Wire Question
 

I've been using 308 tig wire from a welding supply house- This stuff is a Beyotch to bend and I'm wondering if any of you guys anneal your wire before you bend it- Just asking because I hit some with some heat and it bent quite nicely.

I saw the subject and thought this was a question about umbrella rigs :rolleyes: :smash: :laughs:

-spence

look you... i'll rig an umbrella up yer butt :bshake:

IMO hard is good, 316 is to hard and $$$

Check with your welding supplier and see if they carry 308 annealed. It's alot easier to bend.

Try some 316 to warm up with, after that the 308 will seem soft :D If its easy for you to bend, won't it also be easy for the fish to bend?

Jigman

i got some 3/32 316L
that stuff is tough to bend.
i'll try a little heat. thanks for the tip:kewl:

Not to hijack your thread eben, but what diameter 308 tig wire do you guys use? Thanks.

Re: Wire Question
 

what are ya a gurl?:laughs: Suck it up, you can do it:p

Seriously, if you can bend it easily so can the fish....

Im gonna have to beg to disagree with you on this one mac.
I want to meet the bass than can stress ANY .062" stainless wire to the point of failure.
bending?, how is a bass going to "bend" it once its PROPERLY stretched in position ? (btw, thats what a bolt works also, wether its a cheap hardware grade, or aircraft grade , its STRETCHED but not over stretched. thats how it "fastens"
I have taken TUNA on poppers intentionally re wired with #304, if you can put more stress on the wire than that, then i would like to know how.
also, there is a bit of "work hardening" that hapens when you form wire, try to straighten out a loop on #304 (with FISHING LINE) and honestly tell me how much pull it takes.
A major plug manufacturer has been using #304 for quite a while, with no failures that im aware of, swivels -yes, wire-none..
pls someone correct me if im wrong here, as i want to learn also..

I'm not picking on the grade of wire. I just feel that if it is annealed the rear loop is easier to deform ,especially with them blue bastages. I don't think a striper or bluefish could get 1/16 (.062) to fail. The tensile strength is too high. Like stated, the swivel, hook or line conection would fail first.

And im not defending a grade of wire either(although it sure must look that way at this point), just stating what i found based on MY actual testing, and hoping others share their results as well.
Now, i do know MANY plug builders such as yourself that DO prefer the "quarter hard" wire . Im just curious to know what the advantages are.

Swivels, split rings, hook straightening,hook eye opening , those are all REAL concerns.
I guess what im saying is why focus on the 4th or 5th weakest link in a plug ?

1/16 inch.

Jigman

Cause its fun to argue about things we know nothing about :smash: :laughs: :D

On a serious note, I have had wire deformed by stripers/hybrids. The wire stretches a little, and the tail loop gets bent to one side or the other a little. Not something that would cause you to lose a fish. Just have to use the pliers to bend back right. The one problem that stretching might cause is if you do not use glue on a swimmer lip. Once the wire stretches, the lip can also become lose, shift a little, and cause the plug to run wrong.

Jigman

Interesting... Heres my problem. I am lacking the proper tools to get a nice bend in the nose.. it always comes out with a point at the tip and i cant seem to get a nice round loop. Maybe i just need some roundnosed plyers:huh:

I use a tapcon screw with the head cut off after it's screwed into a block of wood. It is clamped to my bench and I just squeeze the ends together around it with a pair of linesman pliers. I use the same thing to make my tail loops.

You can pick up a cheap pair of roundnose pliers at AC Moore or Micheal's in the Flower arranging Section.

although its like holding your wife's purse, Its kinda hard to look macho doing it. :D

Wire bender.
http://www.striped-bass.com/StriperT...ghlight=bender

all you need is a pair of pliers and a screw driver Mary.

Never buy "cheap" tools.....buy the best and take care of them and they will pay for themselves!;) Get a good pair of roundnose pliers Eben and don't be afraid to pay $20.00 or more....they need to be heavy duty and reliable if your going to bend wire with them.:D

Good tools are important but having spent thirty years in a trade I have learned that tools do not do the work. Making things work is a skill. Gadjets are nice but not neccesary.
Of course I should remember that he who dies with the most toys wins:D

My point being that a quality tool is going to be able to take the stress you will put on it while bending wire.....you get a cheap pair and "They" will bend along with the wire. Still a believer in quality tools first and foremost.:)

you can always get the pre Formed wire from NJtackle i use it on my bluefish poppers and it holds up well

one of the top plug makers that everyone knows and get's bid high on and people want to know where their stocked uses 304 annealed sst. small through large plugs.... I think it all depends on the size of the nose and tail loop that you make...big arss loops are going to bend... their suspose to be kept tight to the butt end and not sticking a mile out.

i tried once to anneal some wire......316 me thinks. didn't come out too well , just a little softer, got the wire good & black though. i've done annealing at work and had it come out great, but i wasn't using the cheesy propane torch i use at home. did you bend the wire while it was still hot?

if done right, you could probably get the wire butter soft.

Trust me.. I got the equipment. I could anneal 2 tons of wire in about 2o seconds and thats no exageration.

I have been using 1/16" 302/304 stainless wire for 2 years now. I got a 5# roll from McMaster Carr. I also have a small coil of 1/16" 308 1/4 hard wire that I find tough to bend, and therefore don't use. I haven't had any issues with the softer 302/304 other than the tail loop bending slightly when I bang it into rocks. The harder 308 is a lot more work to make a nice tail loop with. If I were only doing one plug at a time it would be fine. But when you are trying to form a dozen or more tail loops in a batch, the softer wire best meets my needs.

If you use 308 or 316 and have to heat the wire to make it soft enough to bend, the hardness is lost anyway and the grade of the wire that you start with doesn't make any difference other than possibly better corrosive resistance.

For 25+ years I used common brass hobby wire for plug making. This stuff was really soft, much softer than any stainless, but it was all I could find. I caught a lot of large bluefish on those plugs, some to 20#s. The blues bent the loops around, and in a few cases pulled hard enough to actually close up the tail loop a little. What it didn't do was fail. I never had it break, or pull apart, or did I ever lose any fish because the brass was soft. Many of the older commercially made lures were made with brass wire that seemed much softer than comperable stainless wire we see now.

Sears has decent Craftsmen round nose pliers for $9.99. And you don't have to worry about wandering around in a craft store with all those women. However, I find all kinds of Plug making and fly tying material at Michaels.

What is the deal with the nose loop! It is the tail loop that is the challenge. Get a pair of round nose pliers, and a pair of slip joint pliers with grooves perpendicular to the jaw. Make the size loop you want using the round nose pliers. It doesn't have to be perfect. Keep the loop in the jaws of the round nose pliers and using a pair of slip joint pliers grip the wire tight to the round nose jaw using the grooves in the jaws to allign the wire and squeese. The wire will be drawn tight to the round jaw forming a perfect loop each time.

you can soften 316 in 15 sec.'s...ahole bundle at once...cools off fast too....I've often done it with harder stuff I've gotten by mistake....not knowing there's many degree's of hardness to 308/316 etc.....one call to a wire mfg. co...an you learn alot in a hurry.............Eban..u got more gass then anyone I know:hihi: