February 29, 2020

The Four Tail Grub (a.k.a The Sentinel Grub)

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

This was another design I did just to test out if multiple split lines of a four piece mold would work in 3D printing. I just chose a grub because it was a simple easy design and I didn’t want to get to involved in the bait design when I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. While this might lead to some interesting baits in the future it turns out a four tail grub has some pretty cool action to it.

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Full Build Video

(This is the same video as the Cuttlefish Reaper)

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The overall design is pretty straight forward. There are four identical pieces that join together to form the mold of the four tail grub. While each part is identical I numbered them individually to ensure the same fit every time I put the mold together. This way if the mold ever warps form the heat of the plastisol the split lines should still stay tight to each other when reassembled.

This transparent image shows the four piece mold with the grub inside.

Here is the 4 printed parts of the mold.

To assemble the mold two pieces form each half…

… then those two halves form the completed mold.

I used a three Wood Handscrew Clamps to clamp the mold up in the hopes that it would apply enough pressure across all sides of the mold.

This is what the finished bait looks like after injecting.

I did a few different colors just to have some fun during testing. They do come out of the mold with a little flashing but overall they are not to bad for a 3D Printed mold.

Here is one all rigged up and ready to test.

(Quick GIF of it in action)

Fish ON!

The Bass seem to like it.

11/10/21 – I’ve also re-designed this into a round version too. It should be fast to print with the pieces standing up and easier to clamp together with hose clamps.

02/21/21 – Finally got around to printing and testing out the round version.

After printing out the pieces I do sand the faces flat (before gluing in the pins) to ensure a good mating surface between piece. This should help eliminate flashing on the baits but as with most 3D printed molds there probably will still be some.

Over all the round version works great.  It prints and about half the time as the original version and shooting baits is easier because clamping the mold pieces together with the pipe clamps is much faster but after some testing they might tend to start warping more and lead to more flashing.  The flashing is easy to remove but it’s something to think about before choosing which design to go with.

Here’s one from the first runs using the round mold.

 

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