Hardware and Fasteners - What's the best way to pry open an "S" hook?

Usually with the thinner "S" hooks I can drive a wedge between the points and pry it open with pliers enough to allow whatever's inside to escape. Even so it's a PITA

Now I'm faced with a thickee and considering how tuff it is to drive the wedge in, I doubt I'll have the strength to pry it apart with pliers.

The problem with these "S" hooks is that there's no way to stabilize them in order to get the back end of a hammer inside them.

any ideas short of buying a table with a clamp that I don't have room for?

TIA,

-Mike

Are they in place or removable? Bench vise works fine for removable.

If in place I always used channel locks and visegrips. Worked ok up to about 1/4".

If they are real big, like 3/8"...well, I'm not sure

If there is any gap a long leverage bar would if you can put it in a vise.

or get them RED hot and use pliers

or if they are not in a position to bend, buy new bend as desired in vise with leverage and cut off old

or use hack saw (yuck) or air driven cut off tool to remove as much as you need.

Good luck.

what I ended up doing is buying a new vice grip, holding that bad boy down, and then using a hacksaw blade within a reciprocating saw to cut out a piece making the opening wide enough to slip the other piece in

not a purists' solution but good enough for govt. work

Now how are you going to keep the second piece from unhooking itself from the hook??? Does sound like a government solution, however.

I cut just enough off the S hook to allow the second piece to go in.

It can come out again if things get too jiggly but it's the only solution, er workaround I could find.

You also can slip in the one loop of your choosing *2* big flat-bladed screw drivers, and get the tips to lay on each other, and then pull the handles apart and leverage open the loop of the S. The theory works on the same principle as a battery terminal spreader tool where you insert, then squeeze the special reverse pliers, and it pries open the terminal hole.