NEW SPINNERBAIT BITES HARD; FISHING DENTIST CREATES TOOL USING FAMILIAR MATERIAL.Byline: Jim Matthews James R. "Jim" Matthews is an elected public official in Pennsylvania. Matthews is a member of the Republican Party. He currently serves on the Board of Commissioners of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Special to the Daily News It's a root-canal tool and a fishing lure In terms of sport fishing, a lure is an object attached to the end of the fishing line and designed to resemble and move like an item of fish prey. Lures are equipped with one or more single,double, or treble hooks that are used to hook fish when they attack the lure. . A Tulsa, Okla., dentist has incorporated the nickel-titanium used to make dental files into a new spinnerbait that will take a beating and keep on fishing. The material doesn't bend out of shape like standard spinnerbait frames that bass anglers constantly tweak to ensure they swim properly. The marriage of dentistry and angling has landed Ben Johnson Ben Johnson or Benjamin Johnson may be:
He used to spend a lot of days down in the mouth. Literally. Filling cavities, making caps, pulling teeth and doing root canals. Now Johnson spends a lot of time pursuing different largemouths - bass, not patients. The common denominator common denominator n. 1. Mathematics A quantity into which all the denominators of a set of fractions may be divided without a remainder. 2. A commonly shared theme or trait. in the equation is nickel-titanium, an extremely strong and elastic material originally developed for the Navy to be lightweight and totally rustproof rust·proof adj. Incapable of rusting. rust  proof v. . Nickel-titanium wire can be
bent into a full circle and spring back to its original shape without
breaking. You've seen the commercials for eyeglass eye·glassn. 1. eyeglasses Glasses for the eyes. 2. A single lens in a pair of glasses; a monocle. 3. See eyepiece. 4. See eyecup. frames made of the stuff. Johnson originally used the material to design the perfect tool for root canals, making the files he employed previously - files that were difficult to use and painful for his patients - obsolete. The light bulb in his head flashed brightly one day when Johnson was bass fishing with his spinnerbait-fanatic friend who was demonstrating how to tune a standard stainless-steel-wire spinnerbait - bending it back into shape so it would swim correctly. ``I asked him, `Would it be an advantage if you didn't have to do that all the time?' And he said, `You bet it would.' Well, it didn't take long to make a few prototypes,'' Johnson explained. Nickel-titanium wire is expensive compared to stainless steel stainless steel: see steel. stainless steel Any of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10–30% chromium. The presence of chromium, together with low carbon content, gives remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. and is difficult to work with, but the resulting spinnerbait will last at least 20 times longer than one made with stainless-steel wire, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. industry insiders. Professional bass angler Ricky Green of Arkadelphia, Ark., caught more than 100 bass in tournaments on a single nickel-titanium wire spinnerbait. Another angler landed more than 50 Brazilian peacock bass Peacock bass is the common name in English for several species of tropical, freshwater fish of the genus Cichla native to the Amazon River basin of South America. These tropical fish are not true basses, but are rather cichlids. before breaking the lure. Johnson said that he and his fishing compatriot com·pa·tri·ot n. 1. A person from one's own country. 2. A colleague. [French compatriote, from Late Latin compatri found that standard wire spinnerbait frames will break after being bent back and forth four or five times, while nickel-titanium would bend and spring back to shape more than 900 times before it broke. It was the better mousetrap and Johnson figured anglers would want the new bait - and would be willing to foot the bill to fetch them. The retail price of Terminator Titanium Spinnerbaits, as the dentist's new Tulsa-based company is called, is nearly $9. Many spinnerbaits are $3 or less; the top-priced competitors' lures cost half that of Johnson's creation. Will anglers pay the price for the durability and design features brought about by advanced technology? ``No one thought most anglers would pay the extra price for graphite rods,'' Johnson said. ``But if it gives you an advantage, you buy it.'' The maker's story might also help sell the angler, Johnson said. He hopes bass fishermen are amused to find that a dentist who came up with a better instrument to perform root canals also designed a high-tech spinnerbait. He's gone from pulling teeth to ripping lips; only the mouths have changed. ``The fishing part (of the business) is a whole lot more fun doing research for than the dentistry part,'' Johnson said. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO (Color) Nickel-titanium in dental tools, right, is used in frames of spinnerbaits. Terri Thuente/Daily News |
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