January 1, 2022

Weedless NED Craw

STL’s for this lure are available for purchase from Cults3d.com

This is my first bait of 2022… it’s a weedless version of my other NED craw.  It was slightly redesigned to make into a weedless version but not much has changed except the size and I removed the legs.

It was designed around a Do-It molds Weedless Midwest Finesse Jig using Victory 10777 EWG Jig Hooks.

The design in Fusion 360.

Here is the model of the finished 3 cavity mold design…

… and here is the actual printed mold.

Unfortunately I had a power outage during printing… I tried to save the mold by starting from where it failed but it didn’t work out to well. (it was good enough for me for testing though.)

The first ones came out OK but you can definitely see the screwed up molded pattern along the side of the bait.

Here it is rigged up.

From the bottom.

Here you can see the recess in the top to keep the hook point buried.

In the test tank.

Compared to my original design (size wise).

Here a cleaner version after reprinting the mold. I still need to do some better colors and get out and fish them.

I really like how this bait came out so I took it one step further and made a separate claw mold because I wanted to try “something a little different” when it comes to baits…

… anyway it shoots pretty well although it did have some bubbles and a few dents but as always the fish don’t care.

After cleaning up the excess from the vents the claws are trimmed from the runner but the little part from the gate is left on so this will help with adhesion to the main body but… I only want a slight bonding of the claws…

It’s a little tedious to put them back in the mold but it should be worth the extra work.

Here is the finished bait.  You can just see how the pink tab melts into the finished body. Hopefully this is enough to keep the claws on but still allow them to be pecked off.  See my whole “something different” for this bait is for the bass to be able to peck off the claws (as this is what they do sometimes to real crayfish before eating them) so maybe this will keep the bass interested in the bait a little longer.

Anyway this is just all theory at this point and some testing will have to be done to see if they work like intended.

To be continued…

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