Had an idea for a pair of tongs for bowl forging, combining modern twist tongs, Eric Thing’s recommendation to hold armor with tongs whose jaws are set at 45°, the way that farrier’s tongs grip at the edges, and (of all things) a pair of tongs excavated from an 11th century deposit under London Bridge. This is the result. 

Starting with some salvaged flat bar, 5/8” wide x a skinny 1/8” thick x ~24” long. In retrospect, this was thinner than ideal, but it was what came to hand. 

These were marked at the appropriate spots for their respective bends. 

The loops for the jaws were bent with the Hossfeld, first on the bulldozer die:

And then with the eye bending tool:

These loops were then angled 45°:

The bows were turned on a bending fork:

And then drilled and riveted:

The reins are spot-heated and twisted:

Note how the short side of the doubled section lies on the inside. This gives the reins a little more stiffness, as does hollowing their insides over the swage block. 

These hold a bowl very nicely, at many different angles:

The reins still have more flex than I’d like, and I plan to weld some pieces of 3/16” round bar on their insides to stiffen them up. 

All in all, a reasonably successful experiment. 

Addendum: here’s a modern recreation of the London Bridge tongs:

 

Pretty darned neat John! Great use of the Hossfeld along with traditional forgework. 

Curious about the eye-bending tool. Pics make it look as though the nose is more or less square (vs the angled nose I'm familiar with) AND the two pics almost look like two different tools. Second pic looks to have a slightly angled nose and slightly different surface finish. 

Once again, a very helpful job of photo documenting the sequence, thanks.

--Larry

1 hour ago, LarryFahnoe said:

Curious about the eye-bending tool.

It's the same tool, and it does have an angled nose. It's just the camera angle and the lighting that makes it look otherwise.

I have a suggestion to give the reins more support. Put a bend down the length in the middle of the flat (Exaggeration: think angle iron with opening toward inside). This will stiffen the reins and may be more comfortable in the hand.

bob

 

Way ahead of you -- I already did! You can kind of see it in the 5th photo from the end in the top post (16th from the beginning) how I hollowed the reins out over the swage block. Here's a close-up:

This definitely stiffened the reins (and did make them MUCH more comfortable to hold), but there's still a little too much flex. I'm planning to weld in a piece of 1/8 x 1/4 down the insides of both reins, which should solve the problem permanently.

I also stopped by my steel supplier yesterday and got a 10' piece of 3/16" x 5/8" flat bar from which I plan to make another pair of these. With a longer overlap on the doubled section, I think we should be in good shape.

Update: I’ve welded some flat bar inside the reins as stiffeners, which should make them much better than before. 

Still planning to make another pair with thicker stock, but this should make this pair at least functional. 

So, even with the reinforcement, these proved too flexible, so I made a proper pair from flat bar.