Forging Ring tongs - DF In The Shop

hi and welcome back today I'm going to be forging a pair of ringtones and ringtones are used to hold stock across the width of the Jaws as opposed to along their length which is the way most tongs are intended to be used the material I'm using today is a short length of quarter by three quarter flat bar flat bar is usually not the best choice for forging tongs especially if you plan on forging out the rains because three quarters of the bar is nowhere near you know the final Dimension that you want so they usually require a lot of forging but these pieces are small enough that they hammer out pretty easily the first offset I'm making for the Jaws is going to be around the inch and a quarter mark I'm not going to need to forge this out very much because ringtones normally have long narrow Jaws that are fairly heavy if you make ringtones that have extremely wide Jaws that's going to really limit the size of the Ring you're going to be able to hold so they are usually made quite narrow so they can fit around a pretty tight radius foreign stock that I'm using is exactly what I need for the boss so I'm going to skip over the second offset which usually creates the traditional jaw shape and a pair of tongs and I'm going to move right over to creating the offset that's going to define the top end of the handles the working end of these tongs is right at the tips of the Jaws so I have lots of room to just curve the jaw into that overlap that I need to get both Jaws to line up foreign so here I've created a boss that's roughly an inch long I'm going to be splitting and drifting the eye of these tongs the same way I always do so by having a boss that's a little bit longer when I do the drifting it's going to shorten up and the proportions are going to be right and of course this isn't guesswork I took the time years ago to match punches to the drifts that I was going to be using for each of the stock sizes that I needed foreign foreign foreign [Music] here I'm a little further along and I'm just getting ready to create the offset that's going to define the location for the reins on the other half of the pair of tongs but I'm not committing to the location just yet I'm just marking it and I'm comparing it with the first offset that I made even though I know the measurements and I try to measure as accurately as possible it's always a good idea to compare two pieces so that they look the same so if one's a little off the tongs aren't going to look right unless the other one is off by the same amount so you know you try as hard as you can but every once in a while things drift and you're not you don't realize it so before I actually commit to the location compare the two make the two the same and then even if they look kind of goofy at least they're going to look symmetrical [Music] thank you foreign now I'm getting ready to punch the holes for the rivets in this heat all I'm trying to do is set up the location of the punch so I'm just punching a very shallow depression into the surface of the tongue blank and I'm having a good look at it making sure that it's centered if I need to move it I can at this point because I haven't committed to this whole location once I feel it's as centered as I can make it I throw it back in the fire give it a good heat and I come back and actually punch the hole on it [Music] [Music] foreign foreign now that I have the two halves riveted together I need to force that curved section that's going to be holding on to the bar stock I'm going to be demonstrating two different ways of forging the Jaws the first one is to hold the reins closed and forging the Jaws open so that you have enough room to shape that curved section I would recommend this method if you're fairly new to forging and you're only planning on making a basic form of ringtone where one jaw is curved and the other jaw is left flat shaping this curved section is done exactly the same way you would form a standard ring you make the main Bend at the base of the curve and you forge your way around to the tip here I'm supporting the work with a fuller held in my Anvil next time I'll use the narrower section of a horn on my bickern if you don't have either of those you can set up a flat bar in a vise or you can clamp a heavy piece of angle iron to a bench as long as it has a narrow profile that supports the work very close to where you're hammering you'll be able to shape this detail without too much problem so with one jaw forged as I mentioned earlier you will have a very serviceable pair of ringtones that can be used to hold most of the applications that you're going to need a pair of ring tongs for however I'm going to be using this pair of ringtones for holding chisels and punches at the Anvil so I I want the extra holding power that I'm going to get by having both Jaws curved the second method of forging the Jaws is the most intuitive and that is to Simply open the reins to get the Jaws in a position where you can work on them it does take a little bit of practice to forge on the Jaws while the tongs are in an open position but with this application you really don't have any choice having to forge the Jaws open and closed every time you need to take a measurement is not only very time consuming it's probably going to lead to stress fractures I'm going to be shaping the other jaw over a bicker and because I want the horn to create a really nice radius for the first band if I need to move it around to match the other jaw I don't want a sharp crease there that I might get from a fuller and once I'm happy with the location I'll wrap it around the same way I did the other side in this heat I'm going to finish freeing up the hinge area the hinge worked loose earlier and I left it tight because I wanted to be able to jam the tongs in an open position so they wouldn't interfere with the forging that I'm doing so now that I'm done that section I just need tongs that can open and close very easily the final step is to size the Jaws around the pin that you're going to be using this can be a little fussy and honestly frustrating at times because you know the whole end of it is hot and as you're hammering one area something else wants to move so it's really just a matter of being a patient don't Hammer too heavy just work your way around you know every area of the jaw and eventually you'll get the shape where you want it the critical area when you're making a pair of tongs to hold a chisel is to make sure that the end of the Jaws wrap all the way around the Chisel so that'll prevent the Chisel from springing out in that direction and obviously the Chisel can't move towards the hinge area because it's narrower so if you have those two areas covered then you're going to have a good heavy pair of tongs that'll do the job now you may be wondering why you even need a pair of tongs to hold a punch or a chisel well there's two basic applications sometimes you're working alone and you're working on a fairly awkward piece of Steel and see the punch or the hole that you're trying to punch is like two and a half feet away from you so you need a pair of tongs just to be able to get the punch over to where you need to be working and the other application is just the opposite you want your hands away from where you're working so if you're working on a bigger piece of Steel and it's generating a tremendous amount of heat you don't want your hands sitting directly above that so a pair of tongs will move your hand a safe distance away and really increase the enjoyment of the process thank you hi I'm Dennis and thanks for watching if you have any questions you can contact me by using the email address that I have shown here if you like the channel and the work that I'm doing please consider becoming a patron every dollar you contribute will bring me one step closer to being able to produce videos full time foreign

Channel: DF - In The Shop

Views: 2,978

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Id: c1QV7UYD3cQ

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2023