What do you all use to hold your hot work? I like to leave my steel bar long and just hold the end until I have to cut it to length. Then I have been using a pair of vise grips, but I had my work go flying past my head twice today, so I'm thinking it's time for a change. If I can make the tongs, I will, because I'm a cheapskate, but I also hate making tongs. Any thoughts?

Josh Blount

Josh, I got most of mine at a flea market cheap.

You can also make your own, there is a tutorial on anvil fire.com, under the how-to heading.

for blade finish work take a regurlar set of flat jaw tongs and weld on a piece of flat bar across one jaw and bend the ends up to make a blade holder. Blade doesn't go flying across shop as easily.

As for holding on the end of a long bar, when I don't have a long enough bar, I weld a piece of rebar to the end. I't much easer to have a long bar than to try rough forging with tonges.