first swimbait prototypes

These are my first prototypes for swimbaits. I'm new to this but have a lot of mold experience from my studio practice. I can't wait to bust some lings with these and the ones to follow.

sweet...what's the swimbait made of?

old swimbaits reconstituted until i invest in the proper materials. i know these were made with M-F Salt Water Plastic

I like it!    Thanks for the pictures Slaughtercraft.

When you say reconstituted, you mean the old swim baits that have been ripped apart by rockfish and lings?

yup, most of the dirt and urchin spines drop to the bottom when you melt the plastic. i need to order up materials once i have some spare funds but I ran the tests melting old swimbaits to make sure the plastics agree with plaster and flowed well into a two part mold. Since I use plaster for my studio ceramics I just had to try it out and it works great.

Nice work for sure! Way to re-use the old swimbaits!

I dig the spine detail on the rockfish. Nicely done.

Can you show them rigged on a jighead, please?  Or are they not intended to be used that way?

here they are rigged

Bit it's going to be swimming upside down

here they are rigged

First, I think what you're doing is totally awesome.  And secondly, I'm just a newb that's earning about swimbait deployment... but aren't the baits going to be "swimming" upside down the way you have them rigged? 

I've been wondering why the hook on swimbaits isn't oriented "down" instead of "up" (toward the dorsal fin).  Is there a specific reason for the hook orientation?

Again, I'm not criticizing... I think it's friggin' awesome that you're making your own baits and I hope to try it sometime as well.

I assume the hook isn't rigged down on leadheads b/c it would always get snagged. Obviously these swimbaits could be rigged any number of ways, just need to do some field testing to see what works best. Lingcod aren't that smart and I don't think it is going to rly matter whether the fish is upside down or not but I could be mistaken. The side mount could be interesting as far as making it swim more like an injured fish though. Here they are again rigged 3 ways.

I see what you did there.......

so i made a new mold with layering colors in mind even though i still am working off a severely limited palate  for now until i order proper materials. the mold is made in way that i can make the tails a third color if i choose. i took the opportunity to add more fins and slim everything down from the first prototype as well and i turned the herring into a greenling. i still have to get these in the water to test their action but was curious if anyone has opinions about how hammer style tails should be oriented.