Many Fishing Hook buyers have the same question when customizing fishing hooks: why do different fishing hook manufacturers have different production lead times? Some manufacturers only need ten days, some need twenty days, some need one month, and some even need four months. Why is there such a big difference? Below is an explanation of the main factors that affect the production cycle of custom fishing hooks.
Materials
Material availability is one of the factors. Many fish hook manufacturers only stock one type of material, mainly high carbon steel. If you need to customize stainless steel or titanium alloy fish hooks, but the factory does not have these materials in stock, they must purchase them from their material suppliers. The procurement lead time is not fixed. It may take only a few days, or it may take up to one month. Material availability is only one of the factors affecting the production lead time.
Welding Process
Take Treble Hooks as an example. Most common treble hooks are made from high carbon steel. If a customer requires customized stainless steel treble hooks, but the factory does not have the capability to weld stainless steel treble hooks, the production lead time will increase. The welding process for high carbon steel treble hooks is very different from the welding process for stainless steel treble hooks, so the factory must re-adjust and develop the welding process.
Fish Hook Shape
For common fish hook designs, fish hook manufacturers already have existing forming machines, so no modification to the forming equipment is required, and this does not affect the fish hook development efficiency.
For special-shaped fish hooks or uncommon hook designs, the factory must modify the forming machine, adjust the machine structure, and redevelop the forming process. This is one of the factors that has the greatest impact on custom fish hook lead time. It may take as little as 15 days or as long as two months.
Mold Development
After the fish hook dimensions are confirmed and the mold has been designed, dimensional deviations still exist during actual machining. Even experienced mold makers cannot guarantee that the mold dimensions will perfectly match the customer’s required hook size.
This is because different wire diameters and different shank lengths produce different springback after forming. The mold must be repeatedly modified until the finished fish hook meets the required dimensions.
If the customized fish hook is a Jig Head Hook and uses a standard mold, production can begin in as little as two hours without opening a new mold. If a new mold is required, the mold must first be redesigned using Unigraphics NX software, followed by CNC machining and other manufacturing processes. This process may take as little as one week or as long as two weeks.
Hook Point Process
If standard hook points such as traditional hook points or needle points are used, they have little effect on the custom fish hook production lead time.
However, if hand-ground hook points are required, the production time increases significantly. Hand-ground hook points are sharpened individually by skilled workers. An experienced worker needs approximately one minute to grind one qualified fish hook, which means only about 50 to 60 fish hooks can be finished per hour.
Testing Stage
After surface treatment and heat treatment are completed, the fish hooks must undergo tensile strength testing and salt spray testing.
Among these tests, salt spray testing has a greater impact on the custom production lead time. The required testing duration mainly depends on the material and coating.
If White Nickel or Black Nickel coating is used, a 48-hour salt spray test is generally sufficient. If stainless steel or Super Rust-Proof coating is used, at least 72 hours or even more than 96 hours of salt spray testing is required.
CW Fish Hook Manufacturer stocks high carbon steel, stainless steel, and titanium alloy materials. We can source the required materials for customers in the shortest possible time.
We have both high carbon steel welding technology and stainless steel welding technology. Our daily production capacity is 200,000 high carbon steel treble hooks and 40,000 stainless steel treble hooks.
We also operate more than 150 forming machines capable of manufacturing various special-shaped fish hooks. In addition, we have 13 skilled workers dedicated to hand grinding, with a daily hand-grinding capacity of 4,800 fish hooks.