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Squid Jig Design - The Red Jig In this example, I am dismantling a red "razorback" style squid jig. This type of jig has extra squid hooks in the centre of the jig. This jig had a swivel for connecting the jig to the fishing line but it has been damaged. I am not sure who manufactured this jig.  1) Firstly I removed the jig eyes. These are simply small nails (or tacks) and luminous beads.  2) Here you can see both eyes have been removed.  3) Next I removed the lead weight. This is held in place by a small nail (or tack) which is visible just above the lead weight. It is only visible on one side of the jig since it only penetrates half way into the jig body.  4) The nail has been removed.  5) Once the nail is removed, it is possible to remove the lead weight. It tends to be jammed into the main body quite tightly.  6) Next I will remove the razorback squid hooks.  7) Here you can see I have removed one of the razorback hooks from the jig. Each hook consists of a piece of wire which has been bent in half and which has a needle point at each end.  8) Here you can see the 4 razorback hooks removed. Each has two needle points.  9) Next I remove the cloth covering of the jig. I have turned the jig upside down, because the ends of the cloth cover are jammed into a groove running along the underside of the jig.  10) I begin to peel away the cloth.  11) Continuing to peel away the cloth, exposing the red plastic body underneath.  12) Cloth has been removed.  13) This is the topside of the cloth.  14) Next I remove the swivel. (Please note that the swivel is damaged and this is why there is no ring for attaching the fishing line.)  15) The swivel is attached to the jig with a piece of wire that is threaded through a hole in the plastic jig body. With some pliers, it is possible to unwind the wire connection.  16) Here you can see the wire and swivel removed.  17) Next I removed the squid hooks at the rear of the jig.  18) The two rows of hooks are glued to a thin white stalk which has been glued into the red plastic body of the jig.  19) The hooks and white stalk were removed.  20) Here you can see the white stalk is a bit more than twice as long as the squid hooks.  21) Here you can see the underside of the red plactic body of the jig.  22) This is the side view of the body.  23) This is the top view. Note the four holes where the razorback hooks were placed.  24) Next I disassembled the squid hooks. Note that the hooks consist of rows of needles with a metal sleeve holding them in place. The squid hooks are glued onto a white stalk.  25) As you can see, there is a brown-colored glue or epoxy that has been applied to the base of the squid hooks.  26) I removed the squid hooks from the white stalk by drilling out the stalk with a hand drill and a small drill tip. In order to remove the metal sleeve from the squid hooks, I decided to bend the needle points straight.  27) Here you can see the needle points are almost straight.  28) After straightening the needle hooks I was able to remove the sleeve by resting some pliers on the sleeve and knocking downward with a hammer. As you can see, the squid hooks consist of wires that have needle points at both ends and which has been bent in half. Topics for discussionA) How does the manufacturer manages to get the metal sleeve onto the jig hooks?It seems to me that it would be too difficult to get the sleeve in place if the needles were already bent outward into the classic squid hook configuration. I suspect that the sleeve is installed first and then the needles are bent outward in a radial fashion. B) Once the metal sleeve is in place, what stops the hooks from collapsing inwards? The ring of squid hooks is actually hollow in the centre. The diagram below shows the configuration inside the sleeve - the sleeve is the black ring and the grey circles represent the wire needles. In the middle is just empty space. In the current example, the white stalk was inserted into this hollow space. However, the stalk is not needed for support. So why don't the needles just collapse inward due to the pressure exerted inward by the metal sleeve? I suspect that it does not collapse because the wire of the needles is distorted when the needles are bent outward (as discussed in point A). The wire bulges on the outer side (against the metal sleeve). This would result in a configuration not disimilar to an medieval archway. Archways were constructed of large stones that spanned large distances with no support from underneath. The reason the archways did not collapse was because the stones were effectively wedged against one another (Image of an archway). 
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