What tongs should I buy

[Frosty]

 

Almost forgot scars! I'm one of those guys who's scars disappear after a few years so I'd be pretty boring in a comparison contest around the galley table. The serious ones are still with me though. The evulsion on the pad of the ring finger of my right hand still shows. I remember the look on the face of the other guy in the shop. It bled copiously being as a 3 sided chunk a little under 3/8" wide by almost 1/2" long got scooped out of my finger when a 9" Milwaukee disk grinder blade grabbed and jerked my finger through a slot about as wide as the blade. Shattered the blade, threw the grinder about 30' across the shop and almost jerked me over the table. I was standing there my whole right arm numb and assessing what I was going to have to do when Rod says, "Hey, you're bleeding!"

I looked at my really numb right hand and ayup blood was running out of my finger, not squirting or dripping, running in pulses. "Well, that's not good Rodney." I lifted my hand to take a look and sure enough there's this rather large gob of meat barely attached by the remaining skin. "Looks like I'll need a ride to the doc in a box Rod. Give me a hand getting the bleeding under control and we'll go." I said as I pushed the meat back in and applied direct pressure with my thumb. And there's Rodney looking grey and swaying on his feet saying something like "bbb, bbb, bbb."

I dressed my finger after getting Rod to a chair in the office and making a call to let the office know I was going to the doc in a box to get stitched up and I'd let them know what's what. Then drove myself to the urgent care for evaluation and repair. I was sitting in the waiting room when one of the other drillers showed up, he'd sent Rod home. Tim and I sat there joked till I was called in  and got it stitched up. Something like 5 deep sutures, 2 intermediate and 6 to close. I got a good look at that part of my finger bone while he was cleaning the wound, I'd pulled the meat right off the bone. 

That scar I still have.

Even the recent ones are mostly gone, the long one on the right side of my head isn't even a ridge, my shattered and 5 surgeries to rebuild it left elbow looks weird but the scars are gone. The only one I have from the birch tree is where they put the feeding tube in my stomach.

The TBI did weird things to memories of things like this, I often remember the lesson but not what it was, or how bad it hurt, etc.

Frosty The Lucky.

[C.Read]

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

A good size stock for tong making is 5/8" sq. or 3/8" x 1/2" flat bar. However if you just have to use found steel I like coil spring with wire between 3/8" rd - 1/2" rd. Being spring steel you can forge thinner, lighter tongs that are plenty strong. It'll also give you some time working spring steel which makes decent knives as well.

Frosty The Lucky.

I don't have to use found steel. I guess I was getting ahead of my self. I want to learn this art the right way. I guess watching forged in fire isn't vey realistic for a beginner. I guess one day I would like to have the skills to pick up scrap metal and turn out beautiful demascus blades. Is using blanks considered cheating (lol)?  The reason I ask about cheating is because I have heard people in the past say stuff like he can't really make a knife he is just using a file blah blah. I want to be able to proudly say I made this.

[ThomasPowers]

Would you consider watching the Indianapolis 500 as a good start for a beginning driver?   I've seen it live several times and I'd say no.

[Buzzkill]

5 hours ago, C.Read said:

Is using blanks considered cheating (lol)?

That's a matter of opinion.  If someone else makes the blank, grinds to shape, does the heat treating, drills the holes for pins, and provides the scales it might be a stretch to claim that you "made a knife."  In that case all you are doing is assembling the pieces.  On the other hand if you want to use a specific alloy but you do not have the equipment to do a proper heat treat so you farm that out to get it done right I don't think many people would consider that "cheating," providing you did all the hammering, grinding, etc. yourself.  Personally I like to do as much as I can from start to finish, but I have limited experience with damascus.  So, if I needed a well-done specific pattern and I was on a time crunch I'd have no problem purchasing a billet from someone with more skill/capability than myself and doing the rest of the work to make the knife.  That's my opinion, but I'm sure there are plenty of others out there that are just as valid.

[C.Read]

Thomas- very true

Buzz- I was thinking along the lines of buying something like in the picture. I've never done anything before, BUT I want to try hammering it out, getting my shape, and heat treating it my self. If I mess up, then hey it as a learning lesson. I would buy plain steel blanks to learn on before spending the money on demascus.

Oh one more thing I have been heating up rebar and hammering it. Not going to do anything with it, but I figured it might be good practice.

[anvil]

There is no cheating. We suggest, you choose. Everybody wins.

[Buzzkill]

Just remember that if you change the shape of a pattern welded billet much by hammering, it will distort the pattern as the steel moves.  If you want to preserve the pattern as you received it then you'll need to do mostly stock removal to keep it.  There is some value to hammering on anything to build muscle memory and hammer control, but the best practice is hammering on the alloy you plan to use for your project.   Different alloys require different forging temperatures, and they can move significantly different under the hammer.

[paulgatx]

7 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

That's a matter of opinion.  If someone else makes the blank, grinds to shape, does the heat treating, drills the holes for pins, and provides the scales it might be a stretch to claim that you "made a knife."

I was thinking about this recently as well and was going to start a separate post in the blade section about it.

I recently forged my third knife, a 12" Bowie knife (5" tang, 7" blade) out of a 1.5" x 5" x 0.25" piece of leaf spring (I hope it's 5160!).  I forged 100% of the knife with no cutting and minimal shaping on the belt grinder.  It was a blast.  It took about 5 hours of forging time and I did it mainly to work on my forging skills.

As I was watching a few YouTube videos on forging a Bowie knife, I came across two popular videos that resulted in beautiful knives.  They both started with a bar the exact width, length, and thickness of their final knife.  One forged the tang and a bit of the tip, but then finished the tip with an angle grinder.  The second angle ground the tang and forged the tip. Then everything else was done on the grinder. 

My questions are: For sale or show pieces, is there a general rule of thumb for how much forging should be done to consider it a forged blade?  Do people and bladesmiths care?  Are the details of how much of the blade is forged divulged and does it affect typical sale prices?

For now I'm just curious as I'm doing this for fun and skill development, and making gifts for friends and family.

[Frosty]

On 6/29/2018 at 2:02 AM, C.Read said:

I don't have to use found steel. I guess I was getting ahead of my self. I want to learn this art the right way. I guess watching forged in fire isn't vey realistic for a beginner. I guess one day I would like to have the skills to pick up scrap metal and turn out beautiful demascus blades. Is using blanks considered cheating (lol)?  The reason I ask about cheating is because I have heard people in the past say stuff like he can't really make a knife he is just using a file blah blah. I want to be able to proudly say I made this.

Ahhh, everybody gets ahead of themselves, I've been playing with this off and on for about 50 years now and I still get ahead of myself all the time. Self taught isn't the way to go if you can help it. I recommend a person learn to forge before they learn to forge blades. Taking up stock removal blade making is a GOOD craft to learn while you're learning blacksmithing, the two crafts have very little overlap to confuse you're reflexes. Muscle memory in other words. All the time at the anvil is programming your reflexes and working with consistent materials doesn't mix signals. Once you've developed those reflexes learning to forge different steels is only a couple minor tricks for your subconscious to learn.

No matter how you make blades you have to grind, file, scrape, whatE V E R(that's my Valley Girl impersonation) to do the final shaping and finishing, then there's fitting the furniture, another set of skills which has very little overlap.

So NO IT'S NOT CHEATING to buy blanks and grind blades. Finishing and fitting are important skills if you make blades or not.

Frosty The Lucky.

[jason0012]

On 1/20/2018 at 7:54 PM, MC Hammer said:

Tongs are a hard learning project for a beginner.  Offsets, drawing out, and lots of hammer control are needed to be successful.  I'd have to disagree with it being a great first project.  Maybe a 20th project after mastering some S & J hooks, chisels, punches and such.  Heck even buying some farrier nippers, heating and straightening out the jaws would be easier than starting from scratch.  I see them all the time at antique shops for cheap.  You can do anything with shaping the jaws to conform to what you need.  

I will agree that there is something satisfying about using tools you've made.  Hey that's what this forging thing is all about.  Lots of mechanics that wish they could make the tools they need to work with instead of owing Snap-On a lot of money.  

Check out that guy who makes the kits if you really want to make your own.  I just saw a bundle set on E-bay for $43.00.  You get something like four tong kits for that price.  I used his kit to make the scroll tongs and I still have the satisfaction of using a tool I made.

Harbor freight has nippers for  something like $12.  Heavier and cheaper than farriers nippers, since I first saw them I thought they would make great intro level tongs.