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

  1. #61
    Boolit Grand Master Tripplebeards's Avatar
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    I cast my own spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. I have pics of them on my home page. All hand painted.

  2. #62
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tripplebeards View Post
    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

  3. #63
    Boolit Master
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    Three Bass-Two Rainbow Trout-Details Forthcoming

    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

  4. #64
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
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    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.

  5. #65
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drm50 View Post
    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

  6. #66
    Boolit Master
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    Sorry About the poor photo quality

    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

  7. #67
    Boolit Master
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    Another Batch Of Injection Molds For Soft Plastic Baits

    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.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SoftPlastics.jpg  

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