About
A lure designer built around Paulownia
Big stickbaits and poppers are where Paulownia shines: light, stable, easy to machine. This tool is for designing them properly — and knowing how they will sit in the water before the router starts.
Lure Builder is made by Alastair Pilley, a Design and Technology teacher in Sydney who runs Paulownia Timber Supplies, supplying Paulownia timber and CNC machining. Lure makers kept asking the same questions — how big a ball, where, will it float tail-down — so the answers are now built into the design tool.
Every lure is designed as two mirrored halves around a stainless through-wire, cut from a Paulownia blank in two passes on a CNC router. The app predicts whether it floats, suspends or sinks and the angle it rests at, sizes the ballast, rigs real hooks and split rings, and writes the files and a setup sheet for the workshop. Read how lure design works or the CNC and printing workflow.
Paulownia Timber Supplies customers can order lure blanks, kits with wire, hangers, balls and eyes, or have their halves cut for them.
Questions, bugs, ideas — or a lure you built with it? Email info@paulowniatimber.com.au.
Lure Builder is free software, a modified version of OpenShaper, licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. The exact source of this build is available as source.zip.
Design your next lure
Shape it in your browser, check how it floats, then cut it from Paulownia — nothing to install.