Beginner Guide to Tongs and Holding Work

Why Tongs Deserve Your Attention Early

Most beginners spend their first weeks thinking about the hammer, the anvil and the forge, and treat tongs as an afterthought. That is a mistake. Tongs are the only thing standing between a piece of 1,200°C steel and your knuckles, and a badly fitted pair will teach you bad habits faster than anything else in the workshop. Poor tongs encourage a light, tentative hammer blow because part of your mind is always worried about losing the work. Good tongs let you forget your hands and concentrate on the metal.

The good news is that tongs are simple objects. A pair is two levers joined at a pivot, with jaws on one side of the rivet and reins on the other. Once you understand how those three elements work together, choosing, adjusting and eventually making your own becomes straightforward.

The Main Jaw Shapes and What They Hold

Jaw shape is decided entirely by the stock you intend to grip. The common profiles you will meet are:

• Flat jaws: two plain, parallel-ish faces. Ideal for square and rectangular bar, and the shape most beginners should start with.
• V-bit jaws: a groove cut into one or both jaws forming a V. These grip round bar, square bar and the corners of rectangular stock, and they self-centre as you squeeze.
• Bolt or box jaws: jaws with a step or recess, designed to hold a bolt head or a finished block without crushing it.
• Pick-up or wolf jaws: long, slender jaws for reaching into a forge or gas burner to retrieve small pieces.
• Scroll and hollow jaws: curved faces for holding round stock, rings and scrollwork without marking the surface.

A V-bit pair in roughly 10mm and 12mm sizes will handle a surprising amount of general work. Most smiths end up with half a dozen pairs on the rack and still reach for the same two or three most days.

Jaws, Boss and Reins: Getting the Proportions Right

Look at any well-made pair and you will see the same proportions repeated. The jaws are usually around 75–100mm long, the reins 300–400mm, and the rivet sits at roughly a quarter to a third of the way along the total length. That geometry matters. Short reins give you less leverage, so the grip is weak; very long reins give plenty of squeeze but make the tongs clumsy to turn in the hand.

The boss — the thickened area around the rivet — should be substantial. This is where all the force passes through, and a thin, weedy boss will flex, wear oval and develop a sloppy pivot within a season. You also want the jaws to close roughly parallel at your working stock size, not tight at the tips and gaping at the base. Parallel contact along the length of the jaw is what stops the work twisting when you strike it.

Rivets, Fit and Maintenance

The rivet is the heart of the tool. A good joint moves freely when open but has no sideways slop. If you shake a pair of tongs and the jaws rattle, the rivet is loose or the hole has worn oval.

Fixing a loose joint is a ten-minute job. Support the rivet head on the anvil or in a vice, and with a hammer and a light touch, peen the opposite head until the joint tightens. Test often — it is far easier to peen a little more than to drill out an over-tightened rivet. If the jaws have gone slack through the boss rather than the rivet, you can sometimes close them slightly in a vice, but badly worn tongs are usually better retired to the "borrowing" pile.

Keep an eye on the jaw faces too. Years of gripping hot steel will round them off and polish them smooth, and smooth jaws on hot metal slip. A few minutes with a file, cutting a fresh V or roughening a flat face, restores grip remarkably well.

Fitting Tongs to Your Stock

Fitting is where beginners gain the most for the least effort. The rule is simple: the jaws should contact the stock along their full length, and the reins should sit comfortably in your hand with a gap of roughly 25–40mm between them when the work is gripped. If the reins touch before the jaws close, the tongs are too small for that stock. If you have to squeeze hard to hold the work, they are too large.

To adjust, heat the jaws to a bright red and close them around a piece of the target stock held in a vice, then squeeze the reins. Let them cool in place. This is called fitting, and it is worth doing properly for any size you use regularly. Mark each pair with a punch or a dab of paint so you know at a glance whether it is your 10mm or your 12mm pair.

• Always grip the stock close to the jaws, not out at the tips.
• Hold the work horizontally over the anvil so a missed blow lands on steel, not on your hand.
• Keep your hammer hand free of the reins — never cross them over.
• Re-fit tongs whenever you change to a new stock size rather than making do.

Buying, Making and Building a Sensible Set

For a first pair, buy rather than make. Commercial tongs are inexpensive and give you a reference for how a properly riveted joint should feel. Spend the money on two or three good pairs in the sizes you actually use, then make your own once you have a feel for the geometry.

Making tongs is an excellent second or third project. You learn to draw out, to form a boss, to punch and drift a clean hole, and to set a rivet — all core skills. Start with a simple flat-jaw pair from 12mm or 14mm mild steel bar, and do not be discouraged if the first attempt opens like a pair of scissors. Most of us have a crooked pair on the wall from our early days, and we keep them as a reminder of how far the fit and finish have come.