Metal tweezers are a fairly common tool. It is especially necessary when repairing something small, for example, when soldering microcircuits, or repairing mechanical watches. They are very convenient for gripping small screws and other small parts. You can buy good metal tweezers at the store. Well, or as a last resort, borrow it from your wife or daughter’s makeup bag. But you shouldn’t spend money in the store or “rob” your loved ones, because making such tweezers takes two dozen minutes. Of course, such a thing is not very expensive, about two or three hundred rubles, but a penny, as you know, saves a ruble - the simplest metal blade costs 15 rubles. The difference is obvious!
Will need
- Metal cloth.
- Ruler.
- A simple pencil.
- Soldering iron (preferably gas), tin and flux.
- Bor machine and sharpening stones for it.
- Pliers (preferably 2 pairs).
Making metal tweezers
First you need to decide on the length of the future tweezers. The best option, in my opinion, is 100 mm for metal of this thickness. I took 110 mm, with a margin.So, using a ruler and a simple pencil, measure 11 cm from each end of the canvas. We install a cutting disc on the machine drill and cut off the measured parts.
The result was two identical blanks, with holes at the end.
Now you need to strip the ends with holes from the factory protective coating for further tinning. You can use sandpaper, a file, or the same bur machine.
We coat the cleaned areas with flux and tin them using a soldering iron and tin. Like this:
Next, we place the blanks in tinned places next to each other, fix them with pliers, and heat them with a soldering iron. It should be heated until excess molten tin appears between the workpieces.
As soon as excess tin appears at the edges, immediately remove the workpiece from the soldering iron and immediately squeeze this place with a second pair of pliers. After a couple of seconds, the tin will firmly hold both pieces together. Then everything is simple: draw on one side any shape you need for the future tweezers, and cut out the bur with a machine with a cutting disc, following the drawn contours of the tweezers.
You can choose a very different shape - a regular straight line, or like mine, with a squiggle at the end. Now, using a grinding disc, sharpen the tip of the tweezers. At the same time, we remove hangnails from all over the tweezers.
Well, that's almost all. It remains to slightly separate the ends of the tweezers. To do this, take the soldered part with pliers (stronger!), and heat the place slightly above the solder joint. As soon as the metal begins to turn red, bend the end of the tweezers to the side with the second pliers, 8-10 mm. After cooling, repeat the procedure on the second side.
Heating when working with such metal is necessary - this metal is well-hardened when the blade is made at the factory, and if you try to bend it without heating, it will simply burst. That's all. The tweezers are ready.
You can also wipe it with solvent and then with oil to protect it from corrosion.
