Yesterday at a yard sale I came across a pile of lag style hammock hooks. At least that’s what they appear to be. They are formed (as opposed to cast) eye bolts with an S hook through the eye. The S hook has been closed on one end to capture it on the eye bolt. Both parts have a 3/8" shank size. The eye bolt has wood threads. However the point of the threads is turned to a cone without threads. The threads are unusually shallow with a wide space between threads and I think they look rolled. The other ends do not appear sheared off, but rather turned on a lathe with a circular patter to the machining marks, which are very fine.
The weird thing is that they look and feel like titanium, which is just bizarre. They are surprisingly light, nearly as light as aluminum. I cannot scratch them with a steel point. They are shiny and glossy with the faintly brown tinge of titanium. I work sometimes with 6Al4V titanium and pure titanium, and damned if that isn’t what they appear to be.
Is this possible? What would they be for? I’m in a small fishing and tourist village with lots of boats, if that’s a clue, on vacation (so my usual diagnostic bag of tricks is largely unavailable).
The conical end would be to ease driving it in, the threads gripbut also may allow for it to be unscrewed (though to my limited knowledge such bolts are usually glued).
I have titanium ice pitons for crevasse rescue, but they have a hollow core.
That would be wooden threads. Presumably he means that the threads appear to be made to screw into wood rather than into, say, metal, or perhaps he means they’re screw threads rather than bolt threads.
The OP seems to me to be our leading candidate for titanium expert on the board and has actually examined them in person. We are not going to get a more informed opinion than the OP.
Thanks for the respect! But I hope somebody better comes along, perhaps somebody who knows why something like a hammock hook would be titanium.
I didn’t try a magnet, and don’t have one available here unless I buy one. But it doesn’t look or feel like steel or nickel (or cool gadolinium). Likewise I didn’t try burning it, but it doesn’t look combustible.
Well there were stories that just after the breakup of the Soviet Union some of the advanced military factories were essentially broke, and one titanium facility, that was more used to turning out parts for aircraft turned to making anything it could sell from all the titanium stock they had. Apparently you could buy titanium shovels. (I would kill to get one of those.) So, maybe they made a run of hammock hooks.
I tend to think that either these a as FluffyBob suggests, climbing hooks, for which the light weight, strength and corrosion resistance of titanium would be perfect, or are concrete screws with hooks, possibly also intended for a corrosive environment.
Maybe someone wanted to hang some hammocks from the walls of a chemical factory…
The threads seem to be ANSI TYPE BP threads, which are for self tapping screws and not for wood.
I’ve posted photos before but would have to dig around to remember how. If I google “hammock eye bolt” I get a few photos like this to start, and if I google “ANSI TYPE BP” I get a few good illustrations of those. If I get a bit of free time and can post images I will let you know.
