Tongs

Here is a pair of tongs made to hold a folded eye axe I am working on. They are not the common style of axe tongs or hoop tongs I have ever seen. Thought they were neat and they work exceptionally well. They clear the eye area and hold just past it. I just set the 1st weld on an axe with them and there is zero movement in the piece during forging and they stay out of the way so I am happy. Even tested them by holding the axe to the floor at a 45* angle and stomping on it to see how they held. The axe did not budge even with a 2 finger grip on the tongs. I'm happy with them, they work great and even look pretty cool.

Hello! I have seen Nathan Robertson use this style of tongs and finally decided to give them a try. If you're interested and can handle another tongs video, here is my first try on this style. They seem quite versatile! I haven't tried them out much yet but time will tell how well they work...

Hey everyone. So in the attached pic are the first two sets of tongs that I've made. One was made from some long handle pliers from harbor freight and the other was made from some farrier nippers. I'm using a coal forge and was attempting to shape the mouth of both tongs to suit the shape of a railroad spike by heating the mouth of the tongs and placing a spike in the jaws then shaping the jaws around the spike. For some reason I don't understand, the jaws off the nippers started to twist from my hammer blows and the mouth didn't shape around the spike as I had intended. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here, if just like to know what exactly.

While working on another project, I thought I would stretch my skills a little and make a set of box tongs from scratch. These are 3/4 box tongs made from 16 inches (8 inch each side) of 3/4 by 3/8 flat stock, now that I have them the next sets will go faster. I learned a lot making them.

Hey everyone... so I'm rather new to blacksmithing and I would like to invest in a set of Bolt Tongs. I have heard that they are useful for holding round stock and square stock nd railroad spikes which i would love to start making knives out of. However they come in a bunch of different sizes which i dont know what they mean. The sizes say BOLT TONG 4-5 mm (3/16”) x 300 mm (12”) REINS W/BALL ON END OF REINS C.S. i know that the 300mm is the rein length but idk what the 4-5mm part is? could someone plz point me in the right directon or tell me what size would be suitable to hold railroad spikes and other stuff... cheers, Jake

This pair of nippers turned up in the scrap. We had an old rusted out boiler that was going out for scrap and these nippers were shoved in the hinge of the boiler door with one leg where the hinge pin should have been. Must have been there a hundred years because they took some getting out. They are seized up but I gave them a clean and they have a maker's mark - W. & C. WINN. They are quite large and there's enough metal to turn them into a pair of bolt tongs for holding rail spikes. Anyone else have tools show up in unexpected places?

Hey, here's the picts I promised you. 1st is the set of nippers you sent me. I managed to make them work well on both 1/2" and 3/8" square and round bar. You can trim the ends as needed. 2nd is a set of tongs I'm working on for you for spikes. The blanks still need some work. I'll temporarily bolt them together and fit and size them for the spikes this weekend if I get time. I'd hoped to get out to forge tomorrow while the weather was warmer, but work today ended up running into tomorrow. I figured I'd leave the reigns for you to draw out and taper unless you want me to do it. That way you can do some work on your tongs and they will fit easi…

I was bouncing around a sale site and among other items, The seller was including the tongs and some sort of scraper shown at the right of the photo. The tongs didn't seem smith related (unless a helper uses them) but I was wondering of someone recognized the use they were actually designed for (just curious). The "scraper" seems a bit job-specific also so if you recognize that, I wouldn't mind learning the original use also. Yes, I know it's a long-shot. Thanks

Small project today. Bolt tongs mostly using Sam Salvati's measurements, thought I'd try one. Will hold 1/2" stock.

These are labeled "button tongs" Are these for smithing?

I made these two pares of scrolling tongs the other day I forged the jaws and hinge pate from 5/8 round and welded 7/16 round bar on for the reins. They are just made from mild steel so I hope that they stand up after some use. I am very happy with them and I had never made tongs like these befor as i have only been forging a few years since I'm 16 years old. I would like to know what you guys think of them!!

So my first set of Tongs broke while punching the hole. I figured because I used a center punch instead of a drift. Tonight I cut the broken end off and rebuilt it, drilled the hokes and pinned. Was happy with the results. Then when I tried to use them, about 10 hits in and the jaw snapped off. Been using sicker rods. I have also had problems drawing it down. Two different prices I squared up, then when I tried drawing it the end split into 3 pieces? Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

For the sake of this thread let's rule out the use of flat bar and focus on round or square bar of 10mm (3/8") or 12mm (1/2") diameter - stock sizes I expect are commonly used. How do you forge dosmestic fireplace tong hinges and why? I'm talking about tongs that have 2 arms and either operate one handed, (with the hinge near the hand, typically with loops for fingers and thumb), or tongs that operate two handed with the hinge nearer the logs/coal end, (similar to blacksmith's workshop tongs). I am confident at forging hinges and I'm not asking for a 'how to', I'm just curious as to people's preferences.

Hi, I recently made my first bottle opener and lots of people loved it. They are also lots of fun to make! So in the Show Me Your Bottle Opener thread, I see some guys make them out of railroad spikes which is such a great idea because people like to buy merchandise that they can see it used to be something else. So this guy from my carving class absolutely loved the opener and wants me to make him one out of a railroad spike sometime. So Christmas is a couple weeks away and I was thinking about making him one next weekend which is going to be the only time I will have to make it. So I need a pair of tongs to hold a railroad spike fast and I wont be able to forge t…

so this is my first attempt at trying to make a set of fire tongs, they are a christmas present for my dad. figured since we cant find 36inch tongs anywhere id try and make some. i started with 6 pieces of 1/2" 1045 about 12in long and welded them together with an arc welder. then forged, took me way longer than it should have and they still arnt perfect. hopefully i will make a jig for the next set i make haha. i still have to wire brush and finish them ignore the black water in the bucket a bunch of leaves got in it and i didnt get a chance to change the water

Here's a video of me making a pair of tongs from flatbar. I have made two sets of tongs this way, and will not make any more. The twist, being between the jaw and boss, is the weakest section of the tong. This is not good because it should be strong to match the boss and boss/rein transition. It's not any more work to make tongs from roundbar, so from now on I will not longer employ this method. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gndi-rddOak

Picked these up at a flee market. The hinge and pin are beefy, overall weight is two pounds! The jaws are flared out in a radius, one jaw is one half inch longer than the other and the teeth are quite sharp like the jaws of a pipe wrench. The tongs appear to be drop forged steel. Anyone seen a set like this or have any thoughts?

So I needed some tongs in order to make a tang on a chisel-turned-knife I made recently, and I needed the experience of working with metal because that's invaluable. So I cut a bit of rebar and got to work. Things I learned: 1. Forge: Anthracite from TSC works great, I did 2 part nut 1 part rice, got hot and even made me take my coat off. Also eats a lot of air, full weld was about complete open 1/2 inch valve with a shop vac pushing the air, and normal forging was 1/2 open or 1/4 open, as opposed to the 1/8 open from my homemade charcoal. Positioning is tricky, but it helps to have some bricks for smaller workpieces so you can prop them up a…

Here is my 1st set of tongs made from 1/4" x 3/4" mild stock cut from piece shown above the tongs. They work good, a little long but my question is why does sides of reins show mushrooming where fullered. was steel not hot enough or should more effort been made to dress the sides? thanks for answers or advice.

So, helping my wife at the farm the other day, and she'd offloaded her feedbags in the old garage/shop/storage space due to rain/mud, and I ran into these in there. They're handmade, and well made at that. The owner's grandfather was supposed to be a blacksmith in Dallas, GA, and unlike many, I know this one actually was; I've seen his work and own one of his anvils. I know one pair is ember tongs, and assume the other is fireplace related, but don't really know. At any rate, I thought they were put together cleverly, and y'all might appreciate them. The one pair had eyes offset from squared ends that act as stops, and the ember tongs were put together through a sli…

A friend picked this up near her home, where they're doing a conversion of a commuter rail line to a bike path. (The RR spike gives you an idea of the scale.) The notching in the tip of the jaws should be useful for gripping thin stock lengthwise. Any ideas on original use?

I have been seeing more and more tongs made from flat stock fullered and forged out and then twisting the bit lately. I like this method well enough but I noticed that most folks do not bother to forge out the twist between the boss and the big. IMO it is ugly and it also makes me wonder if it affects the strength of the jaw over time (any twisting or bending over time while in use?). Im also thinking if you leave the twist in, it could cause the boss to bind in some cases. This may not be the case but either way, I'm wondering who here forges the twist square (as you would for a penny scroll) after the twist and who leaves the twist visible. What are yalls thoughts/prefe…

I desperately need to make some better tongs and wondered what types some here might suggest. Currently I have a couple I made that are flat jaws and I have a few I bought that are bolt head tongs. I like the bolt head but cannot make them right. Flat jaws are great for smaller flat projects but I have a hard time holding anything about 3/8" or larger with them. I'm thinking about trying some box jaws and would like to try offset flat jaws for bladesmithing. i know asking for tong suggestions without telling you what I'm planning on using them for is a little too vague but honestly I'm looking for some good general purpose designs. Also suggested starting stock size would…

welp, I made my first set of tongs tonight based on TechnicusJoes RR spike tongs. Felt like I started off correct but it went odd from there. My fault of course. Took me about 3 hours while relaxing the evening with some beer but as much as I'm disappointed in my work on them they do function. I wouldn't say they would work for generations because of my mistakes. But I accept that for my first set. I'll improve from there I hope. I can tell where I screwed up. That little crap s hook was made using these quickly just to try them out. i know they are poop, but any criticism may help my focus.

After a long, sweaty afternoon, I managed to make a functional pair of flat tongs! As usual, practice is more difficult then reading about it on the Internet. First I made two mirror images, so they didn't fit together. Somewhere I got rotating left and right mixed up. Cut it of and repeat. I had some trouble to get the jaws and the bolster into the right shape. This is rather critical, otherwise things don't fit! Drawing out the reins was the most difficult part of the job. Somehow the theory didn't work, hammering over the horn of my anvil didn't change much in the thickness of the bar. And last but not least I was strugling with the rivet. Getting a glowing hot small p…