These photos show what to expect of a standard hook straight out of a packet. The photo shows the best hook from the first 3 I took from each pack.
I now have some hooks sharpened ready for pics. The 1st wave should come tomorrow, showing what I've done in a few seconds with jag stones, a point doctor, 600grit diamond stone and my blue Peter special hook sharpener. They look good under a loupe so it'll be interesting to see them magnified.
So far, we have looked at hooks from a packet and what to expect from different brands. Ian (Yonny) has shown us what to expect from various hook sharpening services
(Click here for Hook Sharpening Part 1) and I must say I was quite surprised at the inconsistency.
But what would mine look like?
In this post I'm looking at what a home sharpened hook is like having been sharpened with a variety of tools. As some of the tools used are coarser than others the number of strokes made, and therefore the time they took varied. Most of them took 10 to 20 seconds on my bench, the one hook with multiple processes took around a minute
Our chosen hook for this is a size 4 Gardner Rigga, a pain to sharpen as it has the eye in line with point, preventing a long stroke.
I was quite happy with the consistency though.
The unsharpened hook, up close
What does it look like after a tickle
At this point, I wanted to see if going 'through the grades' as you would when sharpening woodworking tools made a difference.
I'd say it made a fair difference.
Now, I wanted to try some more tackle branded sharpeners, but the remaining tools in my local shop were all diamond products. I already have a broad range of diamond products for work, so I'm not buying any for the purpose of this test. I also noticed most were in the 400-600grit range which is fairly coarse by my standards. I tend not to use diamond stones for hooks, they are my 1st choice for most sharpening applications but some substances clog them up quickly, the coatings on hooks are one of the worst offenders I have come across, and are very difficult to remove once embedded.
For what it's worth, here is a hook after a tickle with a 600 grit trend credit card stone.
I might have to rethink this one!
The final image for this round is the hook sharpened with my blue Peter special, the tool I find easiest to use, takes seconds to make and costs me pennies for the materials.
I've posted these pics as soon as possible after taking them, I haven't had a close look until now and I'm quite surprised, particularly by the last two. They are razor sharp, but look far too delicate to me, I think I'll give them a final hone with a finer grade and take a look at them then.
I think that given the quality of the three stage hook and the point doctored hook not being particularly sharp, I'm going to have to get a coarser point doctor and look at these and the jag stones as two part systems. I feel the point doctor is perhaps too fine to sharpen a dullish point, but is good for final honing.
