Lure making 101

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Since not everyone can get to see what goes into mass producing metal fishing lures, I thought this would be an interesting post for people to read. 

 

So I decided since this was the first run of lures we were about to make from start to finish that I would post the process under this post heading. We have an inventory of a few thousand blanks to work with that were in stock since we last made lures ( about 15 yrs ago ), but this will be the first lures actually produced in whole, now that we have gone back into business. As we move thru the process of manufacture, polish, paint, tape, assemble and package I will update this thread with pictures and note of the process. Obviously, I don't want certain "trade secrets" to be posted, but I will do my best to give you an idea of what goes into producing some of the finest quality, custom made fishing lures ever produced. We produce our products completely from start to finish. The shapes, sizes, weights, and the actual form of the lure are of our own designs. Designs that came about from constant field testing and constant changes being made till we were confident in the lures performance. Many companies purchase blanks in bulk and only paint and package their product, but we control ever aspect, from start to finish. We personally select the metal, we hand polish every lure that isn't going to paint, we oversee the process of blanking, piercing, logo, and form and of course, we tape, paint assemble and package all of our product. We have very strict quality control standards. Ensuring that the completed product is the finest, hand crafted metal lure you can purchase 

 

 Today I dropped off the KW die, the Silver Soldier die, and the GL#4 die at the punch press shop.  I ordered 6,000 lures stamped out of .060  430 grade stainless steel. 2,000 each. .060 thickness is the thickness of a casting weight lure. The GL#4 is the copper pulling spoon that we make, and the KW and Silver Soldier we use for trolling. The heavier weight lure has a special wobble all its own that is different than the usual .015 trolling weight lures. I only had enough metal left over to do about 1,000 GL#4's, so they will be the first to come back. I had to order the metal for the rest, but it shouldn't take long to get it and get the lures run. Below are some pics of the shop where they get blanked out. Once I get them back, I will post pics of the piercing, logo, and form process. I hope you enjoy the topic as it progresses. 

 

Questions or comments are welcome.

 

Thank you,

Jason

 

 

 

[Drownedtrout]

Very interesting, I for one will be checking back to follow this process. Thanks for sharing

[final flight]

Very interesting, will you be doing flutter spoons in the future?

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

We are doing flutter spoons as well, just at a different location. Our shop is in the basement of my parents house. Last time I fired up the 25 ton press to punch .060, my parents flipped about the noise. It shakes the whole house and rattles everything. Runs on hydraulic and Air works the trigger, so its very noisy, and shake the place like you can't believe, so I have to punch the heavy stuff at another location. Took us quite a while to set up at another location, but were running now! Flutter spoons are in the polish room now. I can put that up as soon as I get time to polish. I got about 500 OD, 200 N44, 200 35's, and about 1200-1500 misc other blanks to polish. Copper, Brass, and some silver plated West River copies. ( I hate to polish stainless steel the stuff get super hot on your hands)  It's all painless, except the stainless!  

 

Glad to see there is some interest!  I will do my best to show the entire process. 

 

Thank you,

Jason

[Sk8man]

Very cool Jason. I know we talked about some of the stuff out there testing the lures out but not in that much detail. It is neat you feel free to share the info. It's really neat to get into the "nuts and bolts" of it and gives better insight into how much is involved in lure manufacturing vs just painting blanks that all have the same basic action and in my view the action is the most important aspect of them.  Offering such a wide range of weights and action will allow for us to do a lot more experimentation with setups. It isn't easy for small businesses to compete anymore but offering specialized quality products is a real step in the right direction. I wish you the best of luck with it and hope the folks on here will be supportive and give your stuff a good workout. I for one certainly will after seeing firsthand that they work so well. Good luck with it. Les

[Silver Fox]

Very nice . thanks for the pics!

[Nautitroller]

Wow Jason! Taking a plunge like that is great! I would live to check out your operation and see the end product.. Good luck this weekend.

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[hammer's down]

When these lures come on the market, I would like to buy some and give them a try. Thanks for the informative post.

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[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Thank you all! I appreciate the interest and I will try to keep this post as informative as I can.

 

Jason

[Nessmuk]

Jason,

 

Very interesting!   I often wanted a small punch press for my basement business (not fishing tackle related) but worried about safety and making dies but hadn't considered the noise      I ended up sticking to spin casting aka centrifugal rubber mold casting which is a lot quieter.  Are your dies progressive multi operation or single operation per die?

 

Do you plan on making any silver plated spoons? 

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Some of our dies are progressive, to a point. None of them form, we do that separate. The #4 die and the SS die I dropped off are progressive dies. They logo, and pierce during the blanking. All that's left to do is form them. Most of the other die's just blank. 

 

As far as plating, from what I understand that's the reason Sutton is not making lures. You can't get them plated any more around here. We used to ship to Syracuse for our plating, but we gave that up over 20 years ago. Plating silver adds about another .60-.75 to the cost of production for each lure. I still have blanks that were made for plating, but they are too thin to use without plating them. In fact, I just put them away with the rest of the stuff that will probably sit for years. It will make for interesting conversation some day when someone else is making these lures. When we purchased Kausch Lures, there were more boxes of "stuff" than there were equipment and it was neat to go thru all of it. We found some collectibles, and a lot of antique stuff. Learned a lot from it too.  

[Nautitroller]

Does any of the manufactures use metallizing with pure aluminum in a vacuum chamber? I believe the coating can be top coated to make it more durable. I used to run machines that coated plastics and metal parts, comes out like a mirror finish depending on your substrate. It is much cheaper too....

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[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

I'm really not sure what others do. The companies we looked to buy years ago have long since closed. Ace Tackle, Pine Valley spoons, and a couple others I can't remember. We used to do custom finishes like Pine Valleys plating, silver, chrome, and smoked chrome, but the turn around was never very consistent and expensive. Since then, we switched to using a highly reflective 430 stainless steel that we finish by hand polishing with  high speed polishing wheels. It's the job least liked and its rough on your fingers and nails. The lures become very hot to handle. The stainless isn't cheap by any means, but neither is plating or other types of finishes and it's less handling of the product. We still do lures with brass, copper and aluminum. All having a different "wobble", especially the light weight aluminum. Our "rattling lures" come with either a steel, brass or copper "top" lure on a steel "bottom lure". Each produces a different sound, or ring. We have had a lot of success with the rattling versions. I don't think we will get into plating anymore. We are experimenting with "dips" for base coat, but not really happy with it. Paints have changed a lot in the past few years, and from what I hear on "tackle underground" were not the only Mfg's having a learning curve with paint processes.  Probably going to switch to air brushing with low VOC paints. It will open more paint scheme possibilities as well.

[jusgrinnin]

Can't wait for the updates.

BARRY

[Nessmuk]

 It's the job least liked and its rough on your fingers and nails. The lures become very hot to handle.

 

Buffing is no fun!   A surgical instrument making company I worked for did a lot of buffing, yuk.   Have you considered making hand held lure holding fixtures?   They speed up the process and make it at least a bit more tolerable for the worker.  Work holding fixtures also allow the worker to wear gloves.

 

Could you post some pictures of the lures you make or plan to make?

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Yeah we have made holders for polishing, but they can bend the thinner ones, so they have limited use. We have hand carved holders for the thinner ones. Each one was hand carved to the lure it's for. That seems to work well, but you still have to hand finish the marks from the board off. 

 

Here are some pic's of the lures we make. All plain in the picture, however, I believe we have 13 colors at this point. Possibly a couple new colors to come out soon. One were testing now has been very productive lately. White has been a hot color as well, but I have a hard time believing it would sell very well. We have always kept an assortment of all white lures on the boat, and they have been good producers fishing, but would you buy an all white lure, with all the colors there are today? 

 

Sorry about the focus on the first one. I did these in a rush. Maybe better pics to put up soon. 

 

Edited July 12, 2014 by Great Lakes Lure Maker

[fshnwmn]

Congrats and good luck

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Thank you fshnwmn! 

[waywack40]

My understanding is that silver plating results in a lure which will relect light at the greatest depth of any of the "colors".  Chrome and stainless do not maintain the "shine" at increased depth. Silver platers are getting fewer and fewer, and the cost of silver keeps increasing, but it is almost impossible to beat for this purpose for lures at depth. My daughter is a jewelry manufacturer and uses silver plating all the time. If you have interest in possible doing this, let me know and I will get the details.  Glad to see what you are doing with lure production. Hope it works out.

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Silver has the greatest "reflective" quality of all metals. That being said, if you put a chrome plated lure, a stainless lure and a silver plated lure next to one another, you would see that chrome almost "reflects" a "black" shine. Silver is very "white" and stainless is somewhere in between them. Add to that a superior hand polishing, and I would say there is little difference between them, as far as reflective quality is concerned. As far as jewelry plating, vs lures, we were selling 3-5,000 lures a week. Turn around times were very un predictable and quality was never constant, which is why we changed to stainless.  I had a friend who was a diver that got into treasure hunting in the ocean. He said that about 30 ft in the finger lakes, sunlight was dramatically reduced. at 50 ft, almost gone and at 100 ft, no light at all but artificial. At this point, 50 ft and deeper reflective quality is almost null, and now were dealing with color, for example,  ROYGBIV  rule. 

 

I have no doubt silver produces the greatest reflective value of the metals described, but at what cost does it become "priced out". Today especially, plating seems to be getting harder and harder to do, due to EPA regulations, both state and federal. Were now facing the same obstacles in the painting process. Unfortunately, I think it will become a thing of the past, like so many other "good things" we have grown to know. This is the reason Sutton has come to pass. They can not get the plating done at a reasonable turn around, and cost has priced it out of range. Electronics plating is driving demand and cost has risen due to demand and loss of smaller companies. We used to use a company from syracuse, but they got more and more costly every time and slower as well. .60-.70 a lure for plating is getting pretty pricey if you ask me. So I think you will see very little, if any plating being done with lure's in the near future. It just isn't worth the trouble any more. If your talking collectible markets, then I can see that, but for today's practical use, probably not worth the cost and effort anymore. My thoughts....

 

Thank you for wishing us luck and for the topic. It, as well as painting has been a hotly debated conversation among MFG'S lately. Interesting to hear what others think about this trend.

 

Thank you,

Jason

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Recently it was brought to my attention that a comment I made, regarding our decision to hand make all of our lures (blank, pierce, form and logo) as opposed to purchasing blanks for MFG, could be taken as an insult to others. In all the years we made lures we have always maintained an open and cordial relationship with other MFG'S we have come to know. This is something we have always done and will continue to do. With that said, I was simply making a statement that was intended to set us apart from others, and was only intended to show my pride in our product, and by no means was intended to insult anyone. If my comment was taken as an insult, I can assure you that wasn't the intent behind the remark. Marketing a product, no mater what it is, almost always involves "setting yourself apart" from your competition. That was all I was trying to do. 

 

Jason

[final flight]

When will they be on the market?

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Some lures are ready for sale, but limited colors and quantity. I called today about the status of the lures being stamped, had to leave a msg, no reply back yet. I was hoping to have at least the 4's by now. Well will hopefully know something tomorrow.

What lures were you interested in? I may already have them.

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[turf]

Is there a website we can see your work? Maybe even purchase some though if we wish?

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

No website as of yet. Were in the process of getting one started. I have posted some pics here. if you like, I can pm you details. Probably have to be tomorrow.

Thank you,

Jason

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