I tried making my first tongs, and miserably failed!! I'm getting stress cracks where the jaws turn to the rivet location. What might be causing this? Too cold? Too many heats? I've tried 3 different times with 2 different stocks and the same thing. Any help is greatly appreciated.
As requested here is a pic of my 3 attempts.

no clue pictures would help. could be either

Could be choice of material. Depending on material, maybe worked too cold or too hot. Or something else entirely. Pictures could help.

ron

to many heats, hitting to cold

Looks like there may be some cold shuts as well as some cracking. Remember to keep the metal hot, don't work it when too cool, and try not to let the metal fold into itself.

You need to work on a radiused edge for your shouldering.First tip a little so just the corner forges in to define the shoulder then come down toward flat as you get to thickness.

I had a similar problem when I was working on a friend's anvil with sharp edges. Somehow, it is almost impossible to keep from getting digs if you are doing shouldering operations. It may help to use fullers to develop the transitions, and avoid shouldering blows. What is the radius on the anvil's edges?

Your outside corners are very sharp and you need bigger radii in the inside corners. You have also gotten folds(cold shuts/galls) in your job when you were forging it out. Having bigger radii will help prevent this, it will also help prevent a notch effect starting the cracks.

Phil

Try rail road spikes I have been forging with them sence I started blacksmithing and have never had one crack. And there the perfect size for making the jaws.

Evfreek- The radii is probably less than it should be. My anvil is a second hand one that looked like it had seen better days, but the price was right for me. I'll try to make a fuller and try that.

Don't tread on me- I have a bunch of spikes that my kids had collected along the tracks they recently updated, they had alot of fun "helping dad". The problem is I don't have any tongs to hold them to be able to heat. I'm just starting out with 2 forges, a blower, an anvil, and 5 hammers.

Thank you all for your help and knowledge. I'll post my progress.

In this case your "fuller" doesn't need to be anything fancier than a piece of round bar laying on the anvil. Put a little "kick" in a bit of the end so it won't roll off.

Thanks Grant. I was planing on a piece that fit the pritchel so it wouldn't roll.