What hook do yo prefer?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eric Hankins on August 13, 2008 at 10:36pm

Before I promoted to Captain, I always carried my own personal 6' roof hook with a 30" Halligan married to it with masking tape. As mentioned before, if you know how to use the tools you carry, you can do a lot. As many have seen in the past, if you turn the roof hook upside down, you can turn it into a striking tool for the Halligan.

Regardless of the tool choice, keep em clean, keep em ready, keep em handy....

Oh and by the way, just because I promoted doesn't mean I gave up the Halligan... Something about my cold dead hand...

Permalink Reply by Ben Fleagle on August 14, 2008 at 7:12pm

So, after a year of badgering my superiors about getting N.Y. Roof hooks on the engines and quint, I finally found a chance and without too much freelancing purchased several for our little force. The guys do like it, our first shift we had the opportunity to use it on a mutual aid fire in a garden apartment. It was the only tool that would fit into the space we were dealing with. We're walking around with it and the City guys are ducking and dodging as if I'm gonna stick'm with it. They weren't sure what it was! (I was sorely tempted)..
The sad thing is that most of them never seen anything like it. I've wanted to play with one for years. Since the night we put them into service, I've used it ten ways to Sunday. I originally started out with the "Griff Hook" about two years ago and was amazed at the amount of damage you could do with it and found that really to my taste. Great tool!!! I have to ask though Eric, when you refer to "turning it around and using it as a striking tool for the Halligan" I'm kind of at a loss. A 6' striking tool, 1" in dia. may not be the best, I'm I misunderstanding your description?

Permalink Reply by Austin Lindsey on August 14, 2008 at 7:28pm

Here is an attached pic of what I believe Captain Hankins is talking about. I have never personally done this nor do we have these hooks "YET," work in progress, but reading FDNY's forcible entry hand book I found this in there. hope this helps.

Austin

Attachments:

• untitled1.jpg, 12 KB

Permalink Reply by Eric Hankins on August 14, 2008 at 7:42pm

Thats it Austin.

Ben the picture is correct. If you turn the hook upside down and step on the head, you can turn the tool into a 6' lever. Use the shaft of the hook to strike the halligan. You're not going to be able to get through a metal security door enclosed in concrete, but you can get into lightweight residential doors fairly easy. It's just a neat little trick when you may find yourself with less than the appropriate amount of personnel at scene.

You can research this in the Fire Engineering archives on the home page. Champ wrote an article about the roof hook and describes this technique there.

Give it a try.

E

Permalink Reply by Jamie Morelock on August 14, 2008 at 9:27pm

Place the top most hook (of the multipurpose head) under the toe of your boot, it will act like a fulcrum and hold the tool in place for striking. I have had great success using it to strike the adz, to drive the fork, when forcing residential inward swinging doors by myself. We have modified some hooks with an additional strip of metal welded to the shaft in the "strike zone" to beef it up and prevent damage to the shaft from repeated use.

Permalink Reply by Jamie Morelock on August 14, 2008 at 9:30pm

Hey Cap,

Make sure your guys up there don't stick their tongues on the shaft...

Permalink Reply by Ben Fleagle on August 15, 2008 at 12:53am

Its too cold up here to do that, you'd freeze to it most days!

Permalink Reply by Ben Fleagle on August 15, 2008 at 12:54am

I like it, I'll give it a whack. That's the beautiful thing about this website.

Thanks, Take Care Brothers!!

Permalink Reply by Anthony Viverito on August 17, 2008 at 9:44am

That halligan hook method of striking a halligan is used primarily for forcing outward opening doors, such as a roof top Bulkhead . Where a lone roofman needs to pop a bulkhead door before other members are available to assist him

Permalink Reply by Ben Fleagle on August 17, 2008 at 10:25am

That makes sense. I played with it already, and while there isn't a ton of force behind it, it obviously will do the trick for that type of door. We have a lot of oddball structures with doors like that here, its another one for the toolbox.

Permalink Reply by Brandon Roark on August 19, 2008 at 4:21pm

A little late but here is "my" hook (o.k., to be fair its on loan, but with any luck it or one like it will be mine very soon). Its a griff that has been motified with a halligan. Its a four foot tool that allows me to effortlessly tear the crap out of the plaster and lath homes in my district. The bar takes most security bars with almost no effort and believe it or not it is lighter than most options we have on the rig (which to be fair isnt alot).

Permalink Reply by Eric Hankins on August 19, 2008 at 7:00pm

Brandon,

Are you actually able to use the axe and pike on that tool? The Halligan/ProBar has a popular length of 30". With this being a 4' tool, I am curious how functional it is.

DOn't get me wrong, I like the look of the tool, just wondering...

Eric

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