Tongs

Machinery's Handbook

Over the years, I've made a bunch of tong clips to Uri Hofi's design, as described in BP 1006 Hofi Tong Clips. They're easy to make and work well. They can be easy to lose sometimes, but equally easy to replace. Yesterday, I needed a pair in a particular size, grabbed a bit of 1/4" round from the scrap bin, and was bending it to shape when a modification occurred to me. Rather than cutting the ends short to make the more conventional "C" shape, I bent them outwards kind of like the outer lines of a capital "W". Here's a photo of the new clip (left) together with one of the original style (right): The big advantage of the modified version is that it's very …

Had an idea for a pair of tongs for bowl forging, combining modern twist tongs, Eric Thing’s recommendation to hold armor with tongs whose jaws are set at 45°, the way that farrier’s tongs grip at the edges, and (of all things) a pair of tongs excavated from an 11th century deposit under London Bridge. This is the result. Starting with some salvaged flat bar, 5/8” wide x a skinny 1/8” thick x ~24” long. In retrospect, this was thinner than ideal, but it was what came to hand. These were marked at the appropriate spots for their respective bends. The loops for the jaws were bent with the Hossfeld, first on the bulldozer die: And the…

Well this is third one, made from 3/4 round bar Boss were drilled in drill press, I find it more precise then having it drifted out I had some spare material on other half and I wanted to make it ball shaped, so it won't slip, I will see if I weld another ball to other part of reins . I will see for what I will make them to grab.

A lot of folks use tongs to hold their punches and chisels, especially under a treadle hammer or power hammer. The thing that’s always bothered me about the usual setup is that the punching force is perpendicular to the clamping force of the tongs, and unless the fit is very good, the tool can twist fairly easily -- plus, if your punches aren't all the same size, it's hard to get a consistent fit. So, I had the idea for these. The outer jaw is the main support for the tool, and the inner jaw holds the the tool tight against the outer jaw. Since the inner jaw has a cam action, it accommodates any variation in the size of the tools. …

The easy way, pre-made.... Disclaimer: buy used and never remove from tracks.

I have a bunch of 5/16 square stock and my first attempt at tongs, turns out to be a bit too light weight to work well. So I had a bunch of 1x 3/4(or possibly 7/8") that I thought I would try to make tongs with. Granted, I don't have a good set of tongs to hold this stuff. Half way though, I stuck the tongs I did have into the forge, and reshaped their jaws to hold this better. But still not optimal. Anyway, after lots of banging, I have 2 ugly sides. The bosses are too thick by double, and the jaws are still thick enough that I can do anything I want with them. So I cooled the heads, and flipped around to try and draw the reins out... Wow, what a hateful task…

Hello, for a project I need to translate a text that explains different medieval building professions and their tools into English, among them various tongs. I tried researching the tools online, but with the following tongs I've had my problems. Can you tell me what these tongs are called, please? It'd be most appreciated! 1) 2) 3) Don't know if the photo shows this properly, but this last one is for holding something round.

I'm working on making my first tongs from diy blanks. I have a pair of tongs from Amazon. They don't really grip anything well and it's hard to hammer something while using those tongs. I want to make something a lot more useful. So far I have drawn out the reins. I probably should have rounded them first. I tried rounding them after drawing out and they just kept twisting. I know I didn't drill the holes the same. I'll have to make that work. Now I have to figure out how to make the jaws. These are small tongs, so I reckon I should make them to hold small items.

I just got a pair of tongs and a leg vise mount from a guy on Facebook. Now I don't have to make a mount for my second vise. I don't know what these tongs are for though. They are long. 37 1/2" long. Very strange jaws. What are they?

Yesterday I forged out a pair of pick-up tongs. I used 5/8" coil spring as usuall. These are for a large job of repeat work that I should be starting on in the week or so. I'll be forging A LOT of 1-inch round chunks under the power hammer. They are nice and springy and long so that I can fish the pieces out of the fire. (I need to build a small gas forge so I can stick 10 chunks in the fire at once.) I think they'll do the job!

Hello all- I just discovered the best size mild steel bar for me to work with. But I cannot seem to find offset tongs to hold it. It’s 3/8”x3/4”. All the offset tongs that I can find are only 1/4”. I have tried to use those, but they don’t hold very well, especially longer lengths. does anybody know where to find some or how to modify existing without weakening the jaws? Thanks in advance- N

I will be going down to Peters Valley to teach a beginners and beyond course. Forge welding is a basic skill so usually gets taught day 1 or 2. Where I'm going has no chain makers tongs so.. Need some tongs, make some tongs. These are a little lighter than I would make for myself but should be about right for students.

So I have *Finally* gotten around to setting up my lil home smithy. And since it's been nearly 20 years since I was forging previously I couldn't find most of my old tongs - not that they were anything special, but still... All I had left was a crappy one for about 1-1/8” (my old anvil's hardy hole size) and one for holding 1.5" round bar from the side..I bought a wolf jaw tongs online to let me get to work... To fill out my tooling a bit I ordered the tong kits from Kens custom Iron, this also lets get me back into doing stuff with a hammer and anvil. After mangling the small scroll tongs (trust me they were BAD), I was able to remember how some of this stuff w…

My friend gave me these tools. I am not sure what the 4th and 5th tongs from the right are or their purpose, can you give me some assistance? Thanks

Do y’all know what the oldest know tongs would have looked like? Or have any links to tong history? What do you think the first pair of tongs looked like?

A couple of years bac I bought about a half dozen hoof nippers to make tongs out of them. I paid about $5 apiece for them. I guess the ones that are for sale now must be made of gold! I guess I'll have to learn how to make them out of rebar.

Ukrainian armorer Vyacheslav Perepelitsa has posted a video of himself making a pair of V-bit tongs, which folks might find interesting: It’s notable that since he’s using an oxypropane torch instead of a forge, it’s easy for him to spot-heat for upsetting, bending, and riveting.

This is the tong method shown to us by Richard "Poz" Pozniak. There should be enough detail in the drawing that you can follow. Remember not to split the jaws until after doing all the bending. Punch or drill and assemble. It really helps to see it done once. You DO need to isolate the heat for each bend so it doesn't bend further down. You can click on the picture to enlarge.

Before starting to build anything, one should have a clear mental picture of the end product and the means to get there. For some reason my brain didn't like to think about making tongs. It wouldn't sequence the simple set-downs with any clarity. It was like trying to get a horse to jump over a fence. My brain would go full tilt right up to the set-downs then throw the rider. I watched a bunch of how-to videos on tong making to show my brain there was nothing to be afraid of. I then went through the three steps several times at the anvil. So far so good. Let's try it hot. Set down the jaw, easy. Roll it to the left 90 and set the boss. Brain is starting to …

Anyone know what these tongs may have been used for? They are a little tweaked and been made or fixed with an arc welder.

Short version: what size stock would you recommend using for tong reins if forge welding them on? So I have a decent amount of 5/8” round stock, mild steel. Seems like good stuff for making tong blanks out of, but it’s pretty thick stuff. I’d imagine that a 12-14” pair of tongs with 5/8” reins would be a nice heavy duty set of tongs, but overkill for what I will be needing. A big heavy set of tongs seems unnecessary for my current skill level, and projects that I’ll be doing. I thought about drawing the reigns out on every blank like I have done with smaller square stock, seems like it will be more work than it’s worth. I’ve been testing out forge welding on some ran…

I recently made these. This is a pair of 6-inch billet tongs designed to wrap around and manipulate 6-inch solid material. I took a few process photos showing each major development but not quite every single heat. starting material was 20 inches of 3/4 round 5160 I used 4-inches of material for the loop to the square corner 2-inches from the square corner to the boss. overall finished length is 36-inches. IMG_6732.MOV

This is not really an instructional video….just entertainment. This shows the process of forging a pair of 1/4x1 1/4 offset tongs. Starting material is 5/8 round 5160 steel, cut 8.5 inches long. The tooling used is pretty simple. I have a 100 pound self contained power hammer with a full flat die on top and a “near side/far side” offset die on bottom. The near side / far side die is just like using half-hammer-face-blows on the near side and far side of the anvil. The deep U-jaw is formed in a spring tool I machined for the purpose. Total overall length is trimmed down to about 18 inches after forging. It takes 5 heats to forge…