porgyking,
that's good advice BA passed on and, as you've seen from his postings, you can do fine work with basic tools. Some of the guys heavily into plug-making also use drillpresses and combination belt & disc sanders...if you decide to get a lathe for turning plugs you'll have to decide whether to pick up a mini-lathe (somewhere around 150 to 200 bucks)or go for the full size shop models that can run up into a thousand or more...files are helpful...say, a couple of rasps for taking down wood in a hurry, gouges of varying shape & size, drawknife, awls...I know one fella that turns his plugs with a table mounted router...then again, I know two guys who do most of their carving with a couple of old jacknives & I wish I could match their level of craftsmanship...really depends on how far into it you want to get...for myself, i love to fool around with old plugs like dannys, pikies, old poppers & stuff like that...I like to take off the old finish, fill & sand the cracks, splits & gouged out parts, then redo them the way I think they oughtta be...maybe reweight them, change to single circle hook w/ bucktail...I enjoy that & I dearly love those old Heddons, Creek Chubs, flatfish, musky sized jitterbugs...I wander around to some of the old tackle Web sites and buy beaters & fix them up, so I don't mind too much when I lose one..it's not like I'm dropping near to twenty bucks on a YoZuri or one of the new exotics...
Anyhow, gald to have you aboard & drop around often...let us see what you come up with...there's a lot of wise old heads around the board & they're glad to help if you've got questions...
Jerry Vovcsko,
moderator
East Bridgewater, Ma