with minimal tools, material and experience.

In today's tutorial we'll make "Poppin Doc", a 60mm balsa popper lure

you may have seen this lure before in fishing monthly magazines if not check them out

www.fishingmonthly.com.au

and for tips and templates visit my web site

MakeWoodenLures.com/fishing-monthly/

now as we've done for all the lures in this series we start by outlining the side profile of our popper

onto a piece of balsa. This is 12 millimeter or half-inch thick balsa

I'm just marking it out with the side profile so I can cut the lure bodies out from the plank

Next I'll slice the poppers apart using a sharp utility knife

and then I'll trim away most the waste being careful not to go right down to the line.

We're going to clean up the blank shortly.

Obviously this is a popper, so the front of the lure is going to be kept nice and square

I'll do that in several cuts to make it nice and clean

Now I'm going to use a square sanding block and flat surface to square up all

the edges and make sure that the lure is the square in cross-section

once I'm done with the convex surfaces I'll start on the concave surface around the

belly of the lure with a curved sanding block

I'm gonna mark a center line down the long sides of the lure just by eye

You can make this out with a marking gauge or some other jig for more accuracy

I find I can get it accurate enough by eye

then I'll lay the template back on the lure blank and mark the location of

the hook hangers and tow point and the weight.

Now it's time to go to work with the battery drill and a three millimeter drill bit.

Drill the holes for the hook hangers and tow point,

which we're going to make in just a moment. Get these nicely centered so everything's

aligned properly to give your popper lure the best action

now to keep our lure properly oriented on the water

I'm gonna add some weight to the belly.

So I'm drilling a hole with a five millimeter Brad point bit

Now we're ready to shape the top profile so we'll put the template back on the

lure and mark out the shape. One of the great things about handmade poppers

is that you can make unusual and complex shapes you can't get

when you turn a popper on a lathe

Trim away the waste in light cuts, get everything reasonably square and we'll

clean things up after this step.

Next I'll mark carving guidelines so I'll start

by putting a centerline along each of the long edges of the lure

and another line halfway between centerline and the edge of the wood

this popper is going to be fairly round in cross-section so you should find all the

lines are fairly symmetrical. Number the sharp utility knife I'll just trim away

the waste between those carving lines

it's better to take off too little wood rather be too much. you can

always take off more a little bit later or refine the shape with sandpaper

Remember to work with the grain and work away from your hands to prevent cutting yourself

Now I'm going to finish the shaping with a little piece of sandpaper

As you sand, check the shape of the lure regularly because it is easy

to remove too much timber and spoil the popper body.

Don't press too hard and use a nice fresh piece of sandpaper to get the best results

I'll use a sanding block to square the front face before I make the popper mouth

To shape the mouth of the popper I'm going to use a bull nose rotary burr

You'll find these at hardware shops and you can get them online if you can't find them locally

Start with a bit angled at 45 degrees unless you get the mouth shaped

Rotate the drill so the burr is moving perpendicular to the lure

This will give you a nice clean, even, smooth face

when it comes to assembly we have three options for our to tow point and hook hangers

Screw eyes, twist eyes or a through wire. Throughout this series we've used twist eyes

And I'm going to continue to use these eyes for this particular lure.

The reason being is the twist eyes are quick and easy to make, they don't require any

special materials you'll find hard to get, and they're strong enough for our purposes.

But if you are planning on fishing this lure on line classes of six kilos (12lb)

or higher I suggest switching to a through wire

here's how to make twist eyes using a three millimeter drill bit to make the initial loop

and a couple pairs of pliers to twist it up make it nice and strong and give the

glue plenty to hold on to

and there it is.

So I'm going to go ahead and glue the twist eyes into the

tail and the belly of the lure. I'm not going to add the tow point just yet because it

makes it difficult to clean out that concave mouth later on if you need to

After you harden the wood you'll probably find there's some resin in there that needs

to be cleaned out with the rotary burr and you can't do that if there's a tow point installed

Whilst I'm assembling the lure I'll also add the ball sinker

Put a little bit of glue over the top of that to fill the hole.

I'll smooth that off later ready for painting

Remember to use 24-hour epoxy for this. it'll give you a much longer lasting result

Next I'm going to harden the balsa. You'll find instructions for doing this on my website.

Basically I've warmed the wood, thinned down some epoxy and I'm

brushing it on so that it soaks into the timber, fills up the grain and goes hard

to make the wood waterproof and tough

All right, time to paint our popper. Now of course, you can go to the

automotive shop pick up some auto touch-up paint or you can go to the art

shop and pick up some acrylic artist paints. They'll be just fine for lure

painting but if you want to do a really professional job the best thing is to

get yourself an airbrush I'm going to use an airbrush to finish this lure off

We're going to paint a very simple pattern on this popper, so I'll start

firstly by giving it a coat of Autoborne white sealer

This is going to be good adhesive base for the subsequent color coats

Next I'll paint some white and then I'll paint the sides and back of the lure in a yellow

Once I'm happy with the yellow I'll go over the top of the back using AutoAir

pearl lime green to give lots of sheen and color

then I'll paint some white spots around the popper lure body to accentuate

the Frog like pattern I'm gonna paint next

Once I'm happy with the white spots I'll put a black spot in the center of each one

This will give me a simple frog pattern that's attractive and the fish love it

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial

Remember, for the templates and tips go to my website

MakeWoodenLures.com/fishing-monthly/

I'll see you there, bye for now!