Micro Swimbait
August 24, 2020
Micro Swimbait
STL’s for this lure are available for purchase from Cults3d.com
This is a micro sized swimbait that I designed around the Custom Jig Heads I recently made. The heads are made from lead while the bodies are made from soft plastic. The overall bait is right around 2 inches in size.
Here is the original design of the jig head in CAD…
… and here is the finished jig head when poured in lead. Being so small it loses a bit of the detail but they still came out pretty well.
Once the jig heads are paint and a UV clear coat added the finished jig looks great.
The mold for the soft plastic bodies were 3d printed. I chose to start with a small 3 cavity mold for testing purposes.
The finished bait (still needs a little flashing removed)
I ran a few batches of bodies to make sure I had enough to test.
The first test ones I did were just plain shinny heads with clear bodies and I added a little detail with some paint.
The Results
This is a Fallfish which is just a giant minnow from what I’ve been told but it’s a new species for me so that’s was a cool first fish on the new lures. (Caught Aug. 8th 2020)
I nice sized yellow perch for the tiny river I was fishing in.
Of course I caught some Johnny Roaches too.
… and a few small dink bass rounded out the day. Over all these ending up working out great and I caught a great variety of fish on the first day of testing.
I tried these on another small river by my house and ended up losing a few of them to some big pike I didn’t know inhabited the river. Let’s just say 6 lb line is not a good choice with a 3′ pike.
The pickerel love these things too. This is turning into one of my favorite ultralight fishing lures.
I love this little bait so much I did it as a 8 cavity mold too.
First injection of the 8 cavity mold.
First batch from the 8 cavity. These where made with Dead on Plastix’s Opaline Blue Paragon Effects Colorant. I wish the camera would pick up how cool this color really is.
The ghost minis ready to rock.
Next up I rotated the baits 90° in the next mold design so I could shoot laminates with a blending block.
Here’s a transparent view of what the mold will look like.
The printed Laminate mold.
You need a laminate block of course.
The first shot.
It worked quite well.
The finished bait with custom matching painted jig head.
A batch ready to slay.
These should make a great addition to my tackle box.
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