Larry- I should have listened to your advice

Questions about Making Your Own Lures

Larry- I should have listened to your advice

Postby Fomen38 » Mon Jul 07, 2014 2:28 pm

Larry-
You'll probably get a chuckle out of this. So in the last thread I posted, I inquired about welding fish hooks together. Against "your" better judgement (and I emphasize "yours", because mine was already skewed to begin with), I went out and bought a 240 VDC spot welder from Harbor Freight Tools. I thought, "Hey, if a spot welder is gentle enough to weld together ultra thin sheets of sheet metal, surely it can weld together some fishing hooks". And so I thought! I got home and after getting everything set up, and plugging the spot welder into the 240 VDC outlet on my generator, I tried a test spot on some galvanized metal fencing straps (thin sheet metal). The first attempt burned right through. Ok- so I'm holding the juice on a bit too long. Well after 2 or 3 minutes of playing with the applied hand pressure and the amount of time I apply the current, I though I had it dialed in. So I took the fishing hooks I wanted to weld together, got them set at the desired angle, and held them fast with a pair of vice grip pliers. I got them positioned between the prongs of the spot welder, applied some pressure on the lever, and hit the juice. No sooner did I hear the transformer in the spot welder hum, then an ear-deafening pop resounded, followed by a shower of sparks and fragments of hook shrapnel exploded everywhere. After checking my shorts for poo-poo, I thought I'd give it another try. Maybe the prongs weren't making good contact, or maybe I hit the juice just a bit too long. Here we go again...... Ok....... Hit the juice...... BOOM!!!!!!! At this point I concluded/conceded to the obvious. That was Larry was right, and a spot welder would not work for welding together fishing hooks. :cry:

However, on another note I found a very good alternative to welding the hooks. I found a solder called TIX. ( http://www.micromark.com/tix-solder-pkg ... ,6707.html ) It has a super low melt temp (275 F), and it's the hardest solder on the market. It can hold up to 4300 psi. Also, unlike soft lead alloy solders, it will bond with lots of metals (including stainless steel, brass, copper, bronze, etc....) So, given that the solder melts at such a low melt temp, you can fuse the hooks together without having tempering issues on the steel hooks from the applied heat during the soldering process. Also, it's diamond hard when cool. I wrapped some very thin stainless steel wire near the eyes of the hook as well as the merge where the curvature of the hook begins. I did this just for added stability, but I don't even know if it's necessary. I could not twist or pull the hooks apart after this. They were essentially welded together.

I attached a link for the solder if anyone is interested. You can shop around online and find it cheaper, but I wanted to just let people out there know what the product is and what it's capable of doing.

Point of the story is, I should have listened to your advice Larry. SHAME ON ME!!!
Fomen38
 
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Re: Larry- I should have listened to your advice

Postby dahlberg » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:16 am

I'm glad you got it worked out! Thanks for sharing, very funny read! I apologize that I forgot to mention solder..
best
L
Larry Dahlberg
The Hunt For Big Fish
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