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Fishing Lure Design, Lure Ballast Design
Pages from The Art, Sport & Business of Lure Making,
Book #1, Chapter III, Lure Ballast Design
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BALLAST (bal-last):
1. Nautical. any heavy material carried temporarily or permanently in a vessel to provide desired draft and stability.
2. Aeronautics. something heavy, as bags of sand, placed in the car of a balloon for control of altitude and, less often, of attitude, or placed in an aircraft to control the position of the center of gravity.
ATTITUDE (at·ti·tude):
1. Figure 1. The orientation of an object's axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon, or imaginary line.
Figure 1.
1. Hooksets as ballast.
2. Cast on Hookset Harness, Insert Ballast.
3. Found shape (pre-cast slip sinkers) ballast.
4. Ballast is the lure body.
5. Cold-pour lead (encapsulated birdshot) ballast.
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1. Hooksets as ballast. Figure 1-A. demonstrates how a floating topwater lure is ballanced vertically by the weight of the hookests. The lure is positioned in an up-right attitude by the weight of the belly hook. Otherwise; the lure would lay on it’s side.
Figure 2-A. illustrates a cross section view of a typical floater/shallow diver. Figure 2-A. demonstrates a floater/shallow diver at rest on the surface. Figure 4-A. demonstrates a shallow dive angle during forward motion. This type of lure will return to the surface when forward motion is stopped.
2. Cast on Hookset Harness, Insert Ballast. Figure 2-B. illustrates a small amount of ballast cast onto the hookset harness. A small amount of ballast placed forward of the center of axis can cause the lure to have a slight nose down attitude, but may not be enough weight to cause the lure to sink. Figure 3-B. & Figure 4-B. This pre-determined nose down attitude, will cause the lure to dive at a steep angle, and rise to the surface much slower, if at all.
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Lure Ballast = Ballance & Attitude + Dive Angle, Depth & Action
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About Zero Buoyancy: The ballast weight is adjusted so the lure will rest in water; not floating on the surface; yet not sinking. With a few retrieve cranks on the reel, or a rod tip swoosh (pull); you can cause the lure to dive. When forward motion is stopped; the lure will sit still in suspension. It will not return to the surface. If you choose; you can adjust the ballast to allow the lure to rise or sink slowly.
Figure 5. & Figure 6. are illustrations of a lure ballast that is designed to put maximum weight in a small lure body. This ballast design also helps support and strenghten the small gage wire form hookset harness.
A combination of the size, weight and location of the ballast, and the hydro dynamic shape of the lure body cause this lure to glide (swim) forward during free-fall. In-other-words; the lure’s behavior (action) does not require forward motion (retrieve).
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