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While I can appreciate a " lecture " as you put it , my reply was directed at the original question and not to question anyone's expertise . choice of colour is not a rule but it is a rule of thumb when you know what hardness you want to stay at with a particular material . Why , because it is an indication of the temperature of that material at that specific time in the cooling phase . A quick example is : I used to make a lot of tools with t1 , straw was the colour of choice , quench before that and the tools were brittle and would snap , quench after and they would mushroom . A colour on either side of that didn't change things overly significant but there was a difference In order to keep a consistency then it's important to find what colour works and always quench closest to that colour , otherwise some hooks will be too brittle while others will be too soft . If a torch has been used on the hooks then a certain amount of carbon has been burnt off Using a torch to heat them up again is going to burn off more carbon , so I doubt there is going to be any consistency in trying to harden them if they harden much at all . The wire forms as previously mentioned seems to be the easiest and best solution