Thanks for the warm welcome everyone and thanks for all the advice!
My first tongs are pretty terrible but they do hold stuff so I'm happy with that. I'm practicing on rebar till I'm confident enough to buy some decent material to make some longer term tongs.
I had to replace the torsion springs for my garage this year as one snapped so I've been practicing making "S" hooks and just hooks in general over and over again with all that material.
Tons of good info on here, I'm really enjoying this new hobby of mine, I'm just completely amazed by the talent on here!