$2 nippers to Tongs...

[ausfire]

Well, here's the reshaped nippers. They hold 12mm round stock pretty well. At least I'll get some use from them now. I would only use the nippers for pulling nails.

[Eddie Mullins]

They could also easily be notched and shaped for holding ball pein hammers. No pic handy, but the notch fits and hold the fullered area between the pein and hammer eye. I like to reshape ball peins so find these useful.

[ausfire]

 

They could also easily be notched and shaped for holding ball pein hammers. No pic handy, but the notch fits and hold the fullered area between the pein and hammer eye. I like to reshape ball peins so find these useful.

Another good idea. We could have a whole thread dedicated to reshaped nippers!

[turbo7]

the second set (1 sharp and 1 blunt jaw) are used for pulling horse shoes

[KRS]

My try on reforging nippers, had ~10 pairs collecting dust before I saw this topic.

 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/38450-dsc03913/

[arkie]

Nice job!  Did you remove the old rivet in order to reshape the jaws, then make a new rivet?

[KRS]

Thanks, yes I removed it before I started. Thought it would not be worth the hassle.

I could not open them very far because of the shoulder at the pivot 

[01tundra]

Is anyone annealing the tongs prior to doing the forge work?

 

I thought you would anneal them to make it easier to work with, then if necessary (probably not so much) heat treat them when finished?

 

Whenever we made chisels out of coil springs in class we would heat to critical temperature (non-magnetic) and then let cool over night in a bucket of ashes to anneal, then forge, then do final heat treatment.  Of course that was a while ago and I could have the process completely mixed up in my head.

 

Whenever we go to Missouri to visit my wife's family these nipper tongs can be found in about every antique shop for little money.  I bought a few pair a couple years ago because they were labeled as "blacksmith tongs", this was prior to me learning about blacksmithing.  I was bummed that I had wasted a few bucks on useless nail clippers, but I'm glad I decided to chuck them in the scrap bucket and hold onto them now!

[EricJergensen]

Typical processing order is: Forge, Anneal, Machine (if applicable), Harden, Temper, Finish (file, grind, machine).

 

Annealing before cold work is a big change. Annealing before hot forging isn't likely to make any difference you can feel (tho it can make grain-size differences). Annealing before hardening is usually important, tho not terribly critical for a chisel (if I needed the chisel *now*, I'd skip it).

 

All of that said, tongs are likely to be mild steel and not hardened at all. (Tho a pair of tongs cooled in the slack tub from a visible heat just might have enough carbon to be accidentally hardened.)

[01tundra]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.