Tongs

Made from 1'x 3/8 flat stock. Used my new chisel to split the halves per JLP recent video on tongs. made the reins about 14 for the extra leverage and of course the jaws are different. two tools to make this tool were my new chisel and my new monkey tool. I will need to modify the jaws yet I think to allow easier entry into my forge opening. I'll get there.

This is the latest "How to" Video on Non welded tongs.. There will be at this point a series of 3 videos each with a slightly different twist or skill set for each set forged.. The 1st of the series is the hoop/lip tong, the 2nd in the series is flat jaw. the 3rd in the series will be bolt or hollow jaw.. For the most part forging is minimized but skill sets with hot chisels, uniform forging when done, and hot punching and rivet making. There might be a follow up with a non welded rein tong set with drawn handles but feel this has been covered by so many other smiths to good merit that I might not spend the time.. I edited the video and gave it a…

I made my first set of box jaw tongs. I can say this, they work well.

Making a pair of bolt tongs for Lars. Lars is the striker. We drew out one rein, and forge welded on the other for exercise. Forge welding can be applied in many other places.

This is video #2 in the "Non Welded Rein" tong making series.. Please like and subscribe.. If you don't like it then say so.. If you do or if something you watched in the video makes an addition to your skill set, comment..

Hi folks, I've got the honor to refurbish some wood splitting wedges for a coworker. Due to the fact that the wedges can't be held with ordinary tongs (especially when working on the head) i made a pair of chisel tongs as shown in Blacksmith's Manual Illustrated by J.W. Lillico. Maybe not the most perfect tool i made (could have been forged much cleaner), but they work really really fine! I hope you like it and maybe someone has some helpful critique.

This first set is a pair of nippers I repurposed for 3/8 round stock. After using them a bit I think ill try to make a pair of scrolling tongs next. 3/8 is a little unwieldy. This pair I made from some tongs given to me when I first started. Initially they held 3/8, but I want to bring them up to 1/2in stock for future tong making. Any help to further my progress is appreciated. I was glad to have a day to just forge away, as these project took just about 3 or so hours. I am happy to report that with the techniques I learned here, I have little fatigue at this time, but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Made these today from rail road spikes

I found the easy tongs plans on the IFI Pages. today I took my first try at forging. the plans really are heating and twisting, but I did try to draw out the reigns a bit. I used 5/16 x 3/4 flat stock. I know they are ugly, but they do hold 1/4 inch stock quite tightly. opinions and recommendations are appreciated.

There is one thing we hear as blacksmiths. STAY OFF THE RAILROAD TRACKS. But there are some of us who don't listen. The railroad tracks are a goldmine for smiths looking for specifically sized steel. One of the best things to make from steel from the railroad is tongs. A good set of flat nib tongs can be made from two spikes. What I prefer to do is use something less commonly found on the tracks. These pieces of steel look similar to a hold fast and are used in the crossing. Look for when the track is replaced and these things are very easy to find. Using one of these pieces makes an amazing set of tongs make sure nobody is looking at the crossing on a backroad and get yo…

Still early in the learning process. I have been working with various round and square stock between ¼ and ¾ inches…and some 1” x ¼ or x3/8 bar. So far I have just worked with the end of the parent stock at 2’ to 5’ long and cut it off when ready. However, for various reasons…not the least of which is safety with handling long red-hot pokers …I really need a good selection of tongs to work with smaller pieces. I am not ready to invest my precious few hours at the forge struggling with making tongs, so I plan to buy what I need. I suspect there may be some overlap on sizes, and various levels of utility. I am thinking of buying the following: V-Bolt tongs…

I’m trying to figure out what material would be best for farrier style tongs. Ideally I want the springy durability of 5160 and the forgiveness of 1018 when it comes to cooling the tongs off while they’re too hot. I know I can’t get both so I’m hoping someone knows of a happy medium. Thanks, Ben

I picked up a set of large truck brake spring pliers for $10 and instantly saw the pick up or hammer eye tongs I've been wanting to make. Didn't take long and turned out pretty good. Nice steel too!

Loosely inspired by Brazeal ultimate tongs. I find they grip a wider range of stock sizes and shapes without adjustment. They grip well as the stock changes size and around bumps and curves. All mild steel, 1/2 & 5/8 round. Slowly but surely the forging improves.

I have a large number of minature railway dogs from a local light gauge railway & I've finally got round to using them. By no means my prettiest pair of tongs but I thought I'd share nonetheless as I know in the states they're a common source of steel for projects & these can be scaled up to suit normal size dogs. I decided to knock these up quickly after a "hot dog" flew up past my face from poorly gripping tongs. Copy and/or improve upon as you see fit.

Ive been interested in smithing for a couple years now. I did lots of video research and reading. Felt like hey! I can do this! Lol. So I built a cheap forge. Family found me an anvil a little while longer and picked up some coal. turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I was interested in people making things from rail road spikes. There is an over abundance of them just up the road from where i live so I grabbed a bunch. Tried to pound them out into some flat bit tongs. Lots of fails. Melted jaws, cracked boss, Mis shapes.... anyway. It's very hard but that where I started. This is the result. Havnt pinned them together yet because I'm not happy with the riens. B…

I'm attempting to create a design for new forging tongs for my Product Design (DT) GCSE, it consists of normal versatile wolf jaw-like tongs with a clamping mechanism that locks over the top so as to lock pieces into place, and I am also attempting to incorporate a hardy-hole attachment so as to allow it to be hands-free, but I am currently having problems comming up with a way to keep it flush to the anvil. I would really appreciate it if you would evaluate this initial design and tell me any problems with it and thinks like how likely you are to use it and, if so how much you would be willing to pay for it hypothetically, thank you .

Hello I am new to forging and I am going to be starting out making all my tools I need. So the question is this is my first set of tongs a I am working on and they are power hammer pick up tongs or Boca tongs as Brent Bailey calls them on his website. Please let me know if I am doing good or not so good and any input you might have. Thanks Nick

Alright so made these now over the last few days. They are made from some 3/4 inch high tensile studs. Never doing that again by hand. Is there a specific name for them? Maybe v grove tongs. Also do feel free to let me know what could be improved. Cool with that. Cheers David. Hope it is alright to upload several pics as I wanted to show the steps I had to do to get them done.

Actually my first attempt at any fully forged tool. I've heated things to twist, or do a bit of forming to, as part of the fabrication, but this is the first completely forged item. And with that said, I still cheated. I took it to the belt grinder to smooth some edges, and after slitting and drifting the rivet holes, I cleaned them up with a drill. I can really appreciate the skill of people who can forge something to completion - I'm not there yet. Oh and the bolt is just there to hold them together to see the final fit. It'll be replaced with a rivet. They are me trying to copy Brian Brazeal's "ultimate" tongs. I started with a 36" piece of 5/8" round 1045. Forged…

I was out hunting for interesting tools when I came across these. There were three of them $18 each. I picked up one. Then found this hatchet head ( $3 ). I don't know but I think it was an altered hammer ?!? What do you all think?

I finished my replica Viking Tongs tonight. These are made from 7/8 inch wrought iron square bar which I picked up from an old cattle ranch bone yard. Overall length is 17 inches with 12 inch reins. The reins have plenty of flex and they are comfortable in the hand. See this link for a picture of the Viking era tongs I use used to make the replica. http://sciencenordic.com/viking-blacksmith-buried-his-tools I didn't really have any sort of scale to go by, so I printed the photo a couple times until I got a scale that seemed about right. The challenge was getting the two sides equal, but I got them pretty close. I can see from the original tongs tha…

Last weekend I made a slitting punch, a drift, and a square punch for a hinge project I'm gearing up to do. While I was making them, I was struggling to get a decent grip on them with the tongs I had. I got to thinking about a pair of really big hemostats I picked up from a military surplus store. They're 18" long, stainless steel, and probably cost me $4-$5 when I bought them years ago. Anyhow it occurred to me that I could put a couple of bends into one jaw to make a three sided clamp to hold my punches. I accidentally burned about half the jaw off, but there was still plenty of material to bend out and back to center. I heated the other jaw and trimmed it to wher…

I've been trying to forge some wolf jaw tongs out of rr spike. Right now I'm on my 6th or 7th attempt, I'm getting better but having trouble getting them to set together. Probably not the easiest style of tongs for first pair. I understand the concept of the setdowns but can't get them to fit. Here's some pics tell me what y'all think.

First of all, I would like to introduce myself as I am new to both the form and blacksmithing. My name is Zack and I am a sergeant with a large EMS agency in NC. I would also like to thank everyone on this site especially the old timers for sharing their knowledge. Even though this is my first post, I have spent countless hours reading previous threads over the past months and the knowledge I have gained has been invaluable. It is only because of this that I have recently been able to construct my first forge and start the long learning process of hammering steel. So today, I had some time off (which is a huge rarity working EMS) and decided to attempt making a set …