Ed.

Never heard of "Auscrab" any links?

Yeah, I notice that a bit too, I am a member of Fishing Monthly and nearly of the discussion are listed as being several years old. I put up a sale listing there to sell a Makiara 30 II reel. It is a bit strange in that my advert has had over 500 views in 3 or 4 days so there must be a lot of people visiting the site but not participating or else not logging in. I do not know how that site is still going! I just logged in there and there were 6 people on it and only 1 (me) had logged in.

Well Facebook won't get me as I don't have an account and have no intention of ever getting one.😁

I can't remember  what percentage of micro balloons I used as it was quite a few years ago that I made them, using the 2mm wire will add a lot of weight to your lure so I would reduce it to a smaller diameter, you most likely do not need wire that thick, I am not sure what the breaking strength of 2mm is but it would be well in the area of several hundred KG's, even 1.6mm that I am using is overkill but I have a large roll of it so that is the only reason I used it. 1mm to 1.2mm  will probably be strong enough.
Polyurethane is heavier than water so you need to make the lure  lighter by reducing the lures weight per volume  ie; filler of some sort, light weight beads or even an air cavity of some sort.
Pic below is of one of the lures, replacing both hooks on the lure with the  hook size on the right will make it sink otherwise it will float with the ones on it. They are both 6/0 but the silver one is 5X strength.

I made 2 sizes of poppers a while ago, 155mm and a 180mm, using 2 part Polyurethane (not resin) and added micro balloons (from a fibreglass supply store) that gave me added buoyancy, when I put on the 6/0 treble hooks on the smaller lure it still floated. I also used much heavier 6/0 (5x) trebles on the larger 180mm lures,  those ones  sank but only slowly. Adding the micro ballons reduced the working time of the mix considerably and made the mix white. A 1.6mm stainless wire runs from the front to the back through the mold for the eyelets. The polyurethane I used is pretty tough (used for make boat trailer rollers) it was slightly flexible unlike resin, and it is very hard to get paint to stick to it, I sprayed the mold, when it dried I then poured in the mix. Coated  the outside with a  clear polyurethane paint and added glitter to it, then coated it again and added some eyes and the hooks.
If I used 1mm stainless wire it would reduce the weight a bit as well so probably float better but 1.6mm is what I had at the time, don't know what size hook you use but you might get better flotation if you used smaller or lighter hooks, also you might be able to add some light weight plastic beads inside the mold as well to lighten the weight of the resin.
 

I can't remember  what percentage of micro balloons I used as it was quite a few years ago that I made them, using the 2mm wire will add a lot of weight to your lure so I would reduce it to a smaller diameter, you most likely do not need wire that thick, I am not sure what the breaking strength of 2mm is but it would be well in the area of several hundred KG's, even 1.6mm that I am using is overkill but I have a large roll of it so that is the only reason I used it. 1mm to 1.2mm  will probably be strong enough.
Polyurethane is heavier than water so you need to make the lure  lighter by reducing the lures weight per volume  ie; filler of some sort, light weight beads or even an air cavity of some sort.
Pic below is of one of the lures, replacing both hooks on the lure with the  hook size on the right will make it sink otherwise it will float with the ones on it. They are both 6/0 but the silver one is 5X strength.

I made 2 sizes of poppers a while ago, 155mm and a 180mm, using 2 part Polyurethane (not resin) and added micro balloons (from a fibreglass supply store) that gave me added buoyancy, when I put on the 6/0 treble hooks on the smaller lure it still floated. I also used much heavier 6/0 (5x) trebles on the larger 180mm lures,  those ones  sank but only slowly. Adding the micro ballons reduced the working time of the mix considerably and made the mix white. A 1.6mm stainless wire runs from the front to the back through the mold for the eyelets. The polyurethane I used is pretty tough (used for make boat trailer rollers) it was slightly flexible unlike resin, and it is very hard to get paint to stick to it, I sprayed the mold, when it dried I then poured in the mix. Coated  the outside with a  clear polyurethane paint and added glitter to it, then coated it again and added some eyes and the hooks.
If I used 1mm stainless wire it would reduce the weight a bit as well so probably float better but 1.6mm is what I had at the time, don't know what size hook you use but you might get better flotation if you used smaller or lighter hooks, also you might be able to add some light weight plastic beads inside the mold as well to lighten the weight of the resin.
 

I have 6 or 7 ugly stiks, they are a composite glass/graphite rod but the graphite is predominantly spiral bound like a spring, I think that they are the only brand that uses the Howald process to build them, so they have a huge hoop strength, which also gives them the tip sensitivity. They do have a range of 2 piece rods but the larger stronger rods are now confined to spinning reels or one piece especially in the overhead variety. They will take much more abuse than the straight graphite rods which you have to take care not to nick the rod or high stick them. Although I do have both types I still prefer in many ways the Ugly stiks as you are just able to fish with them instead of pampering them, my oldest rod is about 40 years old and I still fish with it, I just replace the guides if they fail, as that is the only thing that has happened to any of mine.
I am not sure about how they build  the newish GX2 or their travel rods though.

Nope, it's a small town.

Nope, it's a small town.