January 19, 201313 yr Here is my first attempt at making anything with my forge. A pair of tongs. I know they look like crap and I dont have a punch to hot punch a hole so they are drilled and bolted. Very simple begginer tongs. They do work, evn if they look so bad. No bending forks or anything to help make nice bends. That will be coming soon.
January 20, 201313 yr A hot punch can be nothing more than a short taper on a piece of mild steel the size of the hole you need. Hit the hot metal no more than 3 times and cool the punch in water. Repeat as needed. Flip the steel over and finish from the other side allowing the punch to drift out the hole to size. Use of the prichel hole or hardie hole will help sometimes. A simple bending fork can be made by taking a piece of round bar 36 inches and bending about 2 inches of the end down 90 degrees. Do the same on the other end. Now fold the round bar not exactly in half so the two ends are an inch or so apart, both ends pointing down. Heat the round bar and twist forming the handle. A fellow once said : Tools do not make a blacksmith, a blacksmith makes the tools.
January 20, 201313 yr You can make nice tight bends with a u-shaped bar of 1/2" round held in a vise. It doesn't even have to be a post vice. Search for "poz tongs" on iforgeiron (from yahoo or google, since poz has only 3 letters in it). Your tong jaws are kind of large. The poz tong technique will give you nice bends.
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