Completing the Painting Process for Handmade Wooden Lures

We have made several jigs to help in the painting process. First is the painting stick which is actually built from some 5/16” dowel and ¾” dowel. At one end we put an alligator clip which is used for connecting to the lure and the other end has an eye screw for hanging from a drying rack with hooks attached to it.

The rotisserie dryer jig works incredibly well. It is built from a BBQ rotisserie that is attached to a frame. A piece of 2 x 3 was then dadoed to fit the spit of the rotisserie and screwed back together. The sides of the 2 x 3 have sticky backed Velcro attached to them so the painting sticks can easily be held in place during the drying process.

All of the wood for the jigs came from a scrap pile in a local cabinet shop, with the exception of the dowels. With a little bit of scrounging, you can get some really great materials to build the jigs from at no or little cost.

Simple Tools Needed for Painting Handmade Wooden Lures

The paint booth is a cardboard box, not very high tech but it works. We are in the process of building a new paint booth that has an exhaust fan. The base unit is a range hood that was purchased at a Habitat for Humanity building materials store for $5. We are attaching some ¼” plywood to make the top, sides and base. They will be attached with hinges so the paint booth can be folded up and easily stored like a small suitcase.

To get started, we found an air brush and small compressor at a local pawn shop and they work very well. The air brush has only single stage action so we will be upgrading our air brush to a two stage air brush which will allow us to more intricate detail work.

The color paints we have been using are made by Createx. We have used the fluorescent colors, the transparent colors along with the opaque colors. If you get the primary colors and a few specialized colors, it is amazing what colors you can mix.

Lure Building Tools

All of the tools needed to build these lures are readily available. One of the great places to look for tools is on craigslist.org. I actually purchased the Ryobi belt sander for $20 on craigslist.org and found the band saw in a pawn shop for $45. It really pays to look around.

Many of the other materials were purchased at Home Depot. These included the dowel for the paint sticks, the Velcro, the epoxy for gluing in the lips, the Lexan for the lips, the base coat paint, the clear coat finish and the misc. saw blades, sanding belts and sandpaper. The best source I found for the alligator clips is Radio Shack.

The colored paints that I use were purchased from a local Michael’s craft store but can easily be sourced on the internet. The webbing material used for the fish scale patterns was purchased from a local fabric store, where I also found a great source for the Velcro

JJ Lures Introduces Handmade Wooden Lures and How They are Made

JJ Lures is a small company that specializes in handcrafting custom lures for fishermen.  We offer three sizes of lures, the 7”, the 5” and the 3 ½”, all in a variety of colors and patterns.

All of our lures are built from Western Red Cedar or Alaskan Yellow Cedar for the greatest strength and performance of the lures.  All of the hardware is either stainless steel or brass.  The treble hooks are very high quality from Eagle Claw.

All of the lures have two base sealer coats of paint and three finish clear coats plus all of the layers and colors of paint needed for each particular pattern.  The lips or bills are made from Lexan to insure the greatest strength and resistance to breakage, even in cold water.