Tongs – The begining

By , February 15, 2007 9:41 pm

I made the fuller first so I could use it to make these tongs. I am making these tongs along the lines of the ones shown in the tutorial at anvilfire about the Dempsey Twist. Started with a 25 inch piece of 3/8 x 3/4 steel. Got one end turned and shaped a bit. If you look close you may note that with the 3 fuller slots and the twist and a bit of beating on the jaw that the bar has already grown length wise to 26 inches. Below are the pictures. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version, back button on browser to return here.


Tongs full length view
Tongs full length view

Tongs Inside Side View
Tongs inside side view – This side will be the inside of the hinge joint. Will punch a hole in the flat area just to the right of the jaws, which are on the left side of the picture. The 2 dimples in the bottom center are the shape the fuller makes. Will make more of these on toward the right and then hammer the humps out between them. It’s a lot easier to move the metal this way with the fuller than just by hammering the hot metal.

Tongs Outside Side View
Tongs outside side view – The other side. πŸ˜‰

Tongs Back View
Tongs back view – Both pieces are the same shape. Just got to remember to turn the jaws in the same direction when twisting them into shape.

That’s all for now. Will try to get some pix of the forge, anvil and other stuff in the near future. Tis all real high tech stuff… πŸ˜‰

Fuller

By , February 15, 2007 9:20 pm

Found the camera so here are some pix of the bottom fuller. Or that’s it’s primary purpose. Will also be used to form different shapes in metal so guess it has another name too but no idea what it would be right now. Started life as a piece cut off a rail road rail. This is the top rail portion. The curved side was the really worn inside part of the rail. Took up to a yellow heat quite a few times to get it beat into this shape. Pix taken on a piece of pegboard. Holes are 1/4 inch in diameter and spaced on a 1 inch grid to give a feel of the size. Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions of the pictures and use your back button to return here.


Fuller side view 1
Fuller side view 1

Fuller side view 2
Fuller side view 2

Fuller Top View
Fuller top view – Took quite a few heatings and beatings to get it this narrow on top. Ground it smooth on the bench grinder and then used the belt sander to finish it off.

Fuller Bottom View
Fuller Bottom View – My hardy hole is 7/8 inch square. Had to upset (heat and hammer back into it’s self) the hardy end of this a bit to get it to fit the hole. It started out about 3/4 inch square. I think the hardy fitting is about 3/8s of an inch shorter now than before I started beating on it.

Another day that was

By , February 15, 2007 9:01 pm

Well the problems that I thought I was having with PCLOS 2007 TR2 was actually a combonation of motherboard and cdrom drive in the computer I was using as a test machine. Still not sure what the motherboard or processor problem is but tis trash now. Not that I broke it but it’s in pieces to be recycled. Not worth the time or trouble to try to fix it so got another even slower machine and moved the hard drive into it and had boot problems. So put the cdrom drive in it and it wouldn’t boot from the livecd. Put another cdrom drive in it and booted fine so reinstalled to the hard drive and everything is fine. Guess the cold was too much for it/them. Took several hours to determine just what was going on as everything was working (kinda) last night but wouldn’t boot this morning. Hate it when that happens!

Even with the cold I got out this afternoon and did a bit of work at the forge. Finished grinding and polishing the bottom fuller so tongs are next. Got the jaw on one half twisted over and the next fuller indention done, part of the hinge shaped and the next indention down the handle made before it got too dark to see what I was doing. Got to find the camera and I wll take pix of the pieces. Know it’s around here somewhere… πŸ™

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