RepackboxReloading EverythingInline FabricationTitan Reloading
Lee PrecisionMidSouth Shooters SupplyWidenersLoad Data
RotoMetals2
Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 41 to 60 of 67

Thread: Do 3D Printed Fishing Lures Count As Special Projects?

  1. #41
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Yea, I'm pretty sure you're right. I read somewhere, "There is no new thing under the sun." With respect to fishing lures, there really is nothing new. I've seen them shaped like beer cans, like sex-toys, like hotdogs, like just about everything one can imagine and at some point they all caught fish.

    I think I'll stick to my minimalist methods of lures and lure making. I have a small tackle box full of regular sized lures and many Ultra-light lures that were brought to market with good intentions but I've never caught anything with them.

    I also think that many of the fancier lures being sold these days are made more to catch fishermen than to catch actual fish. That probably describes more than a few of the store bought lures I own.

    HollowPoint

  2. #42
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123

    My Slightly Reconfigured Micro-Plopper Components

    I finally got the new batch of components done. With any luck I'll be able to assemble them for testing by next weekend. I've scaled the body of my Micro-Plopper lures so that they are wider from top to bottom. Previously they measured .64" from at the widest point from top to bottom and lengthwise they were measuring 1.12" long.

    Now they measure .75" tall and 1.2" long. The width has remained the same at a half of an inch. I'm hoping that this will give me just a bit more resistance to the torqueing that the little propeller was imparting to the lure as it ran through the water.

    I also altered the configuration of my little cast urethane propeller by adding a length of curvature that runs from the front of the propeller shank and curves in to compliment the slight curvature of the propeller blade itself. It's hard to describe with the written word but I've uploaded a CAD rendering of what I'm talking about.

    My propeller blades spun OK before but I feel like they were also creating to much resistance as the water pushed them rearward while they spun. This no-doubt caused the propeller shanks to bind on the little wire axle at the front and rearmost points of the propeller shank.

    During the course of making these changes I think I figured out how to properly use the scaling-feature of my SolidWorks modeling software. I mention this because I now believe I can scale down the new propeller mold I just made up to fit the smaller sized bodies of my previously tested Micro-Plopper lures. I'll hold off on that till I've tested this new batch of lure bodies. If it works, then I'll scale down the propellers as well. I think this will allow me to salvage those previous smaller bodied lures I made up. I much prefer the smaller bodies but they tended to torque to much if I reeled them in at any more than a very slow pace.

    Here's the pics. Let me know what you guys think.

    HollowPoint

  3. #43
    Boolit Master
    1911sw45's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Princeton, KY
    Posts
    516
    Question. Why is there a lip on the leading edge of the prop? Wouldn’t it hinder the water flow and rotation? If needed for stiffness shouldn’t it be on the back side of the prop edge?

  4. #44
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by 1911sw45 View Post
    Question. Why is there a lip on the leading edge of the prop? Wouldn’t it hinder the water flow and rotation? If needed for stiffness shouldn’t it be on the back side of the prop edge?
    I'm not sure what "Lip" you are referring to unless you mean the curved ridge I added to the shank; the part with the little white arrow pointing to it in the CAD rendering. It wasn't added for stiffness. It was added to guide the water flowing along that small curve into the curvature of the propeller blade. If you've ever taken a close look at an authentic Whopper-Plopper lure you'll notice that this same design feature is present on the propeller of those lures as well. In doing this to my little propellers I was hoping to closer mimic the working of the authentic Whopper Plopper lure's propeller.

    If I'm mistaken and you were referring to another "Lip" then, I'm afraid I don't know how to answer your question. Perhaps you're referring to the bevel at the leading edge of the propeller shank. That bevel is there to fit into the cone-shaped bevel on the tail of the lure body. This was done so that the beveled front end would fit into the lure's bevel and thus mitigate the chance of grass and other debris from getting trapped and wrapped around the wire that the propeller spins around at the junction between the tail end of the lure body and the front end of the propeller shank. Even though I deliberately put those bevels in place I still experienced grass and that stringy river aglae wanting to wrap itself around the little propeller.

    Hope that made sense.

    HollowPoint

  5. #45
    Boolit Master
    1911sw45's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Princeton, KY
    Posts
    516
    From the cad drawing above. Which way is the prop pulled thru the water left to right or right to left?

  6. #46
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    SE Ohio
    Posts
    2,361
    I don't know the consistanly of your prop material or wire size in relation to hole on prop section. You might defeat any prop bind with a bushing through prop section. Like a piece of the extended nozzle that comes with a can of WD. On some I have used a buzz rivet in both ends of body to prevent bind.

  7. #47
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by 1911sw45 View Post
    From the cad drawing above. Which way is the prop pulled thru the water left to right or right to left?
    It rotates counter clockwise. This rotation with the previous version of my propeller caused the body of the lure to want to lean to the in the same direction that the prop was spinning. I'll have to wait and see what effect the little extension has to the spin on the propeller now. I just assembled and painted up one of the two newest Micro-Plopper lures. I'm just waiting for the clear coat to dry then I'll put the hooks onto it.

    I have a new roll of filament coming this week. I hope to make a couple more then I can head to the river for some more testing.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-02-2019 at 09:20 PM. Reason: spelling error

  8. #48
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by Drm50 View Post
    I don't know the consistanly of your prop material or wire size in relation to hole on prop section. You might defeat any prop bind with a bushing through prop section. Like a piece of the extended nozzle that comes with a can of WD. On some I have used a buzz rivet in both ends of body to prevent bind.
    That's a darn good idea. I never thought of that. I'll have to look around my stash of hobby junk to see if I can scrounge up something I can use. Since I'll be making a couple more of these lures for testing, if I can find something suitable I'll try making one utilizing that sleeve over my axle/wire.

    HollowPoint

  9. #49
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123

    Final Micro-Plopper Prototypes and Atom-Ploppers

    I finished assembling the second generation of prototypes last night. I'm fairly sure this will be it for these Micro-Plopper lures. I already know they'll catch fish so I just needed to refine the shape and adjust the internal weight I was using so that they run upright and straight in the water. Because I now glued the weight to the inside wall on the right side the lure now sits in the water with a slight clockwise tilt. This is to counteract the counterclockwise torque that the propeller imparts as it runs through the water. This was the solution I came up with to mitigate the counterclockwise lean that my first batch of prototypes was experiencing.

    I also took the plunge and scaled my models down a bit further to get to where originally wanted to be in terms of size for these tiny Whopper-Plopper knockoffs. Since I've named my first attempts at scaling down the Whopper-Plopper the Micro-Plopper, this smaller-still version will be called the Atom-Plopper. It's still a work in progress. I haven't yet figured out the exact amount of internal weight to add to get them to run true in the water as the propeller spins.

    The paint jobs are still on the laughable side but I've come to believe that the fish we catch with our fishing lures really don't care as much about paint scheme as the fishermen and women who use them.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-07-2019 at 11:30 AM. Reason: added a sentence

  10. #50
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    SE Ohio
    Posts
    2,361
    I have a farm pond two minutes from house for tests. When I'm in test stage I use the stick on wheel weights to balance plugs. Carry them and scissors to cut as needed or assortment of solder to wrap around hooks. When I get it right take off and weigh. Then add to plug body internally. Being that my plugs have been wood I drilled hole for weight and epoxied over.

  11. #51
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by Drm50 View Post
    I have a farm pond two minutes from house for tests. When I'm in test stage I use the stick on wheel weights to balance plugs. Carry them and scissors to cut as needed or assortment of solder to wrap around hooks. When I get it right take off and weigh. Then add to plug body internally. Being that my plugs have been wood I drilled hole for weight and epoxied over.
    You're a lucky man. I have to drive a 60 mile round trip to get to my closest real fishing area. I could drive to one of the local park-lakes that hold some fish but the fish in those park-lakes have been caught so many times that it's just not a fair evaluation for fishing lures. The closest city park-lake is only about 13 miles away.

    I think I got the weights in my Micro-Ploppers pretty well dialed in. I found that the weights that I initially added to the newer Atom-Ploppers was way off. By setting them in the kitchen sink full of water I found that with the .3 grains of weight I had originally calculated caused them to do a slow sink to the bottom on me. I made up a couple more of those same tiny lures and this time I put no additional weight in them at all. The weight of the Stainless steel wire, the split-rings and the hooks left them floating with the nose of the lures just above the water level. That level will still allow these lures to run at the right depth with the tiny propellers spinning. I'm not sure yet if the lack of added weight will allow the body of these tiny lures to torque over on their sides or not. I'll have to wait and see.

    Another possible pitfall of such tiny lures is the Ultra-Light weight of them. I think that weight hoovers around 1/8 of an ounce. With the six pound line I'm using it may make it difficult to cast them farther than a few feet or a couple of yards. If worse comes to worse I might be able to use them on a fly fishing rig; or, I could scale it up just enough to still keep them smaller than the Micro-Ploppers but large enough to be able to add just a bit of stabilizing weight that will allow for a touch more casting distance. I don't really want to go with lighter fishing line but that could be a possible remedy too. I don't really want to do that. My past experience either two or four pound test line is that it breaks to easy whenever I was lucky enough to latch onto anything bigger than frying pan sized fish.

    According to my postal scale the Micro-Plopper lures I caught that little bass with weighed in at 64 grains. I was able to cast that little lure out pretty far for such a small lure. When I weighed one of the first Atom-Plopper lures using that same postal scale it weighed in at 31 grains. That's almost half the weight of the Micro-Plopper but, that initial tiny lure had a small chunk of lead weight in it's belly.

    I hope to be able to get out later this week to test those Atom-Ploppers as well as the newest batch of Micro Ploppers. I'll have to wait and see if I can get away.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-12-2019 at 10:23 AM. Reason: word placement

  12. #52
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    I broke down the other day and I bought one of those Camera-Drones off of the Flea-bay website. (JJRC X9 Heron Drone) I got a real good deal on a little 250-plus dollar drone with two extra batteries that I had thoughts of using to video record some aerial shots of these little 3D printed lures in action. I paid 73-bucks for it and it was supposed to be here this week.

    I planned on playing around with it to figure out how best to use it to film my Micro-Plopper and Atom-Plopper lures when I went back out to do my second round of testing. The seller contacted me yesterday to tell me that there had been a snafu with his supplier and my newly purchased drone wouldn't be here till next week some time. I still hope to get out to the river later this week but if I do get the chance I'll have to do it without the drone camera. I'll still have the cheezy SunGlasses-Camera I used last time.

    I took the time to 3D print a type of Chest-Carry-Strap setup for those sunglasses so that it didn't get as much of the jerky head-movement I got from my last attempts at recording these lures in action. I think it should go a long way toward getting a steadier picture or video record of the lures in the water. The carry strap is based on the GoPro chest strap. I may have to modify that 3D printed Sun-Glass-Camera chest strap a bit to accommodate the incoming drone controller but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

    That's all I have to report for now. I just didn't want those following the progress of these 3D printed fishing lures to think that I had abandoned the project. I'll be back with updates after I've been able to get out to the river for more testing.

    HollowPoint

  13. #53
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    SE Ohio
    Posts
    2,361
    Sounds like you need a new UL rig. My rod was made from blank of a tip section of a Fenwick fly rod, reel is a Shakespear UL2500. The smallest reel I could find. I run premium 4lb line.

  14. #54
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by Drm50 View Post
    Sounds like you need a new UL rig. My rod was made from blank of a tip section of a Fenwick fly rod, reel is a Shakespear UL2500. The smallest reel I could find. I run premium 4lb line.
    I think you're absolutely right. I could use a "NEW" everything. I've had all six of my fishing rods and reels for at least fifteen or twenty years. The fishing line I use has been in my storage closet for at least half that time; maybe more. The other day I was looking at my fly rod that I've had since I was in my early twenties. It still has the original line I installed on the reel when I first got it. That line is now a permanent petrified green coil around that fly reel.

    No matter. I operate on the cheap side of life. All of my projects are budget project because of that. I figure that if folks can relate to my project it's because they may not have the funds to buy new or top of the line stuff. If I can do this being as cheap as I am then, I think just about anyone can do it too.

    If you look real close at the vid I inserted of my first test run of these lures, my ultra light fishing reel is held onto the rod with zip ties and electrical tape over that. It was a cheap plastic handled ultra-light rod to begin with. The slot into which the foot of the reel is held in place broke off one day so the zip ties and electrical tape was my fix for that problem. I could probably build me some new fishing rods using the individual components of all my old fishing rods but, what for? The old beat up ones I'm using now still work.

    If I can't get my smaller Atom-Plopper 3D printed lures to cast well I may break down and order some cheap 4lb test line online. I'm not really worried about it at this point. I'm just happy to be able to make my own lures and fish them with success on cheap patched up fishing gear. When I see the price of the latest and greatest fishing rods, reels and tackle it makes me even happier. It's the same way with my cast bullets. I can get them to shoot just as good as store bought bullets AND I made them myself. Life is good. I hope that didn't come off sounding to smug. I was just trying to say that all my beat up old fishing gear still works for me.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-17-2019 at 11:01 PM.

  15. #55
    Boolit Master

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    NC Arkansas
    Posts
    1,394
    Old line is not something you should keep. I wanted a Johnson Silver Minnow spoon for several years, finally got one. On my first cast it went about 70 feet, with 50 feet of line following it. There was no retrieving it from the shale pit I was fishing in.
    Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.

  16. #56
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    SE Ohio
    Posts
    2,361
    Problem is you can't buy new. I've looked at a dozen UL reels and can't find a good one. Mine is 4.5oz no bells and whistles. I repaired reels for 30yrs and 99% of reels on market are not worth repairing. I made my own rod to get what I wanted. Today they factory make about anything a guy could want. I use Trilene moderate price mono 4lb. Cast 1/8oz out of the park, 1/16oz 25yd with no effort. ( rod is Fenglass)

  17. #57
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Quote Originally Posted by ulav8r View Post
    Old line is not something you should keep. I wanted a Johnson Silver Minnow spoon for several years, finally got one. On my first cast it went about 70 feet, with 50 feet of line following it. There was no retrieving it from the shale pit I was fishing in.
    I've had that happen to me before. Luckily it was with a fishing lure I had found on the river bank. It still sucked but it wasn't a financial loss of any kind.

    I have about a half dozen of my Micro-Plopper lures made up and four of the Atom-Ploppers. I'm not a math wiz but I figure that my fishing line can break on me no more than ten times before I'll have to print and assemble some more lures.

    Here In AZ about October, November, December the rivers and canals get stopped up for maintenance purposes so the water levels go down enough to access any lost lures that happen to be among the rocks, laydowns or whatever. As kids we would look forward to this cause we couldn't afford to buy fishing lures ourselves so these were the times of the year when we'd have a chance to go to the rivers and lakes in search of fishing lures that had been snagged and lost underwater by fisherman who had the misfortune of loosing their favorite lures.

    I still have some of those lures I found as a kid in my tackle box. I may even have one of those Johnson Silver Minnows from back then. I'll check and see. I rarely ever use spoon lures. When I do it's usually the cheaper DareDevil spoons with the red and white stripes on them.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-17-2019 at 11:19 PM. Reason: misspelling

  18. #58
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    SE Ohio
    Posts
    2,361
    I forgot to mention for making small bushings & washers out of plastic, thin soft metals and fibers a cheap sheet metal punch set world well. They have a centering tip on the punch that will automatically give you center point. Once it's used on sheet metal it won't work on the softer materials. On some soft plastics they won't cut clean even new. I have bought a cheap set at a flea market off a guy hawking Chinese tools for $7. They are like a large pair of pliers with a set of punches and matching dies. I have used them with shim brass to make bushings for hammers in Ruger 10/22s, reel bushings and many other DIY projects around the house.

    I take apart all kinds of everyday items and save interesting parts. Gas valves and relays out of HVac stuff has all kinds of small bushings and parts. Sewing machines are another good source.
    I have a 60 drawer organizer full of neat little odd parts. My first attempt at Buzzers back before they were a big deal were made of thin brass contacters out of Bell Telephone switch board.

  19. #59
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    Initially I planned on using shrunk down shrink tubing as my beads or bushings. That didn't pan out for me cause even the smallest diameter shrink tubing wouldn't shrink down enough to give me the minimal slop or play I needed between my stainless steel wire and the little propellers I made to smoothly spin around that wire.

    I happen to have a set of cheap Harbor Freight hole punches so I used them to punch out washers using milk jug bottle-tops. I would first drill a hole through the plastic then center my smallest punch around the tiny hole. I never could get them perfectly centered but even when I got lucky and managed to come close enough to center the outside diameter of my tiny plastic washers with the even tinier drilled hole, after installing those meticulously made little washers I found that they still would not facilitate a smooth rotation of my propellers around that short length of stainless steel wire.

    By shear dumb luck I discovered I could use the insulation off of some electrical wiring I had in my junk box. I was stripping the insulation off the copper wire to use as my wire-template for bending the stainless wire to the correct lengths and curves. I pulled a piece of that insulation off of the thin strands of copper wired it held inside and noticed that the thru-hole that the wire was encased in was about the exact sized I needed to slip over the stainless steel wire I was using for this project.

    I never did break down and buy the dedicated tiny rotation-bearing-beads that most experienced doityourselfers might use so I took a razor blade and cut off a very short length of the electrical wire insulation, slipped it over my stainless steel wire to use it as my bead and it worked. You can see what I'm talking about in one or two of the pics I've already uploaded to this thread.

    I too have a drawer full of odd ball parts I've collected over time. They are in no particular order. These random parts and do-hickies are all thrown into the same drawer. To the untrained eye it's just a drawer full of junk. To the home tinkerer it's a treasure chest full of stuff that might be needed at some point in time. OK yea, it's a drawer full of junk parts but, it becomes treasure when you find that you sorely needed one of those junk parts for something or other.

    On a side note: The camera drone I ordered off of the Flea-Bay site arrived and I was all ready to head to the river after a few test flights in the back yard. When I opened up the box I found that I had been sent the wrong drone. It turns out that I had become a hapless purchaser of a "Bait-N-Switch" seller on the Flea-Bay site so now I'm having to go back and forth with this seller to get this resolved. I still plan to do my second round of tests in the coming days but things on the home front have demanded my attention so I've not been able to get out there like I planned.

    All is not lost though. It's just a matter of time before I finish what I hope will be my next round of testing. I have high hopes. Because the Atom-Plopper version of my home made 3D printed fishing lure is so light, I had envisioned using that drone I mentioned to carry one of these tiny Atom-Plopper lures out beyond the distance that I could cast it, drop it in the water and then record it as I reeled it back in; but alas, this was not to be; at least not this time around.

    I'll be back.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 09-28-2019 at 06:05 PM. Reason: grammer and spelling

  20. #60
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    What the world calls "Global Warming", we in Arizona call "Summer Time."
    Posts
    2,123
    WOW; I can't believe that this 3D printed Micro-Plopper project has gotten over twenty-five-hundred views. Since this is mainly a bullet casting forum I thought the interest in such things would be minimal at best.

    I can't remember if I mentioned this in any of my previous post on this thread but, in April of this year I had a teenager crash his momma's car though my back yard fence. He managed to take out a good part of the fence that was facing the street and since it was an old wooden fence the impact of that car also took out a fair portion of the fence that separates my back yard neighbor from my place. The jarring that the rear-most fence row took allowed it to stay standing but just barely. I'd been putting off those repairs for when the weather cooled down a bit. Now with slightly cooler weather I have no more excuses I can use to put it off any longer.

    I mention this because it's this fence repair that has kept me from being able to get out to the river and do that second round of testing on my latest batch of 3D Printed Micro-Plopper and Atom-Plopper lures. I should have that work done by the end of this weekend so I'm shooting for next week some time that I can get out to the river for testing.

    I just thought I'd mention all of this because after 2500 views I didn't want you all to think that this project had somehow tanked after all was said and done and I just didn't want to share such bad news with you. I already know these lures will work. I just want to confirm that this latest bunch of 3D Printed lures will also work, then I can call this project successfully completed.

    Thanks for your patience. I'm still here. I'm just tied up at the moment. I'll be back.

    HollowPoint
    Last edited by HollowPoint; 10-04-2019 at 07:12 PM. Reason: spelling and grammer

Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check