: Hi there, Sam.

: ..."lay-up the hooks on plastic sheet so you can

: Thanks; I wouldn't have thought of that anytime soon.

: I screwed three test hooks into the header of a shop doorway and started
: hanging weights. All three were pretty much the same, except that for two
: of them I used pigmented epoxy. The base coil size varied some.

: All three held 100 lbs. static dead weight with no major bending of the hook
: or visual stress to the fiberglass/epoxy base.

: All three failed when I came close to applying my full weight of 175 lbs.,
: say somewhere around 150.

: All three failed where the metal SS rod bent outside the epoxy blob, that is,
: up on the exposed hook part. Two showed minor stress marks right at the
: point where the rod enters the epoxy (minor bending?).

: One failed also at the underlying bond to the substrate (?), that is, it
: pulled the glass off the old test panel which I used as a base. This is
: the hook to the lower right in the photo. That hook also bent in failure
: but held on long enough to rip up the 6 oz. glass underneath.

: To make the rod easier to bend, I heated it to red hot which is why it looks
: black now. Would that have made it softer or easier to bend afterward, do
: you think? It would be more difficult to make 16 (one full boat set) of
: them without heating.

: I think this is good enough to put into the current boat I'm working on.

: Any criticisms (save those of ugliness) and comments are welcome. Thanks once
: more, Sam; I appreciate you taking some time to think about this.

: Cheers,

: Pete,
: in Snohomish

Pete,

Nice work. Thanks for the pictures. Sounds like you have increased the load capacity.

Heating the stainless may soften the material if it is in a hardened condition to begin with - that will depend on the alloy and processing. However, heating may also reduce the corrosion resistance. Stainless is often given a passivation treatment that produces a corrosion resistsnt surface layer. It probably won't make much of a difference, but you may see more 'rust' appear on the hooks than without heating.

Thanks,
Sam