Wednesday, May 06, 2015

How to make metal hooks, or why I make wood hooks

In the interest of curiosity, knowing that you are just fascinated by crochet hook  design and construction; I'm sharing some information found during a search of venerable European patents.  The drawings above show how to forge a metal crochet hook.  I didn't translate the description, but as you can see, it's pretty evident from the drawings how it works.  I'll embellish a little just cause that's what I do.
So to make a metal hook you must have:

A source of high temp heat such as a coal fired forge or at least a propane fired torch;

A blank of malleable metal such as, oh, steel*, brass, silver, gold (twould be nice, eh?) that is a bit larger than the diameter of the hook you'd like to make;

*steel requires high temperature so I'd stick with the softer albeit heavier metals.

An anvil (perhaps a short piece of railroad rail will do);

A small blacksmith hammer.

Now all you do is shape the hook as shown in the drawings.  Cinchy.

Right.

I'm sticking to making wood hooks.

If YOU decide to make one, send me a picture and I'll post it here.

Happy Hammering
Jimbo

2 comments:

pumasees said...

Thank you for posting this! I am a jeweler and a crocheter. I am seriously considering making one, or more, of these. I think I will try brass first, and if that works.. Then on to silver. I will of course let you know how it goes and send you pictures as well. Thanks again!!!

forgottenpetals said...

I found your site from a link on crochetcabanas arthritis crochet page. I love the look of the wood hooks you make and cant wait to orser sone soon! But just searching around coming across this metal hook diagram made me love this site wven more.
If my hands could still do it I would gladly try this! Im currently encouraging my sons friend who is in metalshop this would be a great project hehe. If i succeed will post the results!