Making Tongs

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
8,651
im needing some tongs and i hear its best to make them. is this true. jantz has some for 29. whats my best choices. i have a bunch of wrought iron round stock.
 
There are tons of ways to make tongs. i make mine in a not so traditional way. I still gotta get that photo tutorial up.
 
Would you make them for 30 or 40 bucks,thats about what new ones cost,unless you enjoy it making tooling, buy tools make something you can sell-hope i didn't sound like a smarta##--Butch:o
 
oh, i didn't realize that they took that much to make, i thought that it was just bent to shape, flattened in an area and riveted. (can you tell that i dont forge? :D)
 
I HIGHLY recommend OC(Off Center) brand tongs, i beat the living snot out of them during my apprenticeship and they took every bit.
 
i make mine in about 5 mins... but i use simple ones for holding flat stock. more advanced ones would take a little longer to work out the kinks.
-Lou
 
Bruce Bump said:
I met Tom Clark at the Northwest Hammer-in a few years ago. I bought a pair of his tongs. Best ones I have ever used.
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what tongs should i start with. im going to be working burtons 5160. and after seeing how much is wasted by grinding i decided to step up and become a real knifemaker :D
 
Thats a tough question. There are several configurations and unfortunatly one size doesnt fit all steel sizes and shapes. You may need to buy 3 or 4. Talk to Tom and tell him size you will be forging.

I bought several off ebay also.

I have bought a couple horse hoof clippers and welded special ends on them. Cheap and works good.
 
JTknives said:
im needing some tongs and i hear its best to make them. is this true. jantz has some for 29. whats my best choices. i have a bunch of wrought iron round stock.
Click to expand...

I definitely wouldn't use the wrought iron to make tongs with. It would be better to save the wrought iron for guards, etc.!

If you're going to make some tongs, use mild steel or rebar. I made mine out of rebar. I did what Stacy suggested. I made a pair, just for the experience. I will be purchasing any future tongs, so that I can spend the time at the forge making knives.
 
i bought most of mine off of ebay. I was getting them for $10 ea plus shipping on average.

Will
formerly known as badbamaump
 
JTknives said:
what tongs should i start with. im going to be working burtons 5160. and after seeing how much is wasted by grinding i decided to step up and become a real knifemaker :D
Click to expand...

Welcome to the wonderful world of hot work!
once you get the hang of moving metal to where you want it you will wonder why you spent all of that time trying to get bars that were bigger than what you wanted to make and turning them to dust. I still have unfinished the stock removal blades I had started just before the first blade I forged.

Leave the blade on the end of the bar for as long as you can, the bar is always going to be a more reliable handle than the tongs, then a good set of wolfs jaw universal tongs and a set of box jaw Tom Tongs are a good thing once the blade is cut off

-Page
 
whatever you do, make sure you get tongs with a ball or notch in the end of the handles and make some tong clips!

edit: you can do this yourself easily enough to any existing tongs
 
If you have no tongs at all you may like to make the easy tongs from anvil fire they are the quickest I know of. They show just the basic twisted flat but if you may the section infront of the pivot longer you can make all sors and the handles you can forge for more comfort.

http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor/gc_tongs/index.htm.

I believe any forging and shaping steel ultimatly makes you a more knowledgeable and skilfull maker. It helps you understand how the metain your knives and hawkes is going to move under the hammer.
 
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