Toaster Tongs

Ever the instigator, the girlfriend suggested i make some wooden toaster tongs, so we'd stop fishing our bread out with metal knives. I replied that such practice is completely safe as long as the knife handle is electrically insulated, e.g. with plastic, but took her point. We searched the Internet for tong ideas and came up with this design after some experimentation.

Let's build it!

1. Gather the ingredients. You only need three small pieces of wood for this thing and an optional strong magnet. I assume here that you want the magnet. If not, just skip the magnet steps below.

   I used shop offcuts of tawhai (?) for the arms and sapele for a contrasting wedge and ordered 10 mm diameter neodymium magnets from AliExpress.

2. Cut the blanks. Saw the tong arms to about 6 mm thickness, then flatten and thin them to about 3 mm using a work-holding trick i learned from the Internet: put masking tape on one side of the arms followed by double-sided tape followed by a bigger block of wood. Then flip the whole thing over and plane the arms in a vise or against a planing stop.

   

   These two arms are actually for a different pair of tongs

   The tapes hold the arms tight for planing, yet the masking tape peels off easily enough afterwards. You can even re-use the setup for several pairs of arms. Ingenious!

   Now saw and plane the wedge.

   

3. Glue. Glue the arms to the wedge with wood glue and clamp in place for an hour, then remove the clamp, and let the glue set completeley.

   

4. Shape, smooth, and drill. For a touch of class, round the handle with a rasp and sandpaper, then smooth every surface with sandpaper.

   Drill a circular recess for the magnet of diameter slightly smaller than the magnet's and of thickness (depth) slightly greater than the magnet's. A Forstner bit works well here. I drilled a 3/8" (~9.5 mm) diameter recess for my 10 mm magnet. If you can't undersize the recess diameter, then drill it exactly and to the exact thickness of the magnet.

   

5. Attach the magnet. If you undersized the recess, then gently tap in the magnet with a woodblock and hammer until it sits flush with the wedge face. The press fit will hold perfectly. If you didn't undersize the recess, then superglue the magnet in.

   

   I already oiled the tongs in this photo

6. Finish. Oil the tongs with something food-safe, e.g. linseed oil or tung oil, let dry for a few hours, then coat with paste wax and buff.

   

That's it. These doodads work great, and the neodymium magnet holds them fast to a ferromagnetic toaster or common fridge. The girlfriend is pleased.

On the fridge

I also made some rimu and sapele versions, which i sold to my workmates. Part of the proceeds will go to Forest & Bird to protect NZ's wild places. Woodwork for the Earth!