And I begin......

[Pat Chaney]

Please don't laugh, I haven't had my lathe very long (so it still kinda scares me) but I'm giving it a shot! Plug-making and turning is a new adventure, so I'm about as wet-behind-the-ears as they come. I thought that I would start with something easy like big poppers: the 1st one that I turned is on top, and I stared with a 5 1/2' piece of ERC, but he rest were made with 9" pieces of cedar. The 2nd from the top started out being 7" long, but I broke a piece off trying to use a 1" rotary burr (I used a 3/4" rotary burr on the rest) so I tried to salvage it by making kind of a pencil-popper :0 Comments/feedback/suggestions? Thanks.

[Salty]

Looks great for first time turnings.

[handyman]

nice

[Pat Chaney]

Here is the 1st one that I've completed - 5" long, 1.4 oz. Look forward to getting it wet as soon as possible. Painted it with rattle cans, hence the red splash on the side.

[handyman]

should make alot of splash in the water...........nice colors post a pic of the catch............good luck

[Pat Chaney]

Took it to a little pond today to try her out: she floats half-way in/out of the water, which is good, right? Makes a nice "ker-plop" and throws water but does not track straight, turns to the side after each pull. Straightens out tho, in a second. Not too, bad for the 1st try, I think 

[Salty]

See what the fish like.

[Pat Chaney]

Here are a couple more that I've started at the behest of a couple friends: One wanted a 4" popper, the other wanted to see if I could make a replica of a 7" Magnum Spook, one of his favorite plugs that he recently cracked. I learned a valuable lesson today working on this: after making the holes for the weights in the tail, I figured that I would take a shortcut and not epoxy the weights in, seeing as how this was just a prototype. So I inserted the weights (1, 1/4oz egg sinker in each hole), covered them with wood filler, let it dry, and put the blank back on the lathe to sand. And while sanding, both weights flew out at about the same time, luckily not in my direction! Lesson learned.

[Salty]

looks good! Be careful man that's like a bullet flying out...

[Pat Chaney]

Here they are, just painted. They are the 2nd & 3rd ones that I have done so far. The spook is 7", 2.5oz, weighted at the tail end. I hand painted the eyes, won't do that again. The popper is 4", 1.2oz. Gonna try to put epoxy on now.

[handyman]

looking good pat

[Salty]

nice!