Do 3D Printed Fishing Lures Count As Special Projects?

[HollowPoint]

I know this is a basically a guns and shooting forum so if special projects involving fishing lures is a bit off base I won't tie up any bandwidth talking about my next project.

It's a 3D printed lure based on the popular "Whopper-Plopper" bass fishing lure. I'm making a micro version for my ultralight setup.

Let me know.

HollowPoint

[KMac]

Well I would like to see it. Throw some pictures up and show us what you are creating.

[HollowPoint]

I've actually already printed out two prototypes. I only had white ABS filament on hand so I used that . Fortunately it turned out for the best cause my 3D printer's resolution isn't the greatest. These small prints came out with very poor areas of surface finish.

I was able to dribble some super-glue on the effected areas and then sprinkle some baking-soda on them. The baking-soda was a good color match for the white ABS plastic filament. All it took after that was a bit of smoothing out with some light sandpaper. They will be painted before I assemble them so even if my super-glue patch work didn't match it wouldn't have mattered much.

Right now I'm just waiting on some small treble hooks I ordered online. I went down to the hardware store this morning to pick up some thin stainless steel wire for the rest of the assembly parts. I'm sure some more tweaks will be needed to my CAD models before all is said and done. As you can see from these CAD-Renderings I posted below, there is always room for improvement.

I suspect that I may have to incorporate some type of small weight near the bottom center of mass on the main bodies of my Micro-Plopper lures, just to keep them in the correct position as they're being pulled through the water with that small single bladed propeller spinning as it moves forward. The reason I didn't include that small weight in these first prototypes is because I was thinking that there is a chance that the centrally mounted treble hooks and the accompanying split-ring and wire-eye may be enough weight to do the job. I'll have to wait and see.

I bought a cheap Whopper-Plopper knock off from a Chinese seller on fleabay and when I tried it out the entire body would spin in the water. I've had to modify it with a bit of weight to make it track as it's supposed to. My authentic Whopper Plopper lure runs flawlessly as it is.

The two 3D printed prototypes measure approximately 1 1/2" long x 1/2 wide x 3/4" tall for one. The other is slightly larger at about 1 3/4" long by 3/4" wide by about an inch tall. Both of these prototypes when assembled will be about a third or smaller than the smallest store-bought Whopper-Plopper lure; and a fraction of the cost. I fish mainly with ultralight tackle and the smallest store bought Whopper Plopper; the one they consider to be ultra light, is still on the heavy side for me.


HollowPoint

[KMac]

Hollowpoint,
That looks really good. Really cool that you can make yourself a lure in a size that isn't available from the store. I really need to get me a 3d printer. If it isn't too much trouble keep us informed on how it progresses. I am really impressed.

[HollowPoint]

Thanks KMac:

I'm waiting on some small treble hooks to arrive from china. They should get here next week some time but that's just the estimated time of arrival. I've ordered stuff from Chinese vendors before and sometimes they get here fairly quickly and other times I could swear the seller just waited for someone in their family to make the trek to the United States so they just hand them the package of whatever and say, "And could you drop this off while you're there?"

Those longer wait time involve packing the small package in a suit case or backpack, sailing over seas on cargo ships, through Mexico and finally into Arizona where I live. I'm hoping they get here next week. I'll post an update when they get here after I have my lures all assembled. I'll probably put them in the kitchen sink just to see if they stay balanced while standing still as they float. Then I'll figure out a way of testing them in a slightly larger pool of water (like he bathtub or a rain puddle) before making the long trek to the river.

It's a good thirty-five miles one way to the local fishing spot and I'd hate to drive all that way only to find that my 3d printed lures didn't track in the water as I'd hoped.

I'll be back.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

Well, I got my lures partially assembled and then I realized I still needed to get hold of some tiny split-rings in order to attach the little treble hooks. I also need some stiffer stainless steel wire and a small bead to act as bearing to facilitate the rotation of the propeller. I'm working with ultra-ultra-light 3D printed lures so I can't have to much weight or they'll sink on me or float just below the surface. I need them to float with the body of the lure at least mid-line to the surface of the water. Right now it looks Like I'll be able to meet that goal but with every additional component I add to them I'm afraid it may be the tipping point; or, I should say, sinking point.

Here's a couple more photos to give you an idea what I'm shooting for. They still need a bit more smoothing out but they're close enough to the CAD renderings I uploaded earlier. The real prints still need a bit a work to get them to look like the pristine looking CAD renderings do.

I came across a YouTube video posted by a guy who builds fishing lures as a YouTube job, so to speak. It gave me an idea for a slightly different design that may simplify things for me. The 3D Printed lure in the center of both the pics below shows what I'm talking about.

My treble hooks came in and they look good. Now I need to wait for the stiffer wire and the split rings to show up.

HollowPoint

[woodbutcher]

[smilie=s: Hi hollowpoint.If you have a hobby shop locally,they just might have the stiffer wire that you can use.Especially if they sell model building supplies for RC or Ucontrol planes.It`s stainless wire.If there is a Hobby Lobby you just hit the jackpot.Oh yeah.That wire comes in 3ft lengths too.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[Drm50]

I'm into same project myself but no 3D hand whittled. If you go to this trouble buy some good trebles, China is junk. I would say .031 is smallest SS wire for this job. Unless you are going into production small units of both split rings and wire are avaible from any of the tackle component distributors. So are decent hooks, EC, VMC or Mustad aren't that expensive. I use to be in the business and can tell you scaling up a lure is easy, going smaller is aways the challenge. They can look perfect and do nothing. Top waters more fore giving.

[bdicki]

https://www.jannsnetcraft.com/wire-lure-shafts/320609.aspx#FullDescription
https://www.jannsnetcraft.com/fishing-lure-beads/

[HollowPoint]

Thanks for the input everyone. I actually ordered the items I mentioned in my previous post shortly after making that last post. I keep some expendable hobby funds in a PayPal account so it makes it convenient to order small amounts of stuff when I need it.

I found the right kind of stainless wire as well as tiny split-rings. The wire I bought from Ace hardware was a bit on the soft side and appeared to be in an annealed state. The one thing I couldn't find online were those very small beads with a hole down the middle to use as a type of roller-bearing for my little propeller to rotate against. I'll probably just use some electrical shrink-wrap shrunk down to the right inside hole diameter. (two or three layers one on top of the other) this should do just as well and as an added bonus it will minimize any additional weight that a metal or even a plastic bead might have added.

While I'm waiting on that stuff to get here I'm also trying to figure out a better material to use for the little propeller on these tiny lures. The 3D printed propellers pictured in my photos are rotating just fine but they're printed rather thin which makes them kind of brittle. I notice that on my store-bought Whopper-Plooper lure and the Chinese knockoff of this same lure design the tail rotor is made of a clear and more flexible material. I suspect that this is to avoid breakage if or when a fish's bite force clamps down on it. The factory propeller has a little give to it rather than snapping clean off.

I have no plans of mass producing these. As I stated in one of my other posts, I'm making them for my own personal use; just because I like fishing with ultra-light lures, rods and reals.

HollowPoint

[country gent]

look at mig and tig welding wire , Mig is in a spool and tig is straight lengths.

[HollowPoint]

look at mig and tig welding wire , Mig is in a spool and tig is straight lengths.

Never thought of that. I actually have a mig welder and I have a spare spool of wire in my storage room somewhere. My reason for wanting stainless steel is hopefully it will mitigate the rust factor. I don't know much about the composition of this type of welding wire so it may be fine. I do know that the plastic components of my home made lures will be the weak link in all of this so if I were fortunate enough to get a good fish on, I know the wire can take the strain but those thin walled plastic components are another thing all together.

If my wire develops rust that I hadn't detected over time that too may become a weak link.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

While I've been waiting on my newly ordered split-rings and my stainless steel Wire-Eyes to arrive, I drew up a CAD model for a 3D printed Mold for casting the little Micro-Plopper propellers. I cast my fourth propeller today and three out of the four are exactly what I was hoping for.

The little 3D printed propellers I had printed up before had a couple of things working against them. For one, they had no buoyancy. Even though they were tiny little parts they would sink; and with the treble hook, the split-ring, the spinning bead and stainless steel wire they would have surely caused my Micro-Plopper lure to sink.

Another thing that was a problem in the making was the fact that those little 3D printed propellers were -of necessity- printed very thin. This made them prone to breakage if or when a fish bit down on them. If one of those 3D printed propellers were to have broken after being installed, I would have surely destroyed the little lure if I had tried to replace the propeller.

It took me about six failed casts with this mold to finally get the mixing and pouring routine down. Once I figured that out I was able to get each successive casting to come out useable. I had some casting urethane left over from my air-gun piston-seal project so I just used that. It has just the right amount of elasticity that if or when a fish bites down on one of my cast urethane Micro-Plopper propellers there will be less of a chance of them breaking. If by chance they do break over time I can simply cast another, cut some small slits in the shank of the propeller and since they have some elasticity I can just cut the broken one off and slip another one onto the stainless wire.

A side benefit of these cast urethane Micro-Plopper propellers is that when I mixed the casting ingredients together I got a ton of microscopic bubbles that formed. On the Air-Gun Piston-Seal project this was a problem but for this Cast-Propeller project it turned out to be beneficial because these little propellers now have some buoyancy to them. This will help counteract the sinking effect of the hooks and split-rings.

I took some photos of my new Micro-Plopper propeller mold and castings but I haven't had a chance to edit them for uploading. I'll be able to do that tomorrow.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

This is some of the problems you run into when scaling down. The weight ratio of parts is critical on UL lures.
Even on small diving lures with lips if they are scaled off bigger model they usually work poorly or just track on the line. The outfit that makes Rooster tails sells, or use to sell a floating spinner that had a small floating body that had dual props made of flexible rubber like stiff inner tube material that floated. It was one of the ideas I was thinking on for my wooden model. I know nothing of 3D but one guy that has 3 printers is heavy into Drones and he showed me props he printed for them. They weren't brittle.

[HollowPoint]

There are alot of different 3D print filaments one can use. Some of them are more resistant to breaking -or sinking in water- than others. I would have loved to able to print out those little propellers using some filament called TPU. It has the consistency of rubber and if I'm not mistaken it comes in different colors.

My problem is that my 3d printer isn't the greatest. It's just good enough to get decent but not great prints. On really small prints like the components of this Micro-Plopper lure, the resolution of my printer just isn't quite up to snuff. I do the best I can with what I have to work with though. It seems to get me by. I'll be back with those photos later.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

On several UL lures I've made I had to do away with the rear treble to get them to work. Also I was buying EC standard trebles for everything. Then I realized the wire hooks were less than half the weight of the forged hooks. A considerable weight difference when used on UL lures. They also sell a treble that can be attached without a split ring. They are more expensive but saves a little more weight. Double hooks are also available that require no split ring. All this may be the reason WP doesn't put out a UL model. The production of them might not lend itself to their methods of construction.

[HollowPoint]

My stainless steel wire eyes showed up yesterday but now I hear that my split rings won't be here till the 30th of this month. No matter; while I'm waiting I can concentrate on other aspects of this Micro-Plopper project.

Since this a budget project like nearly every project I've ever done, I use what I have on hand whenever possible. Fortunately I've had most of the stuff I've needed on hand with the exception of the treble hooks, the split-rings and the stainless steel wire. While I wait for the rest to arrive I'll focus on the best angles to bend my wire so as to have any fish-load-bearing weight directed mainly on the wire and minimally on the body of the lure.

Below is a photo of the 3D printed casting mold for the little Micro-Plopper propellers. It's seems that I got all the dimensions right on the first try. I don't know if that was just dumb-luck or if I'm actually getting the hang of drawing up my models. I did a couple more photos besides this one but the others were far to blurry to be salvaged. I was in to much in a hurry again when I snapped them. If you look closely you can see the multitude of air-bubbles I mentioned that had formed inside each of those little cast propellers.

As they are now it's easy to see that they are not as pristine looking as the CAD renderings I uploaded earlier. I'll focus more on the fit and finish of these little lures once I've assembled and tested them. No sense in using up alot of time on something that in the end, doesn't perform as intended.

HollowPoint

[Handloader109]

HollowPoint, they look pretty good. Oh, the ABS can be chemically smoothed if you want a really smooth surface. I think Acetone vapor is what is recommended. I've not printed any ABS, just PLA and PETG. The TPU I've got works ok, but prints really really slow and it doesn't really smooth well either. Better to use your mold.

[HollowPoint]

HollowPoint, they look pretty good. Oh, the ABS can be chemically smoothed if you want a really smooth surface. I think Acetone vapor is what is recommended. I've not printed any ABS, just PLA and PETG. The TPU I've got works ok, but prints really really slow and it doesn't really smooth well either. Better to use your mold.

I have used acetone to smooth out the cavities of my 3D printed molds. I didn't have any success by just exposing my prints to vapor so what I ended up doing was to carefully sand the walls of the cavities as smooth as I could get them without altering their dimension and then just pour the acetone directly onto those surfaces. When I've done a good job sanding, pouring the acetone directly onto the surfaces has given me glass-like surface finishes. It's kind of tricky to do it this way but it's the only way I've gotten my critical surface areas to smooth out. Oddly; when the acetone hits the ABS plastic surfaces it tends to swell the dimensions in those particular areas that I've sanded so whatever amount I sanded off will generally grow back a certain amount. Then it's just a matter of letting the acetone dry.

I wasn't to concerned about perfect finishes with this particular project. If it pans out for me then I'll make an effort to get better finishes from my 3D prints. I may order specifically colored ABS filament so that I don't have to do any painting but I want to make sure they're going to track through the water correctly as the little tail rotor spins. I have a full sized Chinese knockoff Whopper Plopper lure that the entire lure would spin in the water if I reeled it in to fast. I had to add some weight to it to get it to track correctly without spinning. I want to get all of my weights and balances just right so that this doesn't happen with this little Micro-Plopper lure.

I have a small test roll of TPU in black that I wanted to try out printing some Ultra light Top-Water frog lures. That's another scaled down lure design that I've been waiting on lure manufactures to start making but they haven't yet. They probably never will either. I haven't tried printing with TPU but it's on my "Things To Do" list.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

I got some feed back from one of the 3D nuts. He isn't a fisherman but threw another idea out. He is talking about printing the main body as two shells to be glued together. I like the idea because you could form the wire so it would be locked and would stop any tendacy for plug to rotate on wire. Also form dropper for front hook all with one wire. I have some little C clamps he printed and surfaces are smooth. As far as finish all I want is black which he says can be the color of the material. I can put eyes on and be done. Fancy finishes aren't my dept. and my paint guy is in a rest home.

[HollowPoint]

I got some feed back from one of the 3D nuts. He isn't a fisherman but threw another idea out. He is talking about printing the main body as two shells to be glued together. I like the idea because you could form the wire so it would be locked and would stop any tendacy for plug to rotate on wire. Also form dropper for front hook all with one wire. I have some little C clamps he printed and surfaces are smooth. As far as finish all I want is black which he says can be the color of the material. I can put eyes on and be done. Fancy finishes aren't my dept. and my paint guy is in a rest home.

I can't believe it! You won't believe it. Last night I started drawing up some plans based on that very thing. I spent this morning on the internet looking for the best way to laminate the two halves together once I have them printed up.

One of the things that brought that idea about for me was the frustration I encountered trying to bend my wire at just the right angles. In bending the wire I had to overlap the wire in certain places so it created a situation where the inletting or slots that I modeled on the undersides of my lure-bodies then became a bit to narrow for the wire to fit into. I did eventually get it to work after putting together a make-shift wiring-bending jig but still, the fact that I had to overlap certain spots of those bends made it difficult to slip my wire forms up into place.

I took some photos of this and I'll try to post them either tomorrow or next Monday some time. I did also get enough wire bent into the right angles to fit them into the three prototypes I've been working with. I'll post photos of that too.

Funny how different folks can come up with the same ideas like this. I've decided to break down and order some colored ABS filament for this follow up iteration of my Micro-Plopper lure bodies. I'm thinking of getting something in an orange color so that all I have to do is shoot some cheap spray paint on the upper backs to get them to look a bit more fishy with the undersides a little more flashy.

Although I seem to be having enough buoyancy with my lure bodies as they originally printed, I think that printing two halves and then gluing them together should give me just a bit more floatability even if I make the walls of the lure just a bit thicker than they are now. The thickness of my existing 3D printed Micro-Plopper lure bodies was also of some concern to me. The thinner the walls, the more prone to breakage.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

I'm at total loss on this 3D stuff, I know nothing. One guy is telling me halves can be "sonically welded" instead of glued. I thought the materials were color coded I didn't realize they came in colors. On the strength of the body, I bought plastic lure bodies years ago from Herters that came in halves. They had reinforcement ribs molded into them and had nub on one that snapped in hole on other. I'm going to bring that up with 3D guys.
Also for prop have scarfed up a screw prop off a toy boat that looks like it could be the model for the prop.
The wire form tool I just made will make exact duplicates. I do have to make a index plate and locating pin to finish it. I have several different hand held wire form tools but it's hard to make exact duplicates with them. I'm thinking .041 at the minimum to hold up without deforming when you have fish on.

[HollowPoint]

It sounds like you're making good headway. Regarding the propellers; the ones I printed up initially were just your basic angled propellers and they seemed to work real well in the water. They spun reliably when I placed them on a thin straight wire and just pulled them along by hand in the water. Then I got to looking closer at the propeller of my store-bought Whopper-Plopper lure.

I noticed that the propeller of the store-bought lure had more of a cup-shape to it; like the cup of a hand. It was that "Cup" shape that really caused the plopping sound as the propeller spun all the way around and re-entered the water. This was when I re-drew my model of the propeller to look more like the CAD models I posted in one of my previous posts; and ultimately it was the same shape I used to make the 3D printed mold to cast the little urethane propellers.

I'm finding that there so many different ways to design and make up such lures that if I don't stick to the designs I've started I can easily drift off into so many different ways that I'll never get this project done.

For example, as I was figuring out the correct angles to bend my wire I started with some thin copper wire for ease of bending. I got it out of some old electrical wiring I had laying around. During the course of that wire-bend testing I discovered that I could use the insulation from that electrical wire as my bead-bearing that fits behind the propeller. It was an ultra simple solution to take the place of having to make those little bead-bearing out of some other materials. I just slip a short length of the insulation off of the copper wire and then cut it into tiny lengths. It already had a hole down the middle that was the prefect diameter.

Things are looking up. I'm hoping to have these lures assembled by next weekend so I can run my first tests.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

The prop is what I look at as the main problem. The body is just a float for props benifit. If I get it whipped the rest of plug can be made many ways. In other words the prop is the lure. I looked back at past lures for similar props and only fairly recent popular lures using one blade props were Arbogast. The surface lures used Alumilum and sinkers were brass. All in line on wire in front of lure. My concern is how much bother I'm going to put on 3D guys to trail & error the prop.

[HollowPoint]

There are different ways to go about designing or acquiring the little propeller for your specific lures. I don't want to come off sounding like I know it all because the fact is I know very little about designing fishing lures. I'm working off of the tiny bit that I do know from all of my trial and error methods of learning about designing in general.

If I were looking for the easiest way to go about designing an appropriately shaped propeller I would do what I always do before putting alot of time and effort into my projects. I do an internet search of "Free CAD models" of whatever component I'm needing. On the Thingyverse website 3Der's will upload their models for fishing lures, hooks, propellers of various kinds, etc.. Just create an account for free and download the sample CAD model. Alot of times the download includes the modeling files or the STL files that can go straight to the 3D printer for printing.

Back when I was drawing up models for the adjustable rear peep sight for my air guns I was directed to the McMaster Carr website. They sell all kinds of hardware items. Many of their hardware items include the SolidWorks files that can be downloaded for free so you can incorporate the hardware they sell with the models your drawing up. It saved me alot of the time it would have taken me to also draw up nuts and bolts and other small components.

I mention this because if you can find an already modeled propeller with the SolidWorks or other CAD software files included, you're on your way to being done. Even if the propeller files you come across look like what you're after but they are sized for a something much larger, in theory you can scale it down within the CAD software to suit your needs. Some of the 3D printing "Slicer" software also has the ability to scale down a model to be printed. If it's two or three bladed propeller you can remove all but the one lone propeller to get what you're after.

I'm starting to ramble on now so I'll stop here.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

All that hi tech is Greek to me. I did all my design work for machinery and such on a drawing board with a pencil scales and a thing called a slide rule. I will pass the info to the 3D guys but they probably know that stuff. I don't want to run them off. I wish I had 3D connections to a died in wool fisherman that had the stuff these guys do.

[HollowPoint]

There is such a bunch of guys with a website offering a dedicated software for those who want to build their own fishing lures. It's called LureBuilder.

https://www.wellinglures.com/builder/edit

Go to the YouTube site and punch that into the search feature. If I'm not mistaken you can use their software to design your own lures and they'll make them for you and in some cases they'll even convert the CAD files to STL files so you can get your 3D printing friends to print out your designs for you. This same software designer may even offer to make the lure you design. I'm not really sure. I just skimmed over their web pages. I usually just work at my project alone. It may take a bit longer to get them done by when I do get them done I can say I did it myself.

HollowPoint

[Texas by God]

My cousin by marriage had one leg amputated last year. He has gotten into 3D printing so much that he has built two machines already. He is currently building one large enough to print himself a prosthetic leg(he hates the one he got at the VA hospital). He is a Large man and quite the character. He is a Vietnam combat veteran and many of his problems are Agent Orange related. Sorry for the thread drift.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[HollowPoint]

My cousin by marriage had one leg amputated last year. He has gotten into 3D printing so much that he has built two machines already. He is currently building one large enough to print himself a prosthetic leg(he hates the one he got at the VA hospital). He is a Large man and quite the character. He is a Vietnam combat veteran and many of his problems are Agent Orange related. Sorry for the thread drift.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

No problem for me. I too have a relative who is a Vietnam vet with "Agent Orange" related problems. I hope that 3D printed prosthetic leg works out. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't. I've see some marvelous stuff printed up online, including prosthetics.

I hope to be back later today to upload those pics of my 3D printed fishing lures. I got a chance to assemble and paint them yesterday so I'm ready to test them now. The paint jobs are laughable but no matter, I've seen some of the stupidest looking lures catch fish. I just want to test to see if they track through the water correctly as the propeller is spinning.

HollowPoint

[SSGOldfart]

Well I would like to see it. Throw some pictures up and show us what you are creating.

Same here at least let us drool!!!!!!

[HollowPoint]

I got a few of the different iterations all assembled. Each has a slightly different size to it. I wanted to see for myself which appeared to be optimum in terms of size and shape. They'll all work but some of the considerations I had was, given that they are so light weight, will I be able to cast them out far enough to do me any good?

Will they track through the water in an upright position even with the propeller spinning behind them. The mid-sized samples are cast-able but it turns out that the weight of the hooks and the split-rings were not quite enough to keep them from wanting to turn onto their sides as a result of the torque that the small propeller was imparting.

They all had enough buoyancy to float at the right depth when I crimped a small .177 cal pellet onto the center hook-eye. I tested them with this added weight and they tracked almost perfectly, even with the propeller spinning behind them. What this means now is that my latest iterations will have this added weight added to the inside of the lure before the two halves are glued together. That should solve the only problem that was keeping these 3D printed Micro-Plopper lures from performing as I'd hoped they would.

Here are a few more pics of my latest CAD models of what I think will be the optimum size for this Mirco-Plopper lure. (1 1/4" long X .66" tall) I also included an incredibly blurry photo of an actual Whopper Plopper, a Chinese knockoff Plopper, and one of my 3D printed Micro-Plopper lures floating in a bucket of water so you could see that compared to the original, my 3D printed lure is darn near at the same float level. Believe it or not, that was by design.

So now what I have to do with these already assembled Micro-Plopper lures is to drill a small hole near the center-bottom of the bodies and glue that extra little bit of weight to them so they'll track through the water correctly. I hope to be able to take them out this weekend some time to see if they do any good.

By the way; you have my permission to laugh at my paint jobs of these lures. I wasn't really concerned to much about how they look at this point. I just want them to run through the water in a similar manner to the original full sized Whopper Plopper.

HollowPoint

[Good Cheer]

No split rings yet?
Reason for my asking is that I'm collecting materials to duplicate the lures my grandfather used back around Eisenhower's presidency. About like a green pencil with props. :smile:

[HollowPoint]

No split rings yet?
Reason for my asking is that I'm collecting materials to duplicate the lures my grandfather used back around Eisenhower's presidency. About like a green pencil with props. :smile:

The split-rings I ordered showed up the day before yesterday. I ordered the smallest size I could get. I think they are #0. I was hoping that tiny amount of added weight to my Micro lures would be enough to help my lures to track upright in the water but as it turns out I needed a bit more weight. That's all be taken care of now.

I ended up drilling some shallow 1/8" holes at the bottoms of all my prototypes and super-gluing a small cylinder of lead into those holes. That should be good enough to testing purposes. I thought if I cannibalized one of my existing ultra-light lures and took the slightly larger treble hooks of it and used them as replacements for the ultra tiny treble hooks I'd ordered before that might be enough weight to center my lures in the water. It wasn't enough though; I still had to add that 8 grains of lead to the bottom-centers of all my 3D printed Micro-Lures.

I ordered all of the stuff I needed off of the fleabay website. I wanted to just get what I needed without having to buy hundreds and hundreds of something I only needed a few of. I'm ready for some official river testing now.

HollowPoint.

[HollowPoint]

I got a chance to get out to the river this morning to do some official testing of my 3D Printed Micro-Plopper lures. I took a total of six of them with me ranging from the earlier prototypes to a couple of the latest prototypes.

I found that with the earlier configurations, pulling them on a string through a bucket of water was not quite the same as reeling them in from a ten or fifteen yard cast into the river. With the earlier prototypes, the faster I reeled them in the more they wanted to tilt over on their sides. With the second set of prototypes, the ones with the wider or taller top to bottom profiles I found that they performed really well.

The third set of prototypes also tended to want to tilt over onto their sides if I reeled them in faster than just a slow retrieve. That was a shame cause those latest prototypes were the ones I felt were optimum in shape and size. They worked fine as long as I reeled them in at a slow pace. If they would have gotten caught up in the river current they most likely would have spun around and round along with the little propellers.

I was elated when I tried one out of that second set of prototypes. It confirmed my suspicions about a Micro-Plopper being a good idea for those fishermen who like to fish with ultra-light tackle. I was really happy when that little Micro-Plopper lure took the hit from little bass. The little bass wasn't to much bigger than the little lure but, it was a fish; and that little fish put my little 3D Printed Lure on the score board.

I got one other hit with that same little Micro-Plopper lure but I wasn't able to connect and bring it in so, I guess that one doesn't count. Even though it didn't count it did confirm to me that my little Micro-Plopper lure would work.

I also tried my luck at trout fishing while I was there. I used a Rooster-Tail spinner for that though. There too, I got about a half dozen good hits but I got nothing to show for it. I wasn't able to set the hook well enough to bring them in.

I did take my goofy looking SunGlasses-Mounted video camera so I was able to record the fish I caught. I also recorded the fish that hit but got away. I just have to edit that footage down to a small enough size to be able upload to my YouTube account for show and tell.

I'll be back once I get that video uploaded.

HollowPoint

[jcren]

I am following this because I am impressed with your work and would love one of those little spinners, I don't even claim expertise, but you might try a hard plastic jewel bead as a prop stop/bearing to reduce torque. Used to use those little translucent beads from the craft store for inline spinners.

[HollowPoint]

I am following this because I am impressed with your work and would love one of those little spinners, I don't even claim expertise, but you might try a hard plastic jewel bead as a prop stop/bearing to reduce torque. Used to use those little translucent beads from the craft store for inline spinners.

I did look into those beads you're referring to but the smallest ones they sold were still a bit to large for this size lure. If I'm not mistaken they measured 3mm in diameter. They also had brass beads that were slightly smaller but my reason for not getting those had to do with weight. I was afraid that even though the brass beads were smaller than the smallest plastic bead it still might weigh more than the plastic bead. Now that I've found my cast urethane propellers to be buoyant the weight of those tiny brass beads may be a non-issue. Another type of bead that comes to mind for this application would be those tiny little beads you see in Navajo Indian bead work. Those are really tiny beads. I'll look into it further.

I know now what issues I need to address to get my 3D Printed Micro-Plopper lures to perform as I think they should. I think all it will take is a bit of scaling up of the height of the main body of the lure. This should improve not only the overall buoyancy but will also counteract the tendency for these tiny lures to want to lean in the direction that the propeller is spinning. On the last iterations of my Micro-Plopper lure I actually installed my lead weight inside the lure so there was no unnecessary drag as it tracked through the water. It helped alot but not enough to allow me to reel the lure in any faster than a slow pace. An interesting side-note is that my store bought Whopper-Plopper also tends to tilt in the direction that the propeller is spinning if I reel it in fast.

Another tweak to counteract the torque that the propeller is imparting onto the body of my lure will be to incorporate a small chamfer on the front right leading edge of the lure. It only has to be a very slight chamfer. This will steer the resistance of the water as the lure cuts through that water off to the right side of the lure to mitigate some of that torque caused by the propeller.

I've also revamped the geometry of my little propeller as well. I took a closer look that the propeller of my store bought Whopper-Plopper lure and found that on the factory Whopper-Plopper propeller the actual blade doesn't just stick out from the side of the propeller shank like my home made propellers do. The factory prop-blade actually begins at the front-most end of the shank and sort of flows backward into an ark which curves outward to form what we see as the propeller. As the water that the lure is cutting through flows backward, it's guided along that ark toward the cup in the propeller and forces the propeller to spin true. It's hard to picture in one's mind so I'll try to remember to post a pic of my new CAD rendering of the changes I've made to my propeller. Since my home made propellers just stick nearly straight out from the propeller shank, they do spin nicely but they also create resistance to the water flow at the outer edge of the propeller which imparts a deflection force on the propeller shank bringing it out of alignment with the little wire that it spins on causing additional spin resistance as well.

The previous mold I made to cast my little propellers was a single cavity mold. The one I'll be 3D printing next will be a four cavity mold. It should speed up my casting efforts for the next testing phase. Although there's always room for more improvement, I'm thinking the next tweaks I make to my Micro-Plopper lure and propeller models should be the last tweaks I have to make for me to have some good reliable lures; and if they fall apart on me, I'll just make another one.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

Here is my short, cobbled together video of the recent field tests I did on the various iterations of the 3D Printed Micro-Plopper fishing lure I've been working on.

I actually caught a fish. That's more than I can say with my authentic Whopper Plopper lure. I have yet to catch a fish with that store bought lure and it's not cause I haven't tried. I've just had no luck with it yet.

That's not to say it's not an awesome lure, it's just that I haven't caught anything with it yet; not even a bite.

Word of warning: I suck at making videos. To record this video I was wearing a pair of those cheap "SunGlass-Video-Camera" units and I wasn't paying attention to the fact that with every small movement of my head the video tended to get kind of jerky.

You may want to take a dramamine tablet before watching.

There's a bit more work to be done before I call this project completed. I'm thinking a couple more weeks and I'll have a home made 3D Printed Ultra-Light Micro Plopper lure I can be proud of.

HollowPoint


https://youtu.be/8g8wyEpGBAk

[Drm50]

There was never any doubt in my mind that UL version would catch fish. I have no further progress on prop. On beads if you are still looking, there are hollow brass beads and glass beads still avaible in small sizes. I use glass on all my big Musky spinners. They do make a difference vs plastic.

The prop on this lure is probably biggest problem I've had in lure making. I've always been able to get around things by stampings or lazer cut blades. In fact I have the worlds smallest delta buzz blades that were Lazer cut.
I've been thing of subbing one of them for prop. I know it would work and catch fish, but would it be as good.

[HollowPoint]

There was never any doubt in my mind that UL version would catch fish. I have no further progress on prop. On beads if you are still looking, there are hollow brass beads and glass beads still avaible in small sizes. I use glass on all my big Musky spinners. They do make a difference vs plastic.

The prop on this lure is probably biggest problem I've had in lure making. I've always been able to get around things by stampings or lazer cut blades. In fact I have the worlds smallest delta buzz blades that were Lazer cut.
I've been thing of subbing one of them for prop. I know it would work and catch fish, but would it be as good.

I don't know if I've mentioned this on this thread or one of the other online locations where I'm posting my trials and errors with this lure project but, I've caught bass with just bare hooks before. It was during the spawning season so the bass were easily trigger into striking. I mention this because you seem to be questioning whether bass or fish in general would bite your lure if you used one type of prop over the other. Under the right conditions fish will bite just about anything that even faintly resembles something bite-able.

The propeller's main reason for being put on these lures is to make noise, I think. The prop off of a buzz-bait does that in spades. Give it a shot and see how it works out. You might be surprised at the outcome. At the very worse you'll then know if it will work or not.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

I have no doubt about anything will catch bass at certain time. I have a lot of one offs I made with rear buzz blades or fabricated chopper type props like on the obsolete Helin Fish Cake. They all will catch fish sooner or later. If you get a Plug Collectors book you can see not much new hasn't already been tried. The only big advances that have been made is in materials and methods of production. Some newer plugs that had a good rep were ruined by changing processes of manufacture.

[HollowPoint]

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

[HollowPoint]

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

[1911sw45]

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?

[HollowPoint]

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

[1911sw45]

From the cad drawing above. Which way is the prop pulled thru the water left to right or right to left?

[Drm50]

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.

[HollowPoint]

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

[HollowPoint]

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

[HollowPoint]

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

[Drm50]

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.

[HollowPoint]

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

[HollowPoint]

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

[Drm50]

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.

[HollowPoint]

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

[ulav8r]

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.

[Drm50]

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)

[HollowPoint]

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

[Drm50]

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.

[HollowPoint]

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

[HollowPoint]

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

[Tripplebeards]

I cast my own spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. I have pics of them on my home page. All hand painted.

[HollowPoint]

I cast my own spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. I have pics of them on my home page. All hand painted.

There is at least one other bullet caster here besides you and I (drm50) who also makes his own fishing lures. I'm sure there are other closet-lure makers here as well. I recently watched a YouTube video of a guy who built a fishing lure that consisted of a 3" X .75" x.75" rectangular piece of wood with a treble hook on the tail and one on the belly of this chunk of wood. He then proceeded to catch several bass with this lure.

This just confirmed to me that fish will bite just about anything under the right conditions. I thought my lures looked kind of lack-luster when I first put them together. Now I know that they don't have to look ultra realistic in order for the fish to bite. In many cases, I think that those ultra realistic, ultra expensive lures on the market are made more to catch fishermen and women than they are to actually catch fish.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

It was a good day and it was a bad day.

The bad things first. I took a selection of my second batch of 3D Printed Micro-Popper lures with me. I also took two of the smaller Atom-Ploppers as well.

Out of all the newer 3D printed lures I took with me only one of them was tracking through the water correctly. The others ran OK as long as I reeled them in very slowly but, doing that would not create enough resistance from the water to spin the propellers. If I reeled them in to fast the propeller would spin but so would the body of the lure. The same was the case with the smaller Atom-Ploppers.

The one 3D printed Micro-Plopper that was tracking correctly was the one that caught the two bass. The only difference between that one lure and the other 3D printed lures was that I had put some slightly larger treble hooks on it which I'm assuming added just the right amount of weight to the bottom of the lure to keep it tracking upright through the water.

The third bass I mentioned in the title was caught with a small white Rooster-Tail spinner lure. That same little Rooster-Tail caught both of the rainbow trout I latched onto this morning. After about two and a half hours of fishing with the 3D printed lures I decided that catching two bass was proof enough for me that these home made 3D printed lures were just as good as the store bought Whopper-Plopper lure I had paid close to thirteen-bucks for.

More bad--I charged the batteries on my Sunglass-Video camera so I thought I was good to go. When I got to my fishing spot I found that my camera was not recording. I was out there just talking to myself thinking that I was narrating the video. It took about 30 minutes of yapping away before I realized that my video camera wasn't recording. I felt like a duffus. Good thing there was no one else around.

No matter; this time around it took alot longer and alot of moving around before I found where the fish were at. From the looks of the growth along both sides of the river it appeared that they had released alot of water from the lake upstream cause just about all the greenery was blown sideways. Then I'm assuming they shut the water off cause the river was much lower than it was the last time I was out there.

I tried to use my cell phone to video tape but I just switched from an iPhone to a new Android phone so All I could really do was take some blurry photos cause I haven't figured out how to use most of the features of this new phone, including the video features.

I have yet to edit those photos but once I do I'll be posting them for your inspection. I got the photos of the two bass but I didn't photograph the trout or that third smaller bass I caught. I'll post the photos I did take.

I think I'll do one more tweak to this second batch of 3D printed lures and call it done. That tweak will consist of replacing the tiny treble hooks with slightly larger ones to bring them into balance as they run through the water. I already know they'll catch fish but it really bugs me that when I tested them at home in my bathtub they ran good. Out in the real world they failed to run true.

On the Atom-Ploppers I'll probably scale down the original Micro-Plopper (The ones that caught the fish last time I was out testing) with the taller body. I'm thinking that the taller bodies on the Atom-Plopper sized lures should run true in the water.

I'll be back with those photos later.

HollowPoint

[Drm50]

I made and sold thousands of jigs, spoons and lures. The ones I use are seconds in finish. The fish never cared if the jig had crossed eyes or a run in the paint. I have found out from years of fishing top water baits that you can't beat BLACK. Unless you are fishing for Ospreys the fish only sees the belly from below. I will concede that flash may have some merit but I've not fished silver or chrome enough to know. My most un favorite color is white with a red head. I think a classic and I've never caught a fish on them.

My WP project is ongoing but won't get them out until spring. The prop has not been worked out yet. My 3D guy is going to have more time after the holidays.

[HollowPoint]

I made and sold thousands of jigs, spoons and lures. The ones I use are seconds in finish. The fish never cared if the jig had crossed eyes or a run in the paint. I have found out from years of fishing top water baits that you can't beat BLACK. Unless you are fishing for Ospreys the fish only sees the belly from below. I will concede that flash may have some merit but I've not fished silver or chrome enough to know. My most un favorite color is white with a red head. I think a classic and I've never caught a fish on them.

My WP project is ongoing but won't get them out until spring. The prop has not been worked out yet. My 3D guy is going to have more time after the holidays.

I don't know what size your propellers are supposed to be or what size your bait-bodies are but I have the STL files for the 3D printed propeller molds you're welcome too. I'm pretty sure your 3D print guy can scale them up or down in his slicer-software to get them to a size you need.

Printing the molds is easy but it will also require a pin or a piece of wire to be inserted from top to bottom of the mold to form the hole into which your stainless steel wire will fit through to serve as the axle; for lack of a better word. All I did was use a piece of music wire just a tiny bit larger than the diameter of my stainless steel wire. Also, because of the added spiral that I modeled onto the forward facing part of the shank of the propeller, I had to rig up an additional push-pin for the top half of the mold so that I could push the cured propeller up and out of the mold cavity. Without that push-pin I found that I was damaging the propellers as I was pulling them out of the cavities. It wasn't a matter of not having enough mold-release-agent in the cavities, it was the fact that the added spiral I modeled onto the shank of the propeller created a cock-screw effect that required combination of a spin and a lifting out of the cured propellers. Pushing them up and out was far easier than trying to twist and pull them out.

I also now have a few extra propellers made up. They are far from perfect but if you'd like to try them I can send you a couple just to see if it's anything you can work with. After I do these last tweaks I'll consider my Micro-Plopper project done and successful. I may make another video after I save up all the money I need to buy that camera drone I may have mentioned before but, that's it. I'll be moving on to the next project after that. My main objective was to make mine for personal use. I never intended to mass produce them.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

I was trying to figure out who to use this new Android cell phone after having used an iPhone for the past several years. When the fish finally started biting it caught me off guard.

When I went out this time around I deliberately only took these few 3D printed lures and a couple of Rooster Tail lures just in case my home made lures bombed on me. I didn't want this to be a wasted fishing trip. If I didn't have any luck with my 3D printed Micro-Ploppers or the Atom-Ploppers at least I could use the Rooster Tails to fish for trout while I was out there.

After I caught that second bass I quite getting any bites with the Micro-Ploppers so I tied on one of the Rooster tails and proceeded to catch one other smaller bass and two good pan-sized rainbow trout. I was so excited to catch those fish that I didn't think to photograph any of them. The three bass were released but the two trout will be converted into human waste products in the upcoming week.

These sorry looking photos was the best I could do under the circumstances.

Off topic; I don't know if any of you guys have ever heard of this but, here in Arizona, many of our fishing waters are so polluted with mercury that it's recommended by our Game And Fish Department that you not eat the fish from certain of our fisheries.
Details on this can be found online by doing a search of our Game and Fish departments, "Fish Consumption Advisory."

The rainbow trout are farm raised and periodically stocked in some of our fishing waters so they have minimal amounts of mercury which makes them safe to eat.



HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

Is there anyone else here besides myself who gets tired of spending money over and over again to replenish your soft plastic fishing lure supplies?'

I started 3D printing my own fishing lures back when I first bought one of the many 3D filament printers on the market. Then, I eventually broke down and bought a 3D Resin Printer and it opened up a whole new realm of DIY fishing lure making.

The only downside for me regarding the 3D resin printer is that the "Build-Area" is so small that I have to come up with work-arounds in order to be able to print out stuff that I can mold soft-plastic lures over four inches long with.

In the case of the injection molds I'm showing here I had to print separate fill spouts just so I could print the main mold bodies the full length of the Build-Plate.

After printing I then simply added the small cylindrical fill spouts to the top of the molds.

Here's a few pics of some of the latest injection molds I've made to replenish my soft plastic fishing lure supplies. I make these for my own personal use so they're not for sale. I thought I'd just show off a little bit.