Ok, I decided to make a couple leaf key chains for a friend today. The technique is easy enough and such and in the past I've made several hundred of them... but now I keep loosing the darn things in the fire when I go to grab it with the tongs. Part of this is I still don't have full dexterity in my hands since my motorcycle wreck, the brain knows what it needs the hands to do but the hands just don't co-operate as well as they used to.

So when doing work on small pieces of metal such as a key ring leaf how do you keep the thing easy to grab, do you have a secret tong choice for your tiny work? Got a dumb apprentice willing to fish the piece out with his fingers? It has to be simple but my frustration level is blocking the obvious I think...

I did finally get two made however four others were sacrificed to the fire in the process...

James

Edited July 24, 200817 yr by ironrosefarms

I don't usually have this problem, but that may be because I use smaller and easier to maneuver tongs. If you are having trouble you may want to use a piece of pipe in the fire and put your small pieces in the piece of pipe.

Of course it is necessary to sacrifice a piece to the fire gods once in awhile but here is what I do with small pieces, rivets etc. I take my poker and really beat up the whole fire breaking it into small pieces. Then I take the back of my poker (1/2" rod) and use it to pack the fire tightly. This makes a bed of tightly packed coke that small pieces can't fall through. You can rake a few larger pieces of coke in next to and over your piece to get your heat. Turn off the blower a little early, your piece will still be getting a little hotter as you are getting the tongs on it. Push back the few bigger pieces of coke to expose your piece on the "bed" and it's an easy grab.

you could atach a piece of wire to the peice so it is easer to find

Get a pair of those extra-long needle-nose pliers from HF or Northern.

They have enough reach to save the hair on your knuckles.

Harbor Freight 11" bent needle nose

I use a one firebrick forge made from a soft firebrick and a plumbers propane torch for that sort of thing; why fire up the big forge for a small project?

I make leaves like these as key chains and make them from 1/2" square stock. I do not use tongs, till drawing out the stem. If you clamp the end of the leaf in the tongs with a tong clip you never have to turn it loose. the stem portion that is left will heat up very quickly.

LDW,
That is one nice looking leaf. How do you get the center split to look the way it does? Are you forming this over a ball shape? Do you have blueprint to share?

Thanks for the kind words. After putting in the lines and veins you can turn it upside down and place on a board while hot and hit the back with a ball pein hammer. I do this on the treadle hammer. I have now made a curved chisel to do the lines down the sides and it looks much better. In the Gallery under events or meetings I posted pictures of Ernie Dorrill doing the demo on these leaves (with Glenns help). They are in the July 08 MS Forge Council meeting.

I do what LDW does and don't "usually" have issues. Of course there are the few pieces that slip out of the tongs because they didn't quite fit right.

I think I will make a new set of tongs. I don't have any that will grab something as flat as a leaf and hold well other than a rather large set that just isn't good for retrieval from the fire. The idea of clamping the tongs and leaving it clamped sounds like the best option for my situation with my hands the way they are... Been thinking about making some new tongs... now I have a reason... May still get me a set of those long needle nose pliers as well, couldn't hurt...

Thanks guys

Why not make a set of long needle shaped tongs?

Try something like this;
I use these a lot.
Finnr

I picked up a set of tongs with small thin tips on the jaws just to be able to pick stuff up off the floor of the gasser, (or the shop). The tips heat up fast but they are very handy shifting a piece to where the "real" tongs can get a good grip on them.

I made a number of tongs to meet my specific needs. These are two that I use a lot for flat and/or small objects.