Chainsaw Carving, June 26, 2011

Today I went to a small local outdoor festival called "Fort Steuben Days" in Steubenville, Ohio.. There was a trio of chainsaw carvers there, doin' what they do best.. I had a long and information packed chat with Joe Barber, one of the three chainsaw carvers on hand.. It was a good time for me as I was able to ask a sh*tload of questions that Joe was happy to answer.. And I am thankful for his time, much appreciated..

Below are a few pics of some carvings I made this weekend and some photos of carvings stored in the garage..

                               A 4 foot "Hello" bear..                                     

   A 30" sitting bear.. This will get a "hello" or "welcome" sign added later for it to hold in its paws..

This is a 3 mushroom piece carved from a log end, it stands about 24" high..

Some shots of carvings, finished and ready for delivery, perhaps to You.?

 I just to throw a shot of old SLIM in here, He's a good ole boy..

And finally, my carving shed where I do my chainsaw carving.. A filthy nasty area but it does the job..!

A couple standing logs ready to carve something out of them, a few more bears possibly, or giant mushrooms.?

Chainsaw Woodcarving, June 17, 2011

Ok, so I finally had some spare time to finish  a few carvings.. This is me, the Crazy Chainsaw Carving Dude next to a trio of bears..

Here are some close-up photos of the bears..

FRANKIE

 

                                                         ANNIE

SLIM SHADY

Mushroom's amyone ?.. The mushrooms were carved from firewood stock..

I hope you enjoyed the carving photo's.. Each finished carving is burned with a propane torch.. Then coated with boiled linseed oil.. This oil is what wood gun stocks are coated with.. After several days of dry time I give the carvings 2 coats of a deep penetrating weather sealer / UV protectant.. ALL "green" wood carvings will experience cracks, that is just part of their character.. "Green" wood simply means it is not kiln dried wood like you might purchase for building / construction usage..

FRANKIE, SLIM, & ANNIE

 

All my carvings are made from logs that were cut for either firewood, or homeowners removing trees from their property, or off-cutt timber ends from logs harvested for milling boards.. No fresh living tree is cut for the sole purpose of carving, I simply recycle and use what they do not want... The wood is easily obtained and free of charge.. I currently have a nice stock of Poplur, Butternut and various Pine logs..

Chainsaw Woodcarving, April 8, 2011

Well, it has been a long time since my last post.. I have not been making fishing lures as of late..
I do have 60 wood lure blanks to finish but I have been preoccupied with a new hobby..

CHAINSAW CARVING...........!

Yes thats right, I took to carving wood with a chainsaw recently..
I took a one day lesson from Rick "Cowboy" Cox of R & S Woodcarving..
Here is a few photos of my days accomplishments.. Ok, so I am no professional, that much is for certain.. But I certainly had a great time.. I spent 9 hours with Rick, and tried to absorb as much info as I could.. I went home, ( an 80 minute drive), and by the time I got home it felt like every bone & muscle in my body was either stiff, sore, aching or worn out..Hahaha..

Here is a bear and an eagle head I did with Rick..
A great guy and a great experience for me..
I hope to practice and Improve !

2 Gold Foil Sucker Baits

I finally had some time to finish off a few new lures.. Here are 2 different body styles in the same pattern.. Both lures are made of PVC, and are in a gold foil Sucker pattern.. I embossed the foil with scallops which made a realistic scale pattern in the gold foil.. I then painted the lure and added airbrush scaling using the scale mesh method..

These lures are made of synthetic stock, PVC, with .062 wire, Wolverine 5/0 hooks, and a layered Envirotex epoxy finish..


                                     9" Gold Foil Sucker
                           9" length, 225mm, 7.1oz Floating

                                                       

                                     8" Gold Foil Sucker
                            8" length, 200mm, 7.5oz Sinking

The 9" Floater: at a slow retrieve it is a wake bait producing a nice "V" wake trail.. At a fast retrieve its shallow swimmer, slow tail sweep, at a depth of 1"-3"..

The 8" quick sink is a great lipless crankbait, runs at a depth of 3"-10" or more depending on the speed of retrieve.. It has an excellent tail sweep at any speed.. I especially like the sweep at slow retrieve speeds.. It has a wide lazy sweep when swimming slowly, the head sweeps 12" or more ..!
The sweep tightens up at faster speeds and sweeps 3"-5"..

If you have interest in my lures please visit www.JPMYERSLURES.com ...

I also post a few lures on http://www.etsy.com/shop/JPMYERSLURES ...

"FROGGINSTEIN" Frog Surface JerkBait

                                            FROGGINSTEIN

                                 Golden Leopard Frog

Green Leopard Frog

What is a group of frogs called?.. A herd?., A School?., or just plain Bass Food ?.

Here is some video of Frogginstein swimtests 9-1-2010

                                      

                             

6-27-2010 Swim Test Foil Shad

Here is a medium size Largemouth Bass I caught today.. I was swim testing a few lures and hooked this fish, decided to take a photo.. The lure is one of my handmade crankbaits, and is 6" and 2.3 ounces.. It is in a silver foil shad pattern.. I was wearing my lucky Ramones T-shirt, and caught the bass on my third cast.. Ok, so the lure worked great, testing is over!.. Hahaha..

Custom Crankbaits 6-18-2010

Here is my latest batch of crankbaits.. I just finished these a few days ago..

All are 125mm except the bottom lure is 175mm..

5" Gold foil 1.9oz

5" Natural Shad 1.7oz

5" Fire Shad 1.7oz

5" Copper foil 1.9oz

7" Gold foil 2.3oz

  These are all made from PVC board, a very strong and durable synthetic stock.. Multiple coats of E-Tex epoxy with glitter mixed into it.. 4X strong VMC hooks, ready to Rock-n-Roll....!

If you have interest in my lures please visit www.JPMYERSLURES.com ...

I also post a few lures on http://www.etsy.com/shop/JPMYERSLURES ...

Jointed Frog Lure for Dad

I just finished this jointed Frog Lure for my Dad.. I planned it to be a birthday gift but I missed the deadline by a few days!.. So, Im giving it to him for the upcoming Father's Day..

This is a solid plastic lure.. I made a clay carving, fired the clay in my kitchen stove, casted 5 silicone slip molds from the 5 clay parts, then used the molds to cast the parts from Featherlite liquid plastic..

Featherlite floats, so I only needed to add a #2 splitshot in the belly for weight to make it land on its belly on each cast.. Lure is 175mm.. Im sure Pops will get a real kick out of this when he see's it..

I tried to airbrush as much detail as I could.. This took me 3 hours to paint.. I actually painted 2 of these at the same time, always good to have a spare!.. I used 2 shades of green, yellow, brown, black, with gold glitter mixed into the 3 layers of E-Tex epoxy.. The eyes are clear glass which I painted, and they are semi-transparent..

Jp~

Custom Repaint Fishing Lures ( Sebile Rapala Salmo Gancraft )

Hello and welcome to my blog, JP Myers Lures, handcrafted fishing lures.. This is my first attempt at a blog and this is my first entry into my blog.. I will be posting new photos of my latest creations as they become available.. For the present I have a website on eBay, but I do plan to make my own site in the near future..

As time permits, i hope to post some "how to" photos and text on luremaking.. If this interests you, please let me know.. At the present time I am too busy to complete this task.. But I do hope to get a tutorial posted on making crankbaits and glider/jerkbaits from PVC board.. It should be interesting..

Here are a few custom painted name brand lures just to get things going.. Gancraft is above, and below we have a few Salmo Buster Jerks..

Here is some Rapala F16's

Salmo Slider

Sebile Magic Swimmer

And 2 Salmo Fatso's

All of the above lures I custom painted for an avid fisherman in Budapest, Hungary.. I no longer do custom painting by request, so please do not ask.. I now only make and paint my own creations..

If you have interest in my lures please visit http://www.jpmyerslures.com/ ...

I also post a few lures on  http://www.etsy.com/shop/JPMYERSLURES ...