Tools for Gripping the Base Metal

Tools to hold a piece of metal motionless, lift it from place to place, or otherwise manipulate it without touching it directly are of great utility in welding, where sheets or chunks of metal are frequently heated until they glow with fierce colors or where other pieces need to be held in positions where the fingers would be placed in close proximity to hazardous processes. In short, it is a necessity to equip yourself with some means of holding metal without touching it – using either vise grips, tongs, or pliers depending on the task.

• Tongs are the largest of the gripping tools, with long handles designed to keep your hands well away from the work, or to let you extend your reach a considerable distance into narrow spaces. Tongs are best used when a piece of metal has become extremely hot and you do not want to risk contact with your body, though there other circumstances where their special qualities come into play.
• Mole grips, sometimes known as clamping pliers or vise grips, are either pliers-like in configuration, or resemble a C-clamp with handles attached. The top handle includes a rotating bolt that juts from the back of the handle, which is twisted to change the space between the jaws of the pliers head.

Fine-tuning the spacing of the jaws allows you to arrange the Mole grips so that they will hold various thicknesses of metal evenly, with as much of the surface pressed as possible. These locking pliers feature a lever which snaps into place past its center point when the handles are squeezed, thus firmly locking the pliers onto whatever they are grasping. A second lever is frequently included to facilitate unlocking.

Mole grips are useful for many tasks in welding, and you should try to acquire a good variety for different jobs. They can be used to hold small objects firmly so that you can grind them, since their grip is steadier than you can provide by squeezing on the handles of ordinary pliers. They can also be employed in place of clamps as hands-off means of securing two pieces together while they are being welded. If the grips seem likely to damage the surface while they are holding it, small shims of aluminum can be inserted between them and surface.

• Ordinary pliers of many kinds, as well as some purpose-built for welding or wire work, are highly useful parts of the welding toolkit. These are distinguished from tongs by their small size, and from Mole grips by the lack of any locking mechanism. You should use pliers for moving heated metal objects from place to place – do not pick up a welder-heated object even with welding gloves on.
• A wire cutter or needlenose pliers set with wire cutters built in (perhaps even a Gerber or Leatherman multitool) is indispensible for any kind of welding because of the frequent need to snip filler metal wire or the filler metal rods used in stick welders. Handling bird’s-nests and other jams in the welding machine’s internet wire feed will also be greatly facilitated by a wire cutter of some kind.

These pliers should be stored somewhere accessible, such as a wall rack near your welding table, and kept regularly cleaned so that they will not contaminate welding surfaces with traces of rust.