Debarbing Trebles - What's the best way!?

[Ben Rivers]

Guys

Whats the best way to debarb your BIG GT Trebles.

Want to debarb some ST66 and ST76.

Cheers Ben

[Mark Harris]

Heavy pliers and squeeze.  Usually I can take them down cleanly in one go. Sometimes if the barb actually snaps and leaves a sharp edge, you may need to file that.

[Andrew Susani]

Yeah I just use big pliers as well - I find the barbs are relatively small and easily squashable anyway.  You know you can buy barbless trebles... even in GT size 

[Travis Heaps]

Pliers also.  If you want a neat finish and sharpen your hooks at the same time you can go the Dremel then paint with a Nikko pen.  The pen helps but it still leaves a lot of places for rust to seed. 

[Peter Heinke]

big pliers....

[Mark Harris]

A Dremel is helpful when trying to de-barb very large, super-hard singles (eg Jobu 11/0).... I sometimes can't get the barb down on those with pliers.

[Brandon Khoo]

I use a dremel for all my hooks except for ST66s which I buy in the barbless model

[Doug Terry]

came across these Gamakatsu GT Recorder Barbless treble hooks 5/0 how do they compair to st66's

[Al Morrison]

Doug, If i have the sizes right i think you will find the GT recorders bigger, heavier and stronger. Hooks dont actually have a universally applicable size scale so one 5/0 isnt the same as another. I think that has been discussed elsewhere in here at length. The weight of the hooks affects the lures quite a bit.

I'm a dremel person for de-barbing also, but careful to do it without heating the hooks up to much which i presume potentially affects their strength to some degree. I then use indelible black marker on the sanded parts and points to stop rusting and help keep them sharp.

[Les Maunder]

Another method requires smooth faced baker pliers with no ribs on the plier faces.

1. Grab the hook as you normally would to flatten the barb and you will find that the hook will roll over approx 45 degrees - let it do this.
2. Squeeze the pliers hard and rotate the hook by hand returning the hook to the position you first grabbed it by with the pliers.
3. The barb will now by completely flattened - easy


Try it .