How Do You Remove a Hog Ring?

Whether your car seats are damaged, your fencing snaps, or you want to recover your furniture, there may come a day when you have to remove hog rings. These stubborn fasteners provide a long-lasting hold, so they can be challenging to remove. The good news is that removing them is possible—you just need the right tools and a little bit of patience.

Tools You’ll Need

• Hog ring pliers
• Needle-nose pliers
• Flat-head screwdriver

Removing a Hog Ring Step-by-Step

1. Use diagonal pliers or hog ring pliers to grip and twist the hog ring carefully. Unlike standard pliers, diagonal pliers give you the right grip and control.
2. Squeeze the tool to cut the ring. Or, if you need to reuse the material, use the pliers to bend the hog ring open.
3. If cutting, carefully remove the ring pieces and inspect them to ensure there are no remaining fragments in the material that could cause injury.
4. Repeat until all the hog rings are removed.

What to Do After Hog Ring Removal

It’s easy to lose sight of hog rings once they’ve been removed. If you’re working in a car, you can drop them, and if you’re working in the grass, it’s easy for them to disappear into the grass. Always clean up the area and look for discarded hog rings. When hog rings are cut from fencing or fabric, the ends are sharp and can cause injury if stepped on by accident.

If you’ve cut them away from fencing, check for any sharp wire ends, burrs, or protruding pieces that could cause injury.

Lastly, if you’re installing new rings on upholstery, check the fabric for potential tears or punctures, foam deterioration, and issues with spring tension.

General Best Practices

• Count how many hog rings were used during the initial installation and take a photo before you remove them; that way, you can remember the correct placement.
• Use needle-nose pliers to hold material steady or to remove extra-stubborn hog rings.
• Always wear gloves and protective gear to prevent injuries.
• Use a magnet to pick up hard-to-see fragments.
• Go for hog ring pliers first if you plan to reuse the material. Hog ring pliers are better for unbending hog rings, while diagonal pliers are better for cutting.
• When possible, work on a stable surface.
• Don’t rush! It’s a tedious, repetitive job, but rushing can lead to injuries or damaged material.

Tips for Specific Projects

Upholstery or Auto Seats

• Always work in good lighting so you can see where the ring is positioned. This is critical to avoid accidentally damaging the material.
• Access from behind when possible to protect the fabric surface.
• Support the fabric by placing your hand or another object behind it, which will help prevent it from tearing.
• Remove rings from edges inward.
• Use hog ring pliers, never wire cutters, to avoid accidental damage.
• Spread the rings rather than pulling them, especially for cloth.

Please visit this guide for more information on selecting, installing, and removing hog rings for upholstery projects.

Pet Cages or Fencing

• Check the structure’s stability first; fencing can collapse, snap, or shift, potentially causing injuries.
• Remove adjacent rings to reduce stress and prevent springback, and always work from top to bottom so the structure won’t fall on you.
• Cutting is often safer than spreading, so if you’re removing hog rings in fencing projects, you shouldn’t plan on reusing them.
• If another person is available, have them support the structure.
• Identify if any rings have rust beforehand because those may break unpredictably, and you’ll need to be ready for sudden release.
• Evaluate the pattern of the mesh so you know how to reassemble the fencing.

You can visit this article for more information on selecting and installing hog rings in chain link fencing projects.

Can You Reuse a Hog Ring?

The short answer is — technically, yes, but you shouldn’t.

Re-opening the ring, even if you do it carefully, creates stress points and micro-fractures, and re-crimping a ring that’s already been deformed won’t result in a tight grip.

If you need to reuse rings for temporary repairs, do so with caution, because the structure is more likely to fail prematurely. When possible, always use new hog rings to reinstall upholstery, fencing, etc., rather than reusing the ones you just removed.

Find More Resources

King Steel Fasteners is a trusted supplier of hog rings, hog ring tools, and other accessories. You can visit our blog for more resources or browse our inventory to purchase specialty hog ring pliers.