Mike, Again, it depends on a lot of things, mostly, the metallurgy and forging/bending processes used to create the hook.
Understanding the basic metalurgy is helpful, but it's also somewhat practical wisdom. A metal maintains it strength when bending if it can return to it's original shape. Bending it beyond that means you 'yield' the metal. How far you go past yield will determine how much strength of the metal you compromised. If you heat the metal before bending, you are less apt to break it, but you will have a more brittle metal once it cools. Wire hooks can bend quite a bit, and bend more easily. Forged hooks are harder to bend, but are more brittle, therefore may break. The metallurgy (combinations of metal) in the wire stock will determine just how soft or brittle the metal will become once heat treated, but different methods of heat-treating and normalizing will affect properties also. The way I've always done it is by experimentation. i don't like heating hooks, because it takes the finish off, and they may rust under the body. I bend a hook to see when it breaks, and then use the butt-end for a tandem/articulated fly. Now I know the breaking point and get a feel for how brittle the metal is. I go 50% of that and see if the metal looks finely cracked at the bend, of if the finish chipped off. If so, I bend less. I may also bend in a longer radius to spread the bend over a longer area of hook- common sense. I'm not too concerned with hook strength for fly-fishing, because the leader will always be the weakest link. Not many people lift a very large fish out of the water on the hook, especially flyfishers. Bait-fishers and lure fishers do it and the gear is sized for it. I had a hook come in a box of Mustads that was way off spec, either for metallurgy or tempering. I put it in the vise and it was like a soft plastic. I could twist it like a baggie tie and tie it in a knot- it was like a stiff piece of string. No other hooks in the box were like that. DonO ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Bliss To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 5:36 PM Subject: Re: [VFB] Up or Straight eye for streamers Not an answer but a question to the group. I have bent hooks to change the eye and to bend the hook. Any thoughts about what this does to the integrity of the hook? If the metal is warm will that help? Mike On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Rodger Oleson <[email protected]> wrote: I've been looking at streamers in several different places in books and on the web. I'm wondering what the general consensus is as to using down eyes or straight eyes for the hooks. It seems it is a bit difficult to find/afford some of the straight-eyed streamer hooks. Well maybe not totally out of line, but it seems strange to pay a couple dollars more for 25 TMC/Tiemco 8089's as opposed to a similar(R74-9672) mustad hook with a down eye. (Seems to be the general pricing trend) Is it a case of paying for something better or just pricing to take advantage of what the market will bear? Anybody here have any thoughts/reasons for choosing down eye or straight eye hooks for streamers? I just thought I'd tie a box full of Woolly Buggers while listening to the Rangers on the radio, and noticed I had very few hooks with straight eyes and 4X long. Rodger O. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com -- Mike Bliss Aloha from Hawaii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com
