Snake Hooks

martin g wrote: I dont use snake hooks, but I am an engineer in design.  Heres an idea that just occured to me when I checked out those 'carbon' hooks. Find an old fishing rod, they tend to be very light (glass fibre or carbon) and hollow, any junk shop or shed.  Remove the eyelets (for the fishing line) this gives you a blank, very strong but very light stick, usually around a metre long.  Make your hook from hollow steel tube available from any hardware shop, insert and Araldite it in place.  You can sleeve the hook with clear plastic hose (aquarium shop) to protect the animals should you wish.

I have been trying all kinds of epoxy based glue/bonding compound but still my hook could not stand twisting movement or the eopxy will actually break. Is Araldite good in solving my problem cause we do have Araldite selling at hardwares shops in Malaysia. If using the compound, how can I bond the inner side of the golf shaft and the stainless steel hook part?

PS also 'key' the steel heavily, if it is smooth you will still have the problem of the steel breaking away from the epoxy.

If you need an adder hook in a hurry, a simple wire coat hanger is pretty good - just pull the long edge so as to straighten it, twist it once or twice, straighten the hook end into an L-shape, and voila, you have a snake hook.

Moreover, because of the bendiness of the whole thing, it's actually a pretty good tool for gently pinning the forebody of the adder with the handle end while grabbing the tail.

And when the hook end breaks off (as it tends to), you can then use the handle as a handy replacement aerial for your car

Cheers,

Wolfgang

If araldite doesnt work, there is a product on the market called 'milliput' which is fibrerous and may do the trick.  Remember I havent made one of these, its just an idea.

Araldite would work, it just needs some glass or carbon fibres in it to resist failure to twisting as would any epoxy. Snake hooks can put a suprising torque through the joint and this is why they fail at this point unless using a reinforced compound.

Milliput is a filler (epoxy putty), not good for bonding but quite good for filling cracks on model aeroplanes, not that I would be found doing such things of course, we leave all such activities to Iowarth.

I used to make resin furniture for vivariums, so have experimented a lot with epoxy and reinforcement. It is amazing the difference in bond strength between a straight epoxy joint and a epoxy/glass joint.