Custom Baits Magazine | Page 23

then removed the pellets. Fitting The Lead Pellets to The Lures It was now time to drill holes in the lure blanks to accept the lead pellets. Each of the pellets was a different length and so required holes of different depth to be drilled. Prior to drilling each hole I marked the length of each pellet off against the 18mm diameter drill bit using masking tape and then drilled a hole to the depth of this mark on the corresponding lure. I drilled the holes about 2mm-3mm deeper than the length of the pellets to allow for glue and filler. With the holes for the lead pellets all drilled out I was now ready to go ahead and fit the pellets into each lure. At this point I realised that I had made another mistake - the 18mm diameter pellets would not easily go into the 18mm diameter holes in the lure blanks. I really should have made the pellets 2mm smaller in diameter than the holes that were drilled in the lure blanks - lesson learned! I solved this problem by taking my hammer and tapping on the sides of the pellets which both smoothed the sides of the pellets a little and also reduced their diameter a little. I still needed to use a hammer to tap the pellets into the lure blanks - not very clever - but it got the job done.