Slings one’s hook, so to speak (5)
I believe the answer is:
casts
'slings' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'one's hook so to speak' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'one's' could be 'as' and 'as' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for casts that I've seen before include "Assigns an actor to a role" , "Allocates parts" , "Eg puts" , "Throws" , "groups of actors" .)