Viktor showed us how to forge some blacksmith´s tongs. He makes them as a giveaway for tourists and visitors. He made six in 15 min! He started with 6 mm round mild steel stock and heated them.
Here he manufactures a bend into the tongs with the help of a hardy device with a groove. Note that he does not add a bend yet nor forges a flat section up front. He forges both sides first.
With a punch and a punching hardy anvil device he forges a flat section on both sides. Be careful to do it on each side differently!
Then he hot-punches the hole for the rivet into both flat sections.
The hot chisel he made from ball bearing steel with a speciality: The point is flat, vonvex and angled. That way it is easier to find the centre. Viktor manages to forge the flat and do the punching in one heat.
He uses a pre-manufactured rivet out of mild steel to act as a pivot. Here´s a detail of his punching hardy tool he made himself. Makes work a darn bit easier.;-)
Then he uses the hardy hot chisel to hand-form the bend on the tongs. On the anvil´s horn he reforges and adjusts the tongs´s mouth. Any flat-forging or rolling or tubing of the tong´s mouth can be done at that point. Et voilà, tongs are done. Viktor certainly makes it look so easy!
Other tongs, shears and scissors can be forged in quite a similar way. If you want serviceable ones, I suggest you take spring steel stock instead of mild steel. For blacksmith´s tongs you can forsake the tempering and just do a bit of annealing after forging. Shears and scissors will be tempered and ground before assembly.
I hope I can make a video of Viktor soon!
