How to Make Blacksmith Tongs

Hello!

Today I’m going to tell you how to make a hand-made blacksmith tongs

Neither blacksmith does anything without tongs also without an anvil, a forge with a burner (all of them are in my profile on instructables) and other tools which made by blacksmith hands.

Tongs are different and I’m going to tell you about the most convenient one. Of course, it’s my subjective opinion about convenience and the reason why I consider so is that the tongs are big enough to hold small and big workpieces and they have round lips to hold armature easily also they are wide enough to hold flat details.

We don’t need special tools, but some preparation is necessary.

The necessary tools:

-an angle grinder

-a drill

- a forge

- an anvil

The necessary materials:

-round armature. Diameter 12 mm, length 500 mm, 2 pieces

-a bolt (rivet)

I’m explaining now why I chose such materials. It doesn’t make sense to take armature with fewer diameters because it’ll be mild and impractical. It’ll be even better to take bigger diameter but in this case we have to make efforts for forging and warm-up of workpieces in general. So 12 mm are enough for working in a garage. Length is also for convenience – if it’s longer it’ll be hard to hold a workpiece with tongs; if it’s shorter you’ll be able to burn yourself during the process. And it’s better to take longer because you’ll always be able to cut it off. You can choose a bolt with the same principle- shorter one will be unreliable, longer one will have thin sides in a place for drilling.

Generally, all work is demonstrated in my video so I’m briefly telling you the process.

Step 1: Working With Tongs Lips

As I’m doing a cross functional big tongs I’m spreading armature on 100mm. If you have difficulty in seeing the size you can use a ruler. One of the most convenient variants of a ruler for forging I showed in my video about the anvil.

Step 2: Spreading a Place

Turning over the workpiece on 90 degrees we’re beginning to spread a place for two sides conection of the tongs.

Step 3: Making a Shape

I decided to bend them in a vice because my stump was unsteady. It turned out to be fast and easy.

Step 4: Making the Tongs Lips Better

Now our tongs have had their final look and someone can stop at this stage, but I decided to make the tongs lips better and welded some pieces of wire to the ready-made tongs.

Step 5: Drilling a Hole and Fastening a Bolt

It’s left to drill a hole and to fasten a bolt in the tongs. As it’ll hardly be necessary to spin the connection up I welded a crew. The result is such a semi-screw.

And now you can see all described things in my video.