Slotted Jaw Tongs from Kens Custom iron

today's video is sponsored by skillshare an online learning community slotted jaw tongs are pretty good universal pair of tongs in the blacksmith shop they will hold flat stock about as well as any pair of flat jaw tongs will but they will also hold some flat stock on edge depending on the design of the slotted jaw tongs and that's much more secure they will hold round bar and they will hold square bar of course what size stock a pair of tongs holds is kind of unique to that pair of tongue so you have to make the tongs to hold the stock you want to hold and each pair of tongs is going to have a different range of materials and while we've looked at making slotted jaw tongs in the past today i thought i would start with a pair of blanks made by ken's custom iron these are quick tongs or rapid tongs depending on the size that you want and they come pre-cut so they're pretty fast to make and pretty reliable that means that it's a great way for beginner to get their first set of tongs generally i like to start by drawing out the reins these aren't too bad the way they are if you like a short heavier rain on your tongs all you'd really have to do is just round these up a little bit make them comfortable to hold but i like them just a little bit longer so i'm going to draw these out a little bit round them up then turn them around and work on the jaw end if you don't actually own tongs so you don't have anything to hold these with while you draw the reins out go ahead and do the jaw in first drill the hole and assemble it using a nut and a bolt then use these tongs to make a second set of tongs so buy two sets from ken's custom iron then you can completely finish the second set disassemble the first set use the second set to hold on to the first set draw the reins out and you end up with two pair of tongs probably only an afternoon's worth of work the shop has been heating up really fast these days so i'm going to work in the induction forge as much as possible to get these done once we get to the final assembly and have to do all the little tweaking and things like that i may have to switch over to the gas forge but i'll do as much as i can in the induction forge just to keep it from getting too hot in here up close to the boss or the pivot point i really just want to knock the sharp corners off the bar total heating time is about 60 seconds on each cycle here as we get further down i want to draw it out into more of a taper and go ahead and round up the rain so they're nice and comfortable to hold onto and of course as always you want to work square octagon then round this results in a tong ring that's much more comfortable to hold on to and it's just a little bit longer not a lot but that little bit of a difference might make it more comfortable to reach into a gas forge or something like that so your hands just a little bit further away from the heat one of the reasons i had ken's custom iron tongs on my mind to make today's video is that it has come to my attention that there is somebody kind of misrepresenting themselves as kins custom iron or at least selling a very similar product and giving the impression that you're buying from ken's custom iron this is somebody on amazon and apparently they are linking to one of my videos as the instructions for how to assemble their product i don't represent them i don't represent ken's custom iron and i'm not being sponsored by ken's custom iron but since this idea comes from cans and these are his patterns and the name quick tongs and rapid tongs or his product i would strongly recommend buying your tongs from ken's custom iron instead of the amazon seller who's kind of ripping ken's custom iron off so i'll provide a link down in the video description so you can get the original product now we just want to make the second one match as closely as we can foreign you looks like this one can draw out just a little bit more it's a little fat right there always looking pretty good so i'm going to do that and then i'm going to let these cool so i can turn them around and work on the other end i want to take a moment and thank today's video sponsor skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes to choose from if you're like most blacksmiths you have other creative interests besides just blacksmithing you might have interest in photography graphic design illustration and there are lots of classes available in those kind of subjects if you're trying to promote your blacksmithing business there are classes on product photography website design marketing lots of things that can help you out as creative the feeling of taking an idea that's just on paper and turning into a beautiful photo is truly unmatched [Music] hey i'm daniel and i'm rachel now personally as summer comes on i find that i spend more of my afternoon inside during the hottest part of the day that provides a great opportunity for some online learning i tend to look at classes about filmmaking how to get the best results out of my cameras color grading video editing all those things that help make a better product for you folks watching my youtube videos and skillshare provides an excellent place to look for those kinds of classes it costs less than ten dollars a month and for the first thousand people that use the link in my video description you get a free trial offer of skillshare now that completes the reigns for the tongs we shouldn't have to do very much work to those there might be some little fiddly adjustments later if they have some lumps bumps or whatever feel free to take a minute and grind them or file them to get rid of the lumps and bumps you want a tool that's pleasant to use the next thing i want to do is kind of refine the slot i would like my slot in here a little bit longer and a little bit wider so i can hold wider flat bar and to do that i have made a drift out of mild steel that is larger than the slot that's in here and i'll just drive this in and refine the jaws just a little bit i'm not going to thin them out too much because i don't want to weaken the jaws but i would like to just make that slot a little bit bigger if i can again it's up to what you want in your pair of tongs you'll probably want to make three or four sets of these in different size ranges so they hold different material the next thing we need to do is put a 90 degree twist where the jaw meets the boss that's what the little cut in the tongue blank is all about is to make it easier to do that does it matter which way you twist these yes it absolutely matters the most important thing is that you twist them both exactly the same so that when you flip one side over and set it on top of the other one you end up with a perfectly matching pair of tongs if you make mirror images which is sometimes what our brain tells us we need things don't go together properly but there is a little bit more to it than that when you assemble your tongs one set of reins ends up on top and one on the bottom you want the one on top to be the one nearest your tongue hand i'm a right hand i'm a right-handed blacksmith i hold my tongs in the left hand so i want the rain that's on the top to be on the left side of the tongs in use that means the tongs are more likely to lay into your hand than fall out of your hand if you do that backwards they're going to be a little bit more difficult to hold on to and to control so it's a good idea to make sure you're making your tongs for your left hand or for your right hand if your left-handed smith and you hold your tongs in your right hand do this the other way so for these that means you make that twist counterclockwise once that twist is done i want to bend the very end of the jaw outward so that the slot is accessible from the end that's what makes it possible for these to hold round and square bar if you leave them just like this they won't work that way now it's time for a little bit of final cleanup i'll use a file and take any odd sharp spots or weird corners like on the ends of these off and then drill some holes and we can assemble this pair of tongs you can punch the holes if you want to but usually i do that if i'm trying to preserve as much mass in the boss as possible these are good and thick they got a really nice sized boss on there so i'm not worried about the loss of material by drilling a hole i'm going to put a 5 16 rivet in here so i'll drill a 5 16 hole it's also a good idea to lightly countersink the hole and that makes you less likely to shear off the rivet at some point in the future i did have to resort to the gas forge to heat this up i don't have this coil quite large enough to put this in the induction forge once this rivet is completely set you can expect these to be too tight to move so go ahead and bring them back up to heat again and then work the reins back and forth very gently without bending them and you should free them up and get them to run perfectly smooth next we'll need to adjust these and make sure everything lines up properly by holding a piece of material the thickness you want these tongs to work with and putting it in the vise you can get everything adjusted pretty accurately one last little heat to put my touch mark on there which i probably should have done before i assembled them one last check to make sure everything fits the way you want it to and that the reins are far enough apart you can actually get a decent grip these are a little bit too close i think that's better last thing i'm going to do to these is put a little bit of wax on them i've got a hunk of beeswax that's probably what i'll use today paste wax paraffin oil whatever kind of finish you want just to keep them from rusting and provide a little bit of lubrication for that joint hope you have time in your day to get out to your shop but stay safe wear your safety glasses we'll see you for the next video [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Black Bear Forge

Views: 30,963

Keywords: Blacksmith, blacksmithing for beginners, black bear forge, john switzer, Blacksmithing, Blacksmithing project, how to blacksmith, blacksamith shop, blacksmith forge, learn blacksmithing, sponsored by skillshare, tongs, quick tongs, rapid tongs, precut tongs, tong blanks, tong blanks from kens custom iron, kens custom iron, kens custome iron tongs, blacksmith tongs, blacksmithing tongs, kens custom iron tongs, forging tongs, making tongs, how to, how to forge tongs

Id: ii4RbW_RYZw

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 20 2021