Thread: Where to get coathanger hooks

No idea where you would get them, but, have you considered making a bending jig and cutting up wire coat hangers to make your own? Should be doable and making the jig and using it would also be adding to your skill repertoire.

Sorry, I've got no idea where to get the wire hooks for coat hangers from either.

But ..... who says you've got to use wire? Twenty years or so ago I was browsing around the antique markets in Notting Hill in London, UK. One of the many things that we saw there were heaps of antique coat hangers dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. They mostly had the hook part made from wood. The wood was laminated in the hook area (usually 3 x roughly 4 mm thick plys), I assume to avoid weakness due to short grain in the region of the hook. On a few, the whole coat hangar was laminated, instead of just the hook part. In that style, the laminated timber had been cut to a hook shape. There were also some coat hangars that had bent wood hooks, so didn't need any lamination to make them strong enough.

One Antiques Merchant reckoned that the tradesmen who made the wardrobes, also made the coat hangars, and that they were usually made from scrap wood left over from the wardrobes. That would explain why the timber in most of the coat hangars looked very similar to the furniture they were near - usually English Oak. Some of the Coat Hangars seemed to have Shellac on them as a finish, but there's nothing to indicate that Shellac was the original finish, if indeed any finish was applied to them originally. Most of them had decorative coves, roundovers, etc to soften the edges. I remember thinking at the time that they would have been a great way for an apprentice to lean to use moulding planes. Some of them also had carving on the flat faces, usually below the hook. With regard to size, they were all made of much more substantial timber than is used in modern wood coat hangars - probably designed to support a large full length overcoat or similar.

I only saw one coat hangar that had a metal hook on it. The hook was made from square section brass, and was held into a square mortice in the top of the wood part of the coat hangar. There were a couple of brass pins that went through the wood and brass hook to secure everything together. That was the only one we bought. Unfortunately, I can't send you a picture of it as it has disappeared sometime in the last twenty years, probably in one of the many moves.

There were also a few coat hangars of a slightly different design, that did not use hooks. Instead they had a roughly 1/4" cross hole where the hook would normally be, and they used a piece of ribbon to tie the coat hangard to the support rod in the wardrobe. In any case, coat hangars were used only by the richer members of the community. Most people used wooden trunks to sure their clothing. Only the wealthy could afford (or have the space for) a wardrobe, so 18th & 19th Century Coat Hangars were upmarket products, made to a high standard as accessories for high class wardrobes - not like the cheap mass-produced stuff you get from that Swedish big box store.

Maybe do some Internet research to see if you can find some photos of antique or vintage coat hangars to give you some ideas.

Have fun.

Regards,

Roy

Most people who make coat hangers as a craft or hobby use large cup hooks or you can buy the wire hooks from china usualy a minimum of 1,000 units, or bend them yourself you can make a simple former from a scrap of hard timber

Thanks for the ideas, I had not even considered making them from wood but will look into that idea. I didn't really want to make them out of old wire coat hangers as the metal in them is too malleable and wouldn't be that strong, besides, don't want to spend a lot of effort making the body only to let the finished product down with a cheap and dodgy looking hook

regards,
Eamon