Question for Popper Makers

[Kurt Carlson]

How do you put the cup into the face of your lures.  My friend and I are making our lures with a make-shift lathe and we are having trouble cupping the face.  Any ideas are appreciated.

[Chuen Fan]

my guess would be a dremel tool, or something similar. One of those round grinding bits attached to a drill could work too

[Ivan Verhage]

i use a leather working pointey thing and turn out the cup on the lathe
if you want a slant cup use the dremel, then put some body filler in and press a ball wraped in cling wrap against it to form a perfict circle.
good luck

[David Ting]

When i did mine i did it on a lathe with a chuck so i picked up a drill bit to suit (the biggest drill i had was 2 inches dia) and drilled it just so that i get to the depth that i want the bottom of the cup face to be, as the tip of the drills are tapered you will have to remove the rest with a die grinder to get the correct shape. That is just to reduce the amount I had to take off with the die grinder otherwise you can just work at it with a die grinder straight off but that can take a while.

If your lathe does not have a chuck on it i guess you can just take it off and whack it on the radial drill to do it. I prefered to do it on the lathe as everything is still in line and i drill the through hole for the stainless wire at the same time.


Cheers

[Peter Morris]

The dremel would do a very nice job.

[Angus Hulme]

Hi Kurt,

I have tried to illustrate what I mean, but basically, I push a lathe chisel (called a parting tool) in on an angle to create the cup face. The excess timber can only be removed a little at a time, because severe tool angles combined with fast-spinning timber is a recipe for disaster. Examples of things that could go wrong are: the chisel getting broken (I know this from experience), injury to ones self, or the tool digging into the timber creating unsightly divots in your smooth lure body.

I am still quite a newbie on the wood turning myself, but I have found that provided enough excess wood is removed from on front of the lure, creating clear space, the tool can be worked on multiples angles to create a curved cup face. This took me while to figure out through trial and error, and this method does leave a high lump of timber right on the centre point of the cup face, which can be removed with drills, dremels, whatever, after the main shape is achieved.

Hope that helps,

Cheers
Angus

[Kurt Carlson]

Thanks all for the ideas.  I have a dremel, but I don't have good enough bits.  I think the slow work on the lathe with a very small tool is the answer for our situation.  The lathe is actually a drill press that we made a jig to work the wood.  We are considering a custom bit to drill the end of the lure.  It is all fun figuring it out when you have limited resources.