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Making Wilfred...

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Charlie is so much flashier than Wilfred that after the foam outie eyes were added he stood around waiting for quite a few weeks while Charlie got all the attention... and sweat, and cussin', and traveling.

Wilfred waited patiently for his turn and it came with a scary procedure.

Open Lure surgery had Wilfred on his back with his hooks removed and a long incision midway in the thickest part of his body going from gill to gill and then some.

The purpose of the surgery was to implant a thin steel diving bill formed on a 48" brake to match the design drawings. The original material was to be aluminum but the sheet I had selected was too strong to be bent on my brake or on my friend's larger brake. So coated steel it is.

Here is Wilfred recovering nicely and back on his hooks awaiting the body filler treatment for his foam eyes and his coat of automotive primer.

Already coated with auto primer and with sides painted with aluminum paint, bird netting from our fig tree wrap is stretched over his sides. After color is sprayed over the side area, the netting is removed to create the suggestion of fish scales along the sides.

With layers of color , white, yellow, tan, brown and final touches of red, Wilfred emerges.

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