Bending a hook on a fish tape

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tkb

tkb

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MA
I would like to bend a nice new hook on my fish tape.

I know I need to heat it up to bend it, but do I let it air cool, or do I quench it in water or oil?
 
I just bend a hook...no heating, no cooling.

It takes some practice to be able to do it w/o breaking the hook.

...and yes, the hook does last under the pressures of a "normal" man and "normal" use.
 
celtic said:
I just bend a hook...no heating, no cooling.
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Same here, 20+ years in and I just learned a short time ago that I was supposed to be heating before bending.

I/8" snakes are easy, I find 1/4" snakes more difficult not to break but than I realized I don't need a small hook on a fat snake.
 
I always try to heat them with a torch to cherry red and then bed the factory style double hook. I have also let them air cool, and found the resulting bend to be at least as strong as the one that comes on a new fish tape. I'm not sure you'd want to quench it. That would make it hard in that spot, and very brittle.

I have bent hooks without heat, but I have trouble getting them to be very compact. Heat helps a lot with that.
 
mdshunk said:
then bend the factory style double hook.
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Not giving you a hard time I just don't know what that gains you.

Does it work better?

Truthfully I often cut the factor hook off after I unroll it and make my own.

We also think nothing of cutting the snake off the head once the run is pulled.
 
iwire said:
Not giving you a hard time I just don't know what that gains you..
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Nothing, except in a few instances.

When vacuum fishing equipment is unavailable, sometimes you can't get your wimpy tape to go the whole way through a long pipe. You can get it as far as you can, then get a second tape in from the other end. You can spin the scond tape and "latch onto" the first tape. When you pull the second tape back, with the factory style double hooks they latch into each other much more securely.

Plus, with the double hook, you can clip on your smaller pulling baskets and don't have to tape up the hook to prevent that cut end from getting caught in couplings and such. The double hook presents a rounded profile on pullback and won't get caught on stuff (as easily, anyhow).

I don't really care what type of bend a man has in his fish tape, but the double bends work best for me and mine. I'd probably get a little excited if one of my guys nipped my fish tape off every wire pull, but feel free to do whatever you want to with yours.
 
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Bend the hook and then offset the head back, serves same purpose to not get caught on edges, etc.
 
iwire said:
We also think nothing of cutting the snake off the head once the run is pulled.
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I watched a guy once cut the end off and proceed to wind up the tape and forget to stop at the end. I died out laughing when I saw him unscrew the cover as the nicely coiled fix tape turned into a knotted ball (similar to the ball of Christmas lights in national lampoons christmas vacation). He had one heck of a time untangling that mess. Ever since that time, I try not to cut the ends off unless I absolutely have to.
Jacob
 
mdshunk said:
I always try to heat them with a torch to cherry red and then bed the factory style double hook. I have also let them air cool, and found the resulting bend to be at least as strong as the one that comes on a new fish tape. I'm not sure you'd want to quench it. That would make it hard in that spot, and very brittle.

I have bent hooks without heat, but I have trouble getting them to be very compact. Heat helps a lot with that.
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I actually can bend factory style with out heat. just use your needles.
 
fish tape head

fish tape head

I always consider bending a new head if I need. Consider being frustrated versus 30 seconds.

just bend the offset first, about 6-8" back from the end of the tape. then bend then tape over to fit the offset. I always bend the offset first. then trim the tape tape to match. I can do this in about 20 secs. for a perfect head. .

...then use 33 or whatever, ...

no heat or other time wasting steps...

MP
 
I've only heated once. I find that some of my fish tapes cold bend better than others. I haven't figured out why (steel difference I guess).

My cold hooks are to bend the 1st 1/8" at a 30-40 degree angle, then make the 180 loop so that the end of the tape touches itself. This leaves a nice loop to work with and a closed off end to not get caught on couplings. I always tape the end to be sure.
 
We use the Greenlee with the flexible leader. It seems like it will go through almost anything where sometimes a bent hook will not. But for the record, when I do bend a second fish tape I used needlenose pliers.
 
justin said:
Bend the hook and then offset the head back, serves same purpose to not get caught on edges, etc.
Click to expand...

That is what I have been doing for years.

It's that an apprentice of mine used my brand new fish tape and cut the factory end off because it was getting caught in the insulation in the wall.

Needless to say I let him know my displeasure.
I also let him know that he MUST get permission before he cuts another electricians snake or rope.
I splice eyes in all my ropes and dont like it when they get cut.
 
I have to run mine in to live boxes............ so I use a fiberglass one, Can't bend a new hook on that! But two guy's I work with use the metal type and they just use their linesman pliers and bend it. If we are working on something that can be live I always tell them I'll go catch it on the other end..........
 
tkb said:
I splice eyes in all my ropes and dont like it when they get cut.
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Me too! I so infrequently have to interleave new eyes on ropes, I have to re-teach myself each time I do it. It would really, really tick me off if someone cut off an eye splice that I took my time putting on a rope. The other big no-no is cutting a long rope because you "only needed a short piece". Whatever. I automatically hate you if you do that to me. I don't think some guys realize what a pull rope costs, or they would treat them much better.
 
A handy way to take kinks out of highly used metal fish tapes is to pull it trough a series of pegged nails in line placed in a 2x4. And when finally kinked beyond it?s usefulness reach for the new one and toss the old one on the scrap pile.
 
For some reason, it tickles me to see a thread on something as mundane as putting a hook on your fish tape keep going and going and going...
 
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