Custom Believers

Here's a few photos of some of the process that I did awhile back on some 10" Believers for a friend. These blanks have a bubble for a eye to be painted on but in order to use a 3-D eye I had to machine the bubble down flat to make a place to attach the eye.
The first couple pics show the bubble that is molded into the body.
The next two pics show me using a standard drill bit, in a drill press, to get the placement correct and to cut center of the bubble to the right depth. You have to be careful in this step as to not drill to deep otherwise you will drill into the hollow body cavity.
In the next three photos, I changed the bit to a flat milling bit to machine the edges of the bubble down flat.
The last three pics are of the bait after painting, adding the 3-D eyes and also adding his logo to the back. At this point it is ready for the epoxy coating.
While this doesn't seem like a big deal to do, on one bait, but when doing 15 baits this way, this little project became very time consuming and turned into many hours of work. In the end I think the time spent was well worth it. I hope he felt it was worth it too.