Fire TongsAuthor: Dave Date: 09.25.11 - 8:35am To round out the series of projects on backyard camp fires (2 splitters, fire pit dolly, and bellows) the last piece of kit that had to be created was a nice set of fire tongs. I looked around a bit and decided to make a gripper type. One important point from the pict below, notice how the lower rod mount will pass the center line of the pivot when the tongs are near closed. This gives you a bit of a cam lock type feature so that holding the log takes less hand strength. Also the plate on the lower arm is nice so that you can have some stability if you are trying to pinch a smaller piece between the two fingers to reposition it. The pull wire is just a piece of clothes hanger adjusted to give the handle the proper position and throw to work the tongs comfortably. Really not much to it. All the main parts were fabricated within about an hour, then i fussed with it a bit to fit everything the way I wanted. All in all about 3hrs labor which isnt bad at all for an initial prototype. Works great! 
Another note. After playing with these some more the other night. The 1/4" or so slop in the top movable arm is not noticable at all. It also turns out that the sharp tooth on the upper finger is probably better left off. It can sink into deeply chared pieces of wood and stick making release difficult. The handle could really use another foot length as well. Comments: (0) |
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