I will try to get pics tomorrow if possible.

I bought a huge set of very old hand forged tongs. They are 4.5 feet long, weigh at least 60 pounds, and have hammer-eye points with a chain to lock the bottom of the tongs tight on something.

Any ideas what these type of tongs would have been used for? I would like to know before I do something stupid with them.

Sorry about not having pictures yet,
Cool Hand

What are the jaws like, Hollow bits or pickups or shingling tongs?

Phil

They are hammer -eye tongs. Sorta C shaped facing each other. I would use smaller versions of them to hold an axe head or hammer through the head.

These are just an INCREDIBLY larger version!

They are to grab something large that has a hole or handling holes in it and may have been supported by a chainloop in use.

(Look at the handling holes in an anvil for an example of how they might be used)

Pretty well useless save as a curiosity unless you are doing LARGE work and have all the necessary equipment to need them.

The square tapered holes in the waist of an anvil are for special handling bars so the anvil can be manipulated under a forging hammer. the name of the bar escapes my old brain at the moment.

Pick up tongs are sometimes referred to as floor tongs as the are used to pick up dropped pieces, they usually have a double curve to the jaws.

Pick-Up & Rivet Tongs

Porter bars, dolly bars, probably a heap of names for them.

Porter bars, that is the old name I was trying to remember, Thanks

Thomas, maybe you can recall the name for the pin with a ring in the end the stone masons used to insert in the angled drilled holes in stone to lift them in place.

You mean like chain dogs? Or something else?

Irnsrgn, the stone lifting device you describe is called a "lifting lewis" .
(I'm a stone / brick mason by trade. However I have never used this device. I like to lift heavy stone slabs with nylon slings.)

They may have been used in a casting factory.

Thank You, jkmas, I can't remember things as well as I used to, I had to make several sets years ago for the old stone mason, or as they used to call them "White Masons" to position some rather large stones that had taken a trip to the ground after a rather nasty storm.

I read an old technical manual on white masonry once and the most interesting things in it, was that Chelshire Cheese (sp) was one of the main ingredients in the glue they used to cement stones together for special purposes.

Edited October 28, 200916 yr by irnsrgn

One of the features of using chaindogs is that there is nothing on the underside of the stone so it can be lifted and placed on a bed of mortar. Of course you then have the holes visible why it was used for rough work over fine work.

We will use furnace tongs which are tongs about 7 feet long with ends on them like pickups however we will hang them from a overhead crane with the eyes we have welded on them. They are used for getting forgings out of the furnace when they are to small to use the fork grab or manipulator, I have some photos of me using them, will see it I can find the photos. Tongs with a c shape facing each other are normally refered to as shingling tongs, normally used under a hammer for forging blocks and discs to shape.

Phil

As promised a photo.
These tongs are used by us to get jobs out of the furnace to the hammer when they are to big or heavy to carry by hand. We have a monorail attached to the workshop roof running from the furnace to the hammer, the tongs hang on a chainblock which is on a trolley running on formentioned monorail.

Excellent Pic! Mine are about half that size!

Phil: Well you can run, but you can't hide. Shingling seems to be British, 'round here 'bouts we call it "cogging". In both cases the mental image is there. Hmm, does look more like shingles than cogs though, doesn't it.