Hay Hooks

[D'Animal]

I lost one of my old hay 16" hooks or at least I could only find one. So I bought another pair. They are BHND 12' (Big Hand) made in china.

They are crap. They straighten after about the 15th bale of hay. You cannot get a bite on the bale becaus the gullet opens up too much.

I clamped them in my vice and used a piece of pipe as a cheater bar and closed the gullet. I will use my old hook as a design for the new hook. The old hook is the bomb diggity for tossing bales.


How do I rebend these and then heat treat them or what ever I need to do so they do not do this again. Heating them to bend them is a no brainer. After I get them bent, how do I harden them so they will not straighten?

Air cool?

oil quench?

cold water quench?

 

[sirenmoses]

Hmmm, good question. Can you ask your wives farrier? (might even do it for ya!)

Inteweb says water cool then reheat to reduce brittleness. Wouldn't want them to shatter when you drop one in the back of the truck! How to Temper Steel | eHow.com

Good luck!

 

[D'Animal]

Farrier is a great idea.

I'll ask him or have her ask him.


Isn't someone on the board a knife maker? I thought it was flinknapper. I read some post on hardening and tempering metal relating to knives and swords but could not find them again.

 

[Mace]

As I understand it, Mild steel that bends easily will always be mild steel that bends easily.

That is why alloys are so popular..

 

[3pits]

first you need to know the type of steel you are using, if it si just mile steel there is a way to get some hardening out of it, thought I had read about quenching with a soap water mix, and then there is case hardening,it is a case hardening,,,

or you could get some metal from grainer, oil hardening and make what you want,,, not that hard if you have a hammer and an anvil or a piece of railroad,,,

 

[3pits]

this is from anvilfire.com, ive never tried it but have tried other things from this website with great results,,,

SUPER QUENCH


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Super Quench was invented by Rob Gunter of Los Alamos Laboratory after they banned the use of sodium hydroxide as a quenchant.
ROB GUNTER'S SOAP QUENCH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4 1/2 gallons water
5 lb. salt
32 oz. Dawn dish soap (blue)
8 oz. Shaklee Basic I
Stir before each use

Now, what is it? Basically it's a heave brine solution, with a surficant and an anti-bubbler in it.
It will not turn mild steel into tool steel. But for those applications where we need mild steel to be just a little bit harder, it does a good job.

One test took a piece of 1" steel bar, (1018 if I remember correctly) heated one end to non-magnetic and quenched it in cold water. The other end was also heated to non-magnetic and quenched in Super Quench.

The cold water end tested at about 18 on the Rockwell C scale, and the Super Quench end tested at about 42 on the Rockwell C scale. That's an appreciable difference.

I use it on RR spike knives. The regular spikes won't really take or hold an edge. (although I've been told that the ones marked HC will, I've never had any of them) but when quenched in SQ, they do take an edge and hold it fairly well.

OH! BTW, Shaklee is a line of bio-degradable detergents. Basic I is the basic industrial strength formula. Shaklee distributors are listed in the yellow pages of the phone book.

As for Case Hardening, Kasenit, (sold by McMaster & Carr) does a good job.

Paw Paw Wilson - Saturday, 05/19/01 21:33:46 GMT

Super Quench: Paw-Paw is a great believer in super quench. I am not. You can get the same results using ice water and quenching hotter than normal. The hardness achieved is untempered hardness. The result is brittle steel that when tempered is considerably softer. If you need hard, use real steel. Old tools and springs to recycle are too easy to come by. Be VERY careful not to use superquench on high carbon or alloy steels.

In 1885 steels were brine and water quenched. I don't think I EVERY got into a hardening tempering discussion doing a public demontration. The only time it came up was when very missinformed character tried to tell me how to do it. In these cases in public all you can do is keep working and hope the idiot goes away. Otherwise you make him look like an idiot in front of family and friends. Its not good to argue with the the public. .

- guru - Saturday, 05/19/01 23:29:01 GMT

 

[Mace]

hardening and bend ability are different beasties..

 

[roscoFJ73]

How do I rebend these and then heat treat them or what ever I need to do so they do not do this again. Heating them to bend them is a no brainer. After I get them bent, how do I harden them so they will not straighten?

Air cool?

oil quench?

cold water quench?

Maybe you need to look at the profile of the steel to improve the strength.
Laying them on their side and flattening them a bit may help with the strength

 

[D'Animal]

Maybe you need to look at the profile of the steel to improve the strength.
Laying them on their side and flattening them a bit may help with the strength

My old 16" hook is round and the tip looks too be spiral cut like it was done on a lathe. The new hooks are hex shaped.


I thought about getting the shape I wanted and then laying a bead of weld in the inside and outside of the hook to try to strenghten them up. The tips only bend out about 1" but it is enough that it make it very difficult to pick up hay.

I'll get some pics of what I have.

 

[bigndn]

My old 16" hook is round and the tip looks too be spiral cut like it was done on a lathe. The new hooks are hex shaped.


I thought about getting the shape I wanted and then laying a bead of weld in the inside and outside of the hook to try to strenghten them up. The tips only bend out about 1" but it is enough that it make it very difficult to pick up hay.

I'll get some pics of what I have.

You can't get the round ones anymore down there? I'd swear I just saw some the other day. Want me to look around?

 

[D'Animal]

You can't get the round ones anymore down there? I'd swear I just saw some the other day. Want me to look around?

I found a set of round ones but they were $64.00 a set and 18" long.

 

[bigndn]

I found a set of round ones but they were $64.00 a set and 18" long.

Do they have to be 18"? I probably have some I could get rid of.

 

[D'Animal]

Do they have to be 18"? I probably have some I could get rid of.

No, that is just what they had in stock. I'll take some pics of my good one and the crappy ones when I get home.

 

[Mace]

get some 70XX welding rod and go to town. It should give enough support to keep the tip from bending.

If it bends on 80 lb hay bales it is junk metal..

 

[D'Animal]

If it bends on 80 lb hay bales it is junk metal..

That what I was thinking.

 

[e9999]

never had to worry about those....


I guess I am just a city slicker, sadly, little wheeling notwithstanding....

 

[D'Animal]

LMAO!


There is a whole other world out there.

never had to worry about those....


I guess I am just a city slicker, sadly, little wheeling notwithstanding....

and sometimes it's kinda scary.

 

[haystax]

Just go into the Lucio yard and steal a pair out of one of their trucks, most of their drivers don't know how to use them anyways. But seriously, this is finally a topic that deserves some attention on 'MUD!!

I know those hooks, when people show up to load hay with shiny red hay hooks the price usually increases a couple dollars a bale You will have to pay for the good hooks with the leather hand guards, no doubt about that. I wouldn't want to weld on the cheapies, that might make it harder to pull the hook out of the hay bale you're tossing around and you'll end up buying more beer than the good hooks would have cost. That is assuming you and the wife keep a dropped hook = beer tally like all the other hay haulers do

I might have an odd spare around to match the hook you lost, post a pic and I'll see about digging through the pile.

 

[D'Animal]

The one in the middle works great, eventhough it is not the desired shape.

The ones on the ends are the cheap ones. You can see how they opened up.

 

[stayalert]

I havn't hucked much hay in my day but those things remind me of pulp hooks which are similar but shorter - Just talking about hay makes my forearms ache and feel all scratched up...