Drywall News and New Products

About an eighth of an inch deformation of the hook

After 2 weeks with 23.5 pounds hanging from one hook, I inspected the Hercules Hook. It had straightened out ever so slightly. About 1/8″ deformation of the Hercules Hook was observed. I measured deformation by placing the hook next to an unused hook.  The Hercules Hook from this experiment is shown next to an unused hook in the photo on the left.

I placed the Hercules Hook back into the drywall with the 23.5 pound weight back in place.

With what I know now, I would not recommend hanging extremely heavy objects (over 20 pounds per hook) from a single Hercules Hook in a drywall wall as I would expect deformation to continue with time. I would, however fully recommend this product for hanging lighter objects like framed photos weighing less than 10 pounds.

In two months I will check on this hook again and see if there is any further deformation.  I will then post my findings.

23.5 Pounds Hanging On Hercules Hook

A few weeks after I bragged about how well the Hercules Hooks worked in hanging our heavy portrait, wouldn’t you know it - my wife had me move the portrait a few inches down :)  When I removed the hook, to my surprise, I saw that is was 2/3 of the way straightened! It looked somewhat like the hook did in my first Hercules Hook trial that failed when my daughter pulled the hook out of the drywall.

Two things come to mind: 1. Either the hook is straightening slowly with time under the heavy load . . . OR . . .  2. The hook is catching on the insulation of this exterior wall and thus can not function quite like it should.

At any rate, I rehung the heavy portrait with one screw in a stud and one hercules hook in the drywall. This allowed me to hang the photo centered where we wanted, yet gave me a little insurance with the picture wire draped over the screw. I would recommend this solution for any very heavy portrait or mirror.

With respect to the question: “Will the hook straighten out under heavy weight if properly hung?” I decided to conduct another trial. I have hung 23.5 pounds of weight on a hook and will check the condition of the hook after several weeks and perhaps check it again after several months.  The weight is shown pictured on the left. The hook is in drywall that has no insulation in it, thus it is allowed to function as designed.

Stay tuned!

Held Up With 1 Hercules Hook

Well, I had the opportunity to hang something other than my kids up on the wall in the last few weeks with my hercules hooks. Hung a few small framed photos on the wall. The hooks worked nicely. And then, just the other day, I had to move a very large framed photos weighing perhaps 15 or 20 pounds. This was an artist’s sketch of my kids placed into a custom matte and frame. This picture is of great value to us.

The center location was not on a stud. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, I would at minimum, use a molly bolt rather than a flimsy drywall anchor. And I definitely would not use only a drywall screw for this heavy of a picture. But this time, I simply used a Hercules Hook. I marked where I wanted it and poked it in and gave it a twist and I was done! About 30 seconds!

For hanging pictures, these hooks are the best! Don’t take Billy May’s word, take mine - I would not promote them here if they were junk. I was able to get a large pack of these hercules hooks at ebay for under $10.