Hopper
02-27-2004, 06:10 PM
I went through my fly boxes this winter and pulled out all of the old flies that I know I would never tie on my line and are too ugly to give away. When I was done I had 92 of them. Rather than pitch them, I wanted to try and recycle the hooks. The challenge is removing the material. I tried burning it off on the grill but I suspect the heat treatment might change the temper of the hooks, plus they typically discolored to a sooty black that just didn't look right to me.
Last night I tried a few attachments on my dremel tool for removing the material. Results were significantly more positive. I clamped each hook into an old vise of mine, then attacked them at medium to high RPM on the dremel. For the big bushy bugs I used an 80 grit "flap wheel". This was fairly efficient on big bugs such as dubbed hoppers and stones, cicadas, etc. Hook damage was minimal and confined to the shank. For smaller flies (parachutes, midges, etc) I switched over to a 200 grit abrasive buff pad. These small flies literally cleaned off in two to three taps of the wheel to the hook unless there was wire ribbing. Again, hook damage was minimal and confined to the shank so I'm not very worried about loss of hook strength. I cleaned hooks all the way down to some #24s. To minimize hook damage I used a tapping motion rather than steady pressure. This also made it easier to see when the material had been removed from that area so you could move the dremel to the next spot requiring attention. Overall it worked quite well.
I didn't try a wire brush attachment.
By the end of the task, I had cleaned 92 hooks in 45 minutes. This seemed far more efficient than hacking it off with an exacto knife to me. If you try this, make sure you wear protective eyewear as glass beads, wire ribbing, etc will come flying off. My vise jaws did get "buffed" a bit. You may want to use an old vise for this.
Hope this helps someone.
Hopper
Last night I tried a few attachments on my dremel tool for removing the material. Results were significantly more positive. I clamped each hook into an old vise of mine, then attacked them at medium to high RPM on the dremel. For the big bushy bugs I used an 80 grit "flap wheel". This was fairly efficient on big bugs such as dubbed hoppers and stones, cicadas, etc. Hook damage was minimal and confined to the shank. For smaller flies (parachutes, midges, etc) I switched over to a 200 grit abrasive buff pad. These small flies literally cleaned off in two to three taps of the wheel to the hook unless there was wire ribbing. Again, hook damage was minimal and confined to the shank so I'm not very worried about loss of hook strength. I cleaned hooks all the way down to some #24s. To minimize hook damage I used a tapping motion rather than steady pressure. This also made it easier to see when the material had been removed from that area so you could move the dremel to the next spot requiring attention. Overall it worked quite well.
I didn't try a wire brush attachment.
By the end of the task, I had cleaned 92 hooks in 45 minutes. This seemed far more efficient than hacking it off with an exacto knife to me. If you try this, make sure you wear protective eyewear as glass beads, wire ribbing, etc will come flying off. My vise jaws did get "buffed" a bit. You may want to use an old vise for this.
Hope this helps someone.
Hopper