To add the eyes I cut a hole in the stencil that I used for
painting the stripes and used this as a guide in order to get
the position of the eyes in same place on either side of the
lure. I simply dipped the head of a large nail into some
white paint and dabbed it onto the lure using the stencil as
a guide. To put the black dot in the centre of the eye I just
used a smaller nail with a smaller head in the same way but
with black paint this time of course.
Now that the lures are fully painted there is only
one step left before they are ready for testing and some fishing. The lures need a coating of some sort to protect the paint job and of course the lure itself. Most lure makers it would seem apply an epoxy resin 'hard coat'
to their lures at this stage. The most popular product for this would seem to be an epoxy clear coat called EnviroTex Lite. I fully intended to get some of this to finish off my lures but the fact that I could not find it anywhere locally combined with the fact that work got a bit hectic at the same time meant that my lure making
project got abandoned for a while. While in a local hardware supplier I
came across a product that grabbed my attention - a type of spray on lacquer for finish coating metal which claimed to have some very hard
wearing properties. For the sake of getting my lures finished I grabbed a
tin of it and used it to clear coat my lures. It sprayed on nice and even
and produced a lovely gloss finish. I knew that it would not be nearly as
good as an epoxy finish but would do for now!
With the lures now finished there's only one thing left to do - clip on
some hooks and take them to the water. For hooks I just took some off
other lures I have that I never use - I'll have to look into buying some
good quality hooks for my lure making - for now though 'borrowed'
hooks will do!