Making a Lathe-less Popper Tutorial

Making a Lathe-less Popper Tutorial

By Alexander Arceo aka islandbass

The purpose of this tutorial is to show you how I make a popper out of wood without the use of a lathe. It is a low-tech approach, but it works quite well, especially, if you do not have the means to purchase a lathe and the only thing you really need is some elbow grease.

Tools
Safety Goggles
Sanding Block
Hand Drill
¾” Forstner Bit (optional)
Saw – MITRE Saw is a good choice
MITRE Box
A sharpie marker

Materials Needed
¾” Diameter Basswood Dowel
Sandpaper: Coarse 60 grit, Medium, and Fine
Scrap piece of wood large enough to accommodate the dowel.


Cut the basswood dowel to the size you wish with the MITRE saw and box. In bass fishing, typical poppers range from 3” and longer. Choose the length you wish to make your popper. For the purposes of this tutorial, I chose a length of 3”. The dowel should look like the piece lying on the rug in the picture below:

Mark the approximate center of the dowel with a sharpie. This dot will help serve as a reference when sanding.

Put a strip of the coarse sand paper onto the sanding block. Hold the dowel in one hand and the sanding block in the other. The next step is to change the end of the dowel from its current round shape to a square. This is done by sanding one end of the dowel at a shallow angle until it becomes flat and then repeating the process three more times to form the other three sides of your square.


Dowel before sanding

Dowel after sanding end to make square four sides.

It can now be seen that the initially rounded end of the dowel is now in the shape of a square.

The sanding process continues but this time, the pointed corners of the square are sanded at the same low angle that was used to make the square. This will change the square into an octagon.

Continuing to follow this sanding process of sanding the edges will eventually taper the end.

Note how the left end is tapered and smooth. The harsh square edges are now gone. It is not a difficult or taxing effort with coarse sandpaper.

Use the medium sandpaper to smooth your piece and if desired repeat the process with fine sandpaper.

Sanding Tips:
* To ensure that equal sanding is applied, I used to count the number of times I moved the sander over on each side and applied the same number of strokes to the other sides. After some experience, you will develop a feel for it.
* By the time you get to the nearly finishing the octagon, the dowel’s end will be nearly smooth.
* Don’t hesitate to trust your eyes.
* A Mouse sander can be used if you have one.


Making the Popper’s Mouth
There are a variety of shapes the mouth could be and the final decision is yours to make. For this tutorial, I have chosen to make a “moon-faced” popper. It can be done a number of ways such as by sanding it out manually (not recommended) or a Dremel tool, but I believe it is best done with a Forstner bit that has the same diameter of the dowel.

Place the popper to be on top of the scrap piece of wood.

Hold down the plug as firmly as possible and place the drill as shown. Carefully start drilling until the Forstner bit passes through the scrap wood.

NOTE: I did not make up this technique to create a moonfaced popper . I learned it from a tutorial at Tackle Underground (www.tackleunderground.com) and wish to give full credit to the author. I have not been able to find the tutorial on the site since then. My intent in this tutorial is to show the reader how to shape popper plugs without the use of a lathe.

Here is a shot of the dowel with the Forstner bit not completely through. The plastic bag was placed under the scrap piece of wood to make clean up easy and Shop-Vac free.

After completing the drilling with the forstner bit, the only thing that needs to be done is to remove the scrap wood.

From this point forward, the only things that need to be done to the plug are to:

Remove the unwanted material
Prime and paint
Coat with a clear, protective, finish (E.g., Dev Con 2Ton 30-minute Epoxy)
Add hooks and other hardware


My popper-prop

If you repeat the same sanding process on the other side of the dowel, you can make a propeller plug.

My low-tech lures:
Moonfaced “Island Tiger” popper with hand-tied chicken feather flash tail
Golden Glitter Craw Propeller plug with hand-tied chicken feather tail
Non-Moonfaced Redhead popper (done with a Dremel tool) with an X-Rap tail (I got tired of tying tails)

Thanks for reading.

Alexander Arceo aka islandbass