I used to forge my tongs from a single piece of stock, but now I make them in two parts.

For the first five years in my shop, I always started with a long bar and drew out the reins from the same piece as the jaws. It took forever. Then, at a meet-up in Boise, an older smith showed me how he welds the reins onto pre-formed jaw blanks. I tried it and cut my tong-making time almost in half. It just makes more sense for volume work. Has anyone else switched up their tong method like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

julias4417d ago

Wait, so you're welding the reins on. What kind of weld are you using? A forge weld or are you just tacking it with an arc welder? That seems like the part that could go wrong if you don't get it right.

sethm5817d ago

Arc welding on a hammer handle sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. That's just asking for a crack to start right at the weld. The whole thing would probably snap the first time you miss a swing.

matthew_west17d ago

But that weld is just another point of failure, and you lose the strength of a one-piece tool.