I think I'm a PVC convert

[Fishwhittler]

I finally got some PVC to try out, and so far I really like how it compares to wood. There aren't any issues with the PVC tearing out like there is with wood, and there isn't any wood grain to interfere with drilling straight. I did notice some minor problems that you don't have with wood, but none that would make me want to switch back to wood.

Anyway here's my first PVC lure, shown with a completed wooden lure of the same style. 

[Steven Ladner]

Those are some clean baits, nice work 

[BIG M]

Both baits look good but I can't go the PVC route.   Plastic just does not have the thump like balsa.   I will admit it's pretty easy to carve and sand to finish.

[Stringjam]

I think materials require design specific to the material.

Crankbait builders are very particular about what they build with, because they learn how to make a material behave in a manner they like.

In my experimenting, I've been able to get Sintra to behave exactly how I want it to, but I'm sure if I were to attempt the same design with balsa, I would have to make adjustments.

The obvious difference is density. Balsa has a specific gravity of .15-.20 while Sintra is .50.

What this immediately means is that Sintra is going to require a smaller ballast for the same rate of buoyancy.

Another thing - and this is just me thinking out loud, because I don't have experience with balsa - - is that a higher density body needs to be pushed farther before it destabilizes.

Here's one example of what I mean by that.....on a lipped bait like a deep diver, positioning the line-tie closer to the nose causes more instability and widens the action - to a certain point. After that point the crank doesn't work.

When I designed my Sintra deep diver, that point seemed to be closer to the nose than comparative wooden cranks. A lot of expert wood crank builders told me that they thought it was way too close. Perhaps it would have been with a much lower density body, but perhaps more force is required to swing the Sintra body - - allowing more "force" to be designed into the spec.

In the end result...my crank has more kick and liveliness than a DT-16, which is made from balsa...so design I think is a big component here.

Another example....lip size. I designed a small 2" shallow crank - and wanted something very kickin' and lively. I got what I wanted, but the lip is much larger than you would see on a comparative balsa crank. Once again - is it that the heavier Sintra body requires more force to destabilize, and can therefore have more force applied against it?

Another spec which it seems like I can push is the distance from line-tie to lip on shallow cranks - which makes for some of the biggest differences in crank behavior that I've seen.

Perhaps I'll pick up some balsa, and create exact designs of both to actually see if what I'm talking out of my arse about is actually the case. I'm very curious, and I've been wanting to mess with wood at some point, anyway. I'll always have a soft spot for it.

Here is that 2" crank....kicks like a champ.

[BobP]

String, I think you're dead on about how lips and line ties have to be designed arround the density of the body material you use.  But how the mass is distributed in the bait also has big effects.  An exact Sintra clone of a balsa bait of identical weight will perform differently because the mass in the balsa bait is concentrated at its ballast while mass in the Sintra bait is distributed throughout the body.  An old truism in bait building is that the lower in the body you place the ballast, the more stable the bait will be while swimming.  All "Truisms" aren't true all the time.  But if you're building a shallow bait and want it to have a fast rise for jumping heavy wood cover, a very low density material like balsa still seems best to me.  Maybe the opposite applies for deep cranks where you want a slow float.  In the end, "Beauty is as beauty does".  If you can build a bait that works great and catches fish like crazy, you nailed it no matter what material you used.

[Gamec0cks5]

Wow that looks great

[Fishwhittler]

Thanks guys.

I used pine before I switched to PVC and pine is a denser wood than balsa, so there shouldn't be too much difference in the way my baits behaved before and now.

[ToledoEF]

Looks really good! I havnt gotten to touch my projects much. I have a lot of broken stuff around the house to fix, most recent is my furnace which turned into a whole new project lol.

[SkilletSizeBass.]

They both look nice. After you get them complete let us know if you see any difference in the action.