Beginner to the max!

[BigBassinOhio]

Help y’all. I’m looking to start carving baits here more for a hobby than anything else. My plan was making a rat so im using bass wood. But I don’t know much about what screw eyes, what material for bills, clear coat and best way to make the clear coat adhere properly. If y’all got any advice I’ll take anything. 

[morgantm16]

The way I would go about the eye screws really depends to me on how the eye screw is going to be used. 

If your using it for the joint with a pin, I just buy closed stainless eye screws from one of the lure part suppliers like lure parts online/barlows/Janns Netcraft. I use .072" and .092" around 1.5-2" depending on the bait. Mostly the .072".  For the pin I just buy stainless finishing nails from the hardware store.  Pre drill small pilot holes before screwing stuff in to not crack stuff out.

If you are building a joint with two connected eye screws and no pin, I would buy stainless leader wire (get it from the the same lure part suppliers) and twist my own with a drill. Twist one, run your next wire through the loop and twist it and you have two connected eye screws that aren't going to open up once anchored. There are plenty youtube videos on that. Just need to make sure you anchor them straight and not crooked so you don't end up with a quirky hinge that swims weird. I don't do these style eye screws for a joint with a pin, because that style joint I pull the pin and tune and prefer the straight prefabbed eye screws for a joint I'm going to tune. These twisted eye screws normally have a slight bend to them when you build your own, but that gets anchored in the bait. Because of the slight bend they don't work as well for tuning a joint, but for this style joint you are just going to more or less set and forget, twisting your own works well. A lot of times you can get a tighter joint with smaller twisted loops and they are super strong, not going to open up and the "threads" you create have a lot better holding power and surface area.  You don't have to go super heavy on your wire twisting your own. Really .035-.041" does the trick for me, the wire gets a lot harder to manage heavier than that.  If you want to go bigger diameter, you'd want to source a wire material that is more malleable than the leader wire.  I just trust that stuff to not rust and use it already in various other things.

For use for hook hangers or one piece baits without a joint, I use a mixture of both that I mentioned above. Smaller baits I twist my own for a few reasons. One they are smaller loops and wire diameter, so they fit smaller split rings better without opening them up much. Better holding power in a shorter distance anchoring in the bait so I don't have to worry about needing a longer screw in a smaller bait. They are lighter. I don't have to worry about added weight in my eye screws in places I may not want the weight, I can do it all with my ballast. In big baits, I just roll with the prefabbed eye screws in like .072" and then I'm running a big enough split ring that opening it up that big to attach it isn't going to weaken it as bad as a smaller spilt ring.  Also in smaller baits you could buy belly weighted hook hangers if you need to weight the bait where your hook also needs to go.

I also build with swivel hook hangers too, but that's not a good place to start for a beginner.  If you want something along those lines, just start out with eye screws and use soft split rings or swivel hooks and save the swivel hook hangers for a later day after you get a few more baits under your belt.

 I'm not sure what tools you have to cut with, but lets say you have a band saw. cut your bill slot while your wood is still square and circuit board bills fit the width of a bill slot cut by a band saw well. If you cut the bill slot on a table saw, lexan is going to fit better.  You can cut your own either way or buy them in the shape and size you want already. I wouldn't cut my own unless i had a belt/disc sander to do my final shaping of the bill. If you're just getting started, I'd just buy them cut already.

I would seal the wood with extra thin super glue (lots of fumes off that, so good ventilation and wear a mask). Then go over that again with a good self leveling 30 minute epoxy. That will seal the bait rock hard and give you a smooth surface if you decide to paint it. If you paint it, scuff the epoxy a little with like 220-320 sandpaper first. From there its a toss up on what everyone uses for primers, adhesion promoters, and paint. Dependent on what you use, each stuff has its own compatibility. The epoxy can also be used for your clear coat.  I use BSI (bob smith industries) 30 minute epoxy. It self levels for me well without needing a turner, but you might need to depending on you heat and humidity, a lot of epoxies do. For me it works well for sealing and clearing. I'm sure some will mention KBS and maybe they can offer more insight with better luck, but I haven't been impressed with it. Also if your dealing over wood, the epoxy is a thicker added layer of protection to the wood itself. And the epoxy is probably a little safer to work with and easier to store.  Aerosol clears just aren't going to provide the protection I'm looking for unless you go to like and automotive clear in an aerosol can like spray max 2k... but its pricey and really once you use it, you don't have long to use the can, you really need a lot of baits ready for clear to get your use out of it.  There's other automotive clears out there to spray through a gun, but that and the spray max, it's pretty rough stuff. I'd avoid that at all costs. It's not stuff to casually mess around with.  "Good ventilation" isn't adequate with it, you really have to be set up with the right spray booth to do that stuff safe. We aren't just talking wearing a mask... You need a vented set up pulling that stuff away, an air supplied mask bringing you fresh air from another area, and really a suit to cover your skin. Solvents in those automotive clears will absorb through skin, so its more that just ventilation. I'd high recommend not taking automotive clear as a recommendation, and sticking to something safer.