As somebody who often underestimates how hot food will be when taking it out of the grill/pan/wok/oven, I tend to burn my fingers pretty frequently. My fiancée grew tired of having to play doctor every time she wants a home cooked meal so she bought me a pair of tongs that I’ve promised to try to remember to use.
We’ve been eating home more in the past few weeks so unfortunately these tongs are usually in the dishwasher when I need them, after a not so fun experience grabbing a hot pork bone out of the pan she suggested I make myself another pair to keep in rotation.
I started by drawing half of the tongs as a flat file. While creating this file I tried to keep in mind the bends needed and how I could accomplish them. To make it easier to line up the bends I placed small divots at the far ends of where the bends would be.
Then I mirrored the shape to create the other half, and positioned it so that the halves were nested close to use the least amount of material.
I was excited to get to work once they finished cutting and forgot to take pictures before the bends. This ended up being a bad move because the bending did not go as intended, I really need to get better with my box and pan skills! Check out the finished V1 tongs below.
For my next pair of tongs I’m going to make some tweaks to the overall size and better plan out my bends, I also want to add a spring to keep them open. One design feature that I hadn’t considered was that one half should be slightly wider so that the other can fit inside of it but this should be a quick modification to the file.
They may not be pretty but these tongs will help to save my fingers!
