I couldn't find a set of tongs the size I needed so I forged some. These are made to hold 1 1/4 inch x 3 inches. 

 

I know a bunch of smiths that when they get up to those sizes just weld a handle to the end.  When I was forging some 2.5" sq stock we welded a 1" sq stock handle to it, of course I was using a powerhammer and could use both hands on the handle.

I personally dont like welding handles on material unless it's a big billet of Damascus. And I would never try to break this material down by hand. Definitely going to be done with the power hammer. Actually these tongs were made with about 90% power hammer and 10% hand hammer.

On 12/23/2019 at 12:58 PM, ThomasPowers said:

just weld a handle to the end.

Hard to turn the bar around and run it thru the hammer the other way with a bar welded to the end.  Probably works fine for knife makers thou.  

Another set I made today. I made these ones to hold some railroad track after the top is forged down a bit. I have some big flat bit tongs to hold it to start forging but nothing between them and my smaller tongs. 

I wish I would have dressed the boss a little more and I still need to bend the reigns closer together.

Tong No.3 made for 2 inch round stock.

Set of wrought iron farrier style tongs 

First tongs might be a little miss leading, yes?    If they are your first tongs.. Then Hurrah.. you did a bang up job..  

Thank you Jennifer... I made one other pair of tongs based on a video GS tongs on YouTube made. They turned out okay but the boss is really thin and they bend easily. Other than that all I have done as far as tong making is assembling the quick and rapid tongs from kens custom iron.

I was using corn tongs and channel locks before. So today I made my first set of tongs.  Only steel I could get was rebar. The guys on youtube make it look easy. They're crude and will need adjusting in the forge. I think they will work better than what I had before.

Whenever I read "the only steel I could get is rebar" I always wonder if cars have been banned out there.  Around here you can find car coil springs all over the place. While coil spring is harder to work due to the alloy; I like the lighter springier tongs you can make from it; normalized of course.

Tong making is not a beginner's project; just being able to forge the pivot area wider but not thin it down too much takes a bit of experience.  If these work for you then GREAT you can go on and make better ones as your skills increase!

Maybe I should have wrote: The only steel that I could find that is not way too thick to easily turn into tongs. My step son has a stripped Mitsubishi truck in my yard that I cut pieces off to forge. It has no springs to take. He has sold all of it he can and there's not nuch left. The leaf springs will be gone when I get to be home and work on things. I found an ancient bar of steel on a one inch thick formerly threaded rod. I've got most of the chunks of rust off it. I'll figure out what to make when it's heating up in the forge.

Time to start watching ditches and the auto midnight dumpsites. I don't think a week goes by I don't see coil springs laying out for the taking. Have you visited a spring shop and asked to pick their drops? The only time I've heard no from a spring shop was after an unethical bladesmith visited every spring shop within 50 miles and convinced them not to let folks pick the drops. I don't know how he pulled that stunt off but it lasted maybe 2  months, we just bought a stick at the steel supply and divvied it up. Brand new coil spring wire is SWEET, no stress fractures, rust and annealed. 

Mr. ungood guy ended up using drops and replaced spring stock while the rest of us were using new stock and best of all after listening to his con, the spring shops were charging him around 50% of new. Ayup he'd convinced them old spring steel was VALUABLE knife steel and they were throwing money away. I talked to one of the spring shop guys a while later, the shop was on one of my dodge busy intersections detours so I drove past it nearly daily. I noticed the scrap dumpster was full and dumped every 2-3 weeks and stopped by to chat. Seems they missed guys picking the drops, they had to pay to have them hauled. 

Anyway, spring and auto customizing shops are your friend. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

Hmm; I just got to wondering about making some tongs from lug wrenches...Saturday at the scrapyard I may pick up several and see what I can do...

Steve clued us in another thread, lug wrenches analyzed by an acquaintance ran 1084 and L6.

 Frosty The Lucky.

I'll tell you what...............whichever steel the one I used was, it was hard as heck.

If you could tell which was which you have a decent billet there---1084 and L6!

I'm thinking a spark test might give enough clue to test farther, say etch coupons. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

⅝ inch bolt tongs. 

Looks good.. 

Ideally the tongs should be able to hold the bolt from either end(shank or head).

So keep opening (bow) large enough for the size bolt head you will be making. 

A few more tongs made for axe making.

looking good.  Those should work fine.