Wooden Tongs

Charles Mak walks you step-by-step through the making of a batch of sleek tongs

Wooden table fan with curved wooden blades
Table of Contents

I have seen handcrafted wooden kitchen tongs selling for £25 apiece in some gift stores. But wooden tongs are easy and fun to make. They are a great way to get your creative juices flowing, and use up some of your scrap wood. The process begins by determining the design and size of the tongs and choosing the lumber, followed by cutting, assembly and finishing. One challenge of this project is figuring out how to glue the tongs to the fulcrum without the wedge slipping away under clamping pressure. The solution, as you will later see, could not be simpler!

Choosing the wood

Each pair of wooden tongs featured here consists of two components: the tongs and the fulcrum. Select close-grained hardwoods that are straight-grained and knot-free to make the tongs, such as cherry, maple, birch or walnut. For the fulcrums, you can use a lighter or darker hardwood that will present a nice contrast to the tongs.

You are free to design the shape and size of your tongs to suit their purpose. Typical tongs made of wood – for serving salad or spaghetti, or grabbing toast – are 150mm to 350mm long, 30mm wide or so, and no thicker than 5mm, with an opening/mouth falling between 30mm and 75mm. The suggested cutting list (per tong) below is for making tongs with an opening of 30mm to 60mm.

Cutting list

Component list with tongs sizes and quantities.

Make the tongs

Stacked wooden sticks secured with rubber bands.
1. Cut the blanks to size
Wooden plank on a sanding machine in workshop.
2. Sand the blanks smooth to 120x
Person measuring wood piece with caliper tool.
3. Make sure the tongs are not much thicker than 2mm
Hand crafting wooden parts with a metal bracket.
4. Mark out the desired profile on the tips
Wood being sanded on electric disc sander.
5. Sand the radius profile to shape on the belt and disc sander
Person cutting wood with a bandsaw.
6. For the pointed profile, bandsaw out the rough shape before sanding

Making the fulcrums

Organised wooden blocks and planks on table
7. The common angle used on tong wedges is 5° (2.5° on either side). However, I found 7° (3.5° on each side) an angle that gave a more pleasing look on the fulcrum. You can play around with the angle and find your sweet spot. To make the fulcrums, choose a wedge angle and mark out the cut-lines on the blanks
Wooden clamps stacked on cardboard surface.
8. Secure the small fulcrums in the handscrews
Hands guiding wood through a bandsaw machine.
9. Bandsaw the wedges to the lines
Hands carving wood with hand plane tool.
10. Remove the saw marks with a block plane …
Wood being sanded on rotating sanding machine.
11 … or on the disc sander
Hand using woodworking plane on wooden board.
12. Remove any burn marks on the fulcrums

Completing the glue-up

Applying wax on wooden strips for finishing
13. Because of the wedge shape, when you try to clamp the tongs to the fulcrum, the latter will slide away from the end. Here is my foolproof method to assemble the tongs: first, make a bunch of sticks from scraps or gather a supply of wooden tongue depressors, and wax one end to protect from glue
Hand crafting wooden joint on table.
14. Clamp a stick to each tong such that the sticks keep the fulcrum flush with the ends of the tongs
Woodworking clamps securing glued pieces of wood.
15. Apply glue and clamp everything together. Repeat steps 14 and 15 until all the tongs are glued

Refining the tongs

Wood sanding on rotating disc sander machine
16. To make the tongs comfortable to touch and use, shape the tongs as follows: round the ends on the disc sander
Wooden spatulas on black background
17. Sand a light bevel on the tip. Ease all the sharp edges

Finishing the project

Woodworking tools on a workshop table.
18. In the final steps, I signed my work by stamping my initial and a maple leaf mark on the fulcrums
Wood clamps holding multiple wooden pieces together
19. I then applied three coats of boiled linseed oil with light sanding between coats, and, once dried, buffed them to a soft sheen
Snack chips in bowl with wooden tongs
20. Exquisite handmade tongs serve well as salad utensils, tea bag squeezers, chip grabbers, cheezie tongs and more. They are also a statement of taste and style. Make some, give some, and they may be one of the most popular and functional gifts ever received among your family, neighbours and friends in the coming holiday season!

Further reading

Turning a Lidded Bowl and Chopsticks

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