut out the next step before starting to shape the lures was to cut the slots for the diving lips (or bibs). Cutting out these slots using a handsaw was quite tricky but I did the job in a similar way to how I had cut out the throughwire slots by clamping the blanks to my bench, first cutting with a fine toothed saw and then widening the cut with a padsaw.

This Step Was A Little Tricky To Get Right - Slots For Diving Lips

Cutting Out The Top And Side Profiles Of The Crankbaits

Now that the diving lip and throughwire slots were cut into the lure blanks I could crack on with shaping the actual bodies of the lures. I had never done this type of lure shaping before so was quite looking forward to learning how to do it. I used the techniques described in the lure making ebook that I had bought to shape the wooden bodies of the lures. The first step here was to cut out the side profile of each lure using a coping saw.

Lure Blanks Cut To Side Profile Shape

When the side profiles had been cut out the lure templates were needed again to mark out the top profiles on the lure blanks. Before I did this I gave the top of each blank a light sanding so that it would be easier to mark lines onto the wood. Lining up the top profile lure templates with the centre lines on the nose and tail of each blank as accurately as possible I marked out the next lines I would need to cut to. Using cardboard for your lure templates is a good idea as can be seen in the picture below - it's flexibility allows you to bend the template to the curved shape of the lure blank.

Using The Templates Again To Mark Out The Top Profiles

The next job I had to do was to cut the lure blanks to the top profile lines that I had just marked out. I did this again using a coping saw and some clamps to hold the lure blanks in place while I was cutting them. When the cuts along the top profile lines were complete the blanks were already beginning to look like lures.

With The Top Profile Lines Cut to The Blanks Were Looking a Little More Like Lures!

Shaping The Wooden Lure Bodies

So far so good. Now it was time to shape the lure blanks by rounding over all the square edges and sanding down to the desired finished shape. Again I referred back to the ebook I had bought and used a combination of utility knife, coarse and fine files and some sandpaper to reduce the lure blanks down to the required shapes.

Utility Knife, File And Sandpaper Were Used To Shape The Lure Blanks

A Rub With Some Really Fine Sandpaper And The Lures Are Ready For The Next Step

Making The Crankbait Diving Lips

The next job in the crankbait making process that I needed to tackle was to make the diving lips (bibs) for the lures. The theme of this blog so far has been 'homemade lures' and as such I will try to make my lures using stuff that I already have rather than buying something new. With this in mind I had a good look around the house and garage to see if there was any clear plastic material lying around that may be suitable for use in making the diving lips for my crankbaits. I eventually found an old broken CD box, the cover of which looked like it might do the job. The clear plastic that these CD boxes are made from can be quite brittle but I decided I'd try using it for these two crankbaits and see how I'd get on.

Crankbait Lips Marked Out On An Old CD Box Lid

I used the templates to mark out the diving lips onto the clear plastic lid and then used a coping saw to carefully cut out their profiles. I also cut a little slot out of the centre of each diving lip to allow it to fit around the throughwire which would be fitted internally within the lure going from nose to tail. The edges of the diving lips were 'cleaned up' using a file and care was taken during the cutting and filing process to get them as close to fully symmetrical as possible.

The Cut Out Diving Lips And Templates

Making The Throughwires

With the diving lips ready to go there was one more thing to do before I was ready to start putting the lure together. I had to make the throughwires that would be fitted internally within the lures. I used some regular garden tying wire for making the throughwires which was a little bit neater looking than the copper wire that I had used for making my first few jerkbaits. I made the throughwires by marking the outline of the lures onto a scrap of wood (using the lure templates) and then hammering some nails into the positions on each lure where I would need the wire to bend. I then bent the wire around each set of nails to create the throughwires.

Lure Blanks With Throughwires Ready To Be Fitted

Fitting The Throughwires

At this stage I was now ready to start putting the crankbaits together so to speak. I would first need to glue the throughwires into the lure bodies and then fit the diving lips. I had used two part epoxy in my earlier lure making project to glue the throughwires into the jerkbait bodies and I have to say that the epoxy did the job very well. For this project however I wanted to experiment with a different type of glue. I had two reasons for wanting to try some different glue on these lures. 

Firstly two part epoxy is exactly that - 'two parts' and as such requires mixing which can be a little messy to say the least. And secondly the method of mixing two parts together can also be quite wasteful of the epoxy itself as it can be difficult to gauge the correct amount of glue to mix for whatever it is that you are doing with it. Any glue which would not require mixing and which would allow you to use only the exact amount that you needed would be, in my opinion, a better option than two part epoxy. A product called Gorilla Glue is one such glue that I have used for other wood working applications over the years and it has yet to let me down. If it would perform as well as the two part epoxy for glueing in the throughwires only time would tell!

Having decided to use Gorilla Glue for glueing in the throughwires on these crankbaits I put a generous amount of glue into the throughwire slots in each lure using a piece of wire to make sure the glue was well spread out within each slot. I then pushed the throughwires into the lure bodies and waited for the glue to react. When the glue was fully set I used a utility knife and some sandpaper to clean off the excess hardened glue and smooth over the belly of each lure.

I Used Gorilla Glue to Set In the Throughwires

Fitting The Diving Lips

At this stage it would seem that most lure makers go ahead with sealing the lure and painting it before finally fitting the diving lip to the lure at the end. Now this is all well and good if you know that the lure will balance properly. If it is your first time to make a particular lure the only way that you can know if the lure will be balanced or not is to test it for balance. The only way to do this is to add all the parts - split rings, hooks, diving lip, etc - seal the lure and put it into some water.

By testing the lure for balance you will find out whether it needs internal weighting or not, how much weighting it actually needs and what size hooks and split rings to use. When making the same lure again in the future you may then leave fitting the diving lip till last as you will already know how much weight (if any) to add to the lure, where to add the weight and what size hooks and split rings to use on the lure.

As I did not know the hook size/internal weighting combination for either of these two crankbaits I would have to fit the diving lips to them now in order to be able to seal them and balance them properly. I used two part five minute epoxy to glue the diving lips into the crankbaits. Using a small thin stick (a piece of wire would also work well) I filled the diving lip slots in each crankbait with enough epoxy so that when I would push in the diving lips they would squeeze out the excess glue thereby fully filling the inside of the slot all around the diving lip with glue.

I Used Two Part Epoxy To Glue In The Diving Lips

Great care needs to be taken at this stage in order to ensure that the diving lips are correctly positioned and centred on the crankbaits. This step was a little tricky because you need to examine the crankbaits from a number of different perspectives and make sure that the diving lip looks good in each - look at them from the sides, from the top, underneath and from the front. It is at this stage that you will find out if the slots that you cut earlier for the diving lips are in fact square with the body of the lure. One of mine was near perfect the other was a little off. This is obviously something that you should get better at over time!

Sighting In The Diving Lips To Make Sure They Are Centred Properly

The Tricky Job of Attaching the Diving Lips Completed

Sanding And Sealing The Lure Blanks Prior To Balancing

With the throughwires and diving lips fitted to the crankbaits it was now time to give the lures one last fine filling and sanding to smooth over any uneven areas paying particular attention to the belly area of the lures.

The Lures Sanded Smooth and Ready for Sealing

To seal the lures I first put some masking tape on the diving lips to prevent them from getting covered in paint and then dipped them into some white shellac primer that I had in the workshop. I thinned the primer down considerably using methylated spirits to get a very thin coating on the lures. The great thing about this particular type of primer is that it dries very quickly and I was able to get two coats of primer onto the lures in quick succession - sanding with fine sandpaper between coats. With my previous lure making project I had used an oil based primer (which worked very well) to seal the four jerkbaits. I did however have to wait overnight for each coat to dry which is a slow process. Using the shellac primer on this occasion allowed me to go ahead and balance the lures within thirty minutes or so of priming them.

Crankbaits Drying Between Coats of Primer

Balancing The Crankbaits

Now to balancing the lures. As I had never made any crankbaits before I was not very sure how the lures should balance, obviously these would be floating divers but I had a few questions that needed answering before I could balance these crankbaits properly. Should they sit horizontal in the water, nose up or nose down? What level in the waters surface should they sit - Back just touching the surface, half in/half out? What size hooks to use? The quickest way I figured to answer these questions would be to pull a few similarly sized and shaped crankbaits out of my lure box and see what size hooks they had on them and how they sat in the water.

Comparing My Homemade Crankbaits to Shop Bought Ones to Gauge Hook Size and Balance

To balance my homemade crankbaits I very simply filled the kitchen sink with water and dropped in two  shop bought crankbaits I owned that were similar in shape and length to the ones I was making. I then took note of how my shop bought crankbaits sat in the water - how they were balanced as such. I could now balance my homemade baits so that they would sit in the water in the same way as my shop bought baits. The picture below shows how my homemade crankbaits compared to the shop bought ones. The smaller of the two crankbaits I was making would not need any balancing at all as it sat perfectly in the water when hooks were attached. The larger crankbait however was a fair bit off balance and would need some internal weighting to get it sitting correctly in the water.

Balancing My Homemade Crankbaits - The One on Top Was Perfectly Balanced The Bottom One Needed Weighting

The procedure for balancing my homemade crankbait would be much the same as the way in which I balanced the homemade jerkbaits in my previous lure making project. I did this by tying a small loop of fishing line around the body of the crankbait onto which I attached lead split shot as balancing weight. By trial and error I moved the position of the loop of line and added or subtracted differnent sized lead split shot until the lure was perfectly balanced.

Balancing a Crankbait by Trial and Error Using Different Sized Hooks and Lead Split Shot

This crankbait was a little tricky to balance properly as the balancing weight had to be hung on the lure as close to the front as I could get it, right at the base of the diving lip and even then I had to reduce the size of the rear treble hook to get the balance right. As the tail end of this lure is very slender in cross section there is not much buoyancy at the rear end of the lure body. I had made the mistake of using wire for the throughwires that was way too heavy for these lures. This heavy wire had greatly reduced the buoyancy of the tail end of the lure which already had limited buoyancy by design. It was this complete lack of buoyancy in the rear of the lure that made it more difficult to balance. Yet another valuable lure making lesson learned - when making long slender bodied crankbaits out of wood use lighter wire for making your throughwires!

Once the correct amount of weighting and position for that weight had been discovered it was then time to drill a hole in the body of the crankbait to take lead weight. The amount of weight required to balance this crankbait turned out to be one no.1 plus one BB sized split shots as can be seen in the photo above.

Drilling Out For the Balancing Weight

I clamped the crankbait to a piece of wood on my workbench and drilled two shallow holes in the belly one in front of the other just behind the diving lip. Quite annoyingly I managed to crack the diving lip in the middle while drilling out for the balancing weight - not very clever!  With the two holes drilled I then removed the wood from between them using a utility knife to create a small oval shaped slot in the lure body. In my previous project I made a mould and used it to make lead pellets out of the balancing weights which I then glued into the lure bodies. The amount of balancing weight required for this crankbait was too small for it to be practical to make a pellet so I simply melted the lead in a small homemade melting pot and carefully poured it directly into the crankbait body.

Homemade Melting Pot Ready to be Placed on the Hob to Melt the Lead

After I had poured the lead into the crankbait body I used a generous amount of two part epoxy to fill the hole and make sure the lead would stay put. I also smeared a fair amount of the epoxy onto the underside of the diving lip to repair the crack along it's middle.

AGenerous Amount of Epoxy was Used to Secure the Balancing Weight in Place

Now The Fun Stuff - Painting The Crankbaits

With the balancing process complete the crankbaits were given a thorough going over with very fine sandpaper to make them ready for priming and painting.

The Crankbaits Were Given a Thorough Sanding Before Priming and Painting

Now to the fun part of the project - deciding on what patterns to put on the crankbaits, making some stencils where necessary and actually painting the lures. If you read through my earlier lure making project post you will have read that I really favour natural patterns on my lures - give the fish what they are used to seeing! With this in mind I wanted the patterns on these two lures to mimic two of the common prey fish found in my local waters. I decided on a pike pattern for the larger of the two crankbaits as the long slender body closely resembled that of a small pike and for the smaller crankbait a simple silverfish pattern. The first thing to do however before working on any stencils or even getting my cans of spray paint out was to give the lures a decent undercoat. 

There are quite a few different products available and different methods you can use to undercoat your lures. For this lure making project, in the same way as the last one, I dipped the lures into some oil based off-white coloured satinwood paint that I had left over from a cabinet making project. I like this method of dipping as the paint seems to fill out any small imperfections that may be on the lure body. The disadvantage of using this type of oil based paint of course is that you have to leave the lures overnight to dry before you can do anything else with them. I dipped the lures twice to give them a good off-white base colour which would be the belly colour for both lure patterns.

Dipping the Lures in an Off-White Oil Based Undercoat

You will notice from the pictures that I put masking tape over the diving lip on one of the crankbaits but not on the other one. The reason for this is that I had cracked the diving lip on the larger crankbait while drilling out for the balancing weight and had to glue it back together. Although neatly glued back together the crack down the middle of the diving lip was clearly visible so I decided to paint over it in order to hide my annoying mistake.

The Crankbaits were Hung up to Dry Overnight Between Coats  of Paint

 The Pike Patterned Crankbait

The sequence of photos below will show you how I achieved a pike pattern on my crankbait. The first step was to spray on a gold coloured base coat on the back and sides of the lure. I used the little notched wood blocks form my earlier jerkbait making project to support the crankbait while I was spaying.

Lure Supported on Little Wooden Blocks for Hands Free Spray Painting

Crankbait With Base Colour of Gold Sprayed on Back and Sides

With the base colour of gold completed and dry I then sprayed a very light coat of black onto the back of the lure. The next step was then to add the skin/scales pattern by spraying a darkish green colour through a light plastic mesh bag. I used a series of clothes pegs along the length of the lure to stretch the mesh and secure it in place before spraying.

A Light Coat of Black to Darken the Back of the Crankbait

Some Clothes Pegs Secured the Plastic Mesh for Spraying the Scale/Skin Pattern

Green Scale/Skin Pattern Complete

I now had a crankbait with a white belly, a dark back and green scaly body. To make this lure look like a little pike it would need some rows of spots. To achieve this effect a stencil would be required. I used the original lure template to mark out two profiles of the lure back to back onto some cardboard and then drew my pike pattern onto one of the profiles.

The Original Lure Template was used to Make a Stencil

I then cut out the stencil and folded it in half so that the two side profiles lined up exactly. I used a utility knife to cut out the spots, eyes and gill cover through both sides of the stencil at the same time which resulted in a perfectly symmetrical stencil that would give me an identical pattern on either side of my crankbait.

The Required Pattern was Cut Through Both Sides of the Stencil

With the lure stencil ready it was simply a matter of taping it around the crankbait body and carefully lining it up with the ends and sides of the lure.

The Stencil was Taped to the Body of the Crankbait as Shown

The crankbait with stencil attached was supported on the little wooden blocks and sprayed from either side - gold for the spots and red for the gill rakers and eyes. The red dot for the eye was simply to mark the position for the eye which would be later painted white with a black dot in the centre.

Crankbait and Stencil Supported on Wooden Blocks Ready for Spraying

The Resulting Pike Pattern

The Silverfish Patterned Crankbait

With the larger of the two crankbaits painted (except for the eyes) I turned my attention to the smaller crankbait which I planned to paint in a simlpe silverfish pattern. No stencil would be required for this pattern, just some mesh to create a scaled effect. The pictures below show how I painted the lure. The first step was to support the crankbait on my little wooden blocks and give the back and sides of the lure a base coat of black paint.

The Smaller Crankbait Ready for it's Base Coat of Black

With the base coat of black on the back and sides of the lure fully dry the lure was then wrapped in a fine plastic mesh which would achieve a nice scale pattern when sprayed over. The mesh itself I obtained from the local supermarket in the form of a vegetable bag - many types of vegetables and fruit from the supermarket come packaged in mesh bags of various sizes most of which are perfect for painting scale effect patterns on lures.

Lure Wrapped in Plastic Mesh to Achieve Scale Effect Pattern

I Used a Chrome Colour Spray Paint For the Main Body of the Lure

I used a so called chrome coloured spray paint as the main colour for the body of the lure. The result was more of a silvery grey colour than the shiny chrome that the cap of the spray can suggested. A little bit disappointing but close enough to the silverfish pattern that I was looking for so I decided to leave it as it was.

The Resulting Scale Effect Pattern

Painting Eyes On The Crankbaits

At this stage my crankbait making project was almost complete. All that remained to do was to paint on the eyes, add a gloss coat and an epoxy hardcoat. The eyes were very simply painted on by dipping the head of an appropriately sized nail into some white paint and dabbing the paint onto the lure to form the white of the eyes. A smaller nail was then dipped into some black paint and dabbed into the centre of the white spot (after the white paint had dried of course). The pictures below show how it was done.

Two Different Sized Nails Were Used To Form The Eyes . . . . . . 

 . . by First Dabbing on a White Dot with the Larger Nail . . . . . . . 

. . and then Dabbing a Smaller Black Dot with the Smaller Nail.

After the eyes had fully dried I then sprayed a clear gloss coat onto the lures. This clear coat serves two purposes. Firstly it fills out the tiny 'ridges' left in the paint by the plastic mesh which was used to create the scaled effect. Secondly it acts as an additional layer of protection over the paint pattern. This clear coat by itself will not stand up very well to the rigours of fishing as I found out when I used it on the jerkbaits I made earlier but it will serve well as an undercoat of sorts for the epoxy hardcoat that will be applied next.

The Crankbaits Drying Between Gloss Clear Coats

Another Lure Making Project Complete

At this stage rather than go into detail about how I applied the epoxy hardcoat I'm going to leave that for a blog post all of it's own. With the hardcoat applied all I need do is add some hooks and take these lures for a 'test drive' so to speak. To see how I get on fishing with these crankbaits keep an eye on the 'homemade lure fishing diary' section of this blog where I'll be adding some more posts as soon as I get the time.

The Finished Crankbaits Ready for Hardware and Testing

Hooks and Split Rings to Finish off The Lures

Crankbaits Ready for Fishing

So there you have it - another homemade lures project completed. At this point I have not made a start on my next project yet. There's no doubt that I need more jerkbaits and crankbaits and I will eventually get around to building out my collection but for the sake of keeping this blog interesting I think that I might move on to something different for my next lure making project. I have a few ideas for how to make jigs without having to buy expensive moulds so I reckon that's what I will probably do next . . . . .

I hope you found this blog post interesting and as always, if you have a question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to share fell free to post your comments below.