Tweezers

Rekusu · Sep 12, 2024

What ho one and all,

I have a straight pair of tweezers that I have had for as long as I can remember, and they are realy nice to use with a 'soft' closing pressure.

To add to my camera repair tool collection, I recently bought a set of tweezers of different shapes and curves. Hardly used them yet, but the closing pressure is almost tiring. Is there as way to ease the closing pressure to make it lighter?

Thanks and toodle pip

koraks · Sep 12, 2024

Rekusu said:
Is there as way to ease the closing pressure to make it lighter?

Wrap an elastic band around the legs. Use as many turns as you need to get to the 'closing pressure' you find comfortable.

Rekusu · Sep 12, 2024

Surely that will just close the tweezers rather than soften the closing pressure. Due to the pressure, they are tiring to use and I don't feel that I have the same dexterity as with a softer closing.

But I will give it a try; thanks for the suggestion

Dan Daniel · Sep 12, 2024

You can try bending the legs in at the middle, but all you are really doing is lessening the opening. All in all seems that tweezer action is design-based, built-in.

Buy another pair and see if it works better?

koraks · Sep 12, 2024

Rekusu said:
Surely that will just close the tweezers rather than soften the closing pressure.

Depends on the elastic bands you use. If they're strong, then yes, they will close the tweezers. If they're weak, they'll just reduce the pressure needed to close them, as intended. So the choice of elastic bands matters, as well as where you place them (closer vs. further away from the tips of the legs).

Dan Daniel said:
You can try bending the legs in at the middle, but all you are really doing is lessening the opening.

Good point, too.

Ballinderry-Michael · Sep 12, 2024

If the tweezers are at all bowed, I'd suggest putting them into a vice, padded on either side and then forcing them shut and leaving for a couple of days. That's assuming they're made of good carbon steel. I have been using watchmaker's tweezers for about 50 years and experienced this problem only a couple of times (but of course my tweezers could be very different from yours).

Rekusu · Sep 12, 2024

Thanks for the thoughts. I will try an elastic band but don't really feel that is the answer. They are not an expensive set, so the chance to 'play' with them before buying was not an option.

Seems to me that the metal needs to be heated to soften it or worked to again soften it.

On the other hand, this is all for a 'hobby' rather than professional use, so may just live with them.

eli griggs · Sep 15, 2024

koraks said:
Wrap an elastic band around the legs. Use as many turns as you need to get to the 'closing pressure' you find comfortable.

Dental brace's small diameter rubber bands are strong and about the correct size, but Harbor Freight sells assortments of "O" rings in at least two boxes, metric and DAE, which should work too, but you might have to super glue one side of the ring to a wing, to keep it stationary in use/storage.

One thing I've seen, learned, is a rubber or synthetic rubber "O" ring cut straight across one side, with flush faces, can be trimmed smaller and rejoined, flush face to flush face with a strong, thin glue and be quite strong, an advantage for non-critical tasks.

IMO

eli griggs · Sep 15, 2024

D

Rekusu said:
Thanks for the thoughts. I will try an elastic band but don't really feel that is the answer. They are not an expensive set, so the chance to 'play' with them before buying was not an option.

Seems to me that the metal needs to be heated to soften it or worked to again soften it.

On the other hand, this is all for a 'hobby' rather than professional use, so may just live with them.

Don't heat them up, but take a polished steel rod/tool, like a tungsten arc welding rod, or tool burnisher and, keeping the tweezers flat on a vice, anvil or other solid surface, simply burnish straight (or bend) each arm into shape.

Cold burnished tweezers ban be finally adjusted, one stroke at a time, as needed, and stay hard.

Heating a tweezer will ruin any temper and if the arms are chemically bound or soldered, the heat might destroy the bond.

IMO

Rekusu · Sep 16, 2024

Thanks.

Cold burnished tweezers ban be finally adjusted, one stroke at a time, as needed, and stay hard.

Not sure I understand; do you mean rubbing back and forth?

BobUK · Sep 16, 2024

It's horses for courses.
I have bought quality and also roughly functional tweezers over the years.
The watchmaking quality Dumont and Favorite have lasted me fifty years with only an occasional light polish to the tips.
The larger unbranded AA size have always needed tweeking, as I buy cheap ones knowing they will eventually be used for rough work.
I have found light filing of the arms on the flats close to the hinge does the trick.
A few strokes with the file on one side followed by the same amount of strokes with the file on the opposite side. Finishing with descending grades of wet and dry abrasive papers.
Quality expensive ones are the best route if you can justify the prices, as they do last a lifetime.

Rekusu · Sep 16, 2024

Certainly they are not expensive tweezers so I may take one of the shapes that i am most unlikely to use and try your filing idea.

MFstooges · Sep 16, 2024

If I understand you correctly to soften it is to reduce the spring stiffness. It is basically a pair of leaf springs so to reduce the spring coefficient you can reduce the tweezer thickness by filing it. Especially near the joint.

BobUK · Sep 16, 2024

Softening the metal is the same as taking the temper out of the steel. If softened the stiffness at the tips will likely be lost, and when an item is tightly gripped in the tips deformation takes place. The fine tips will bend outwards and not return to their almost parallel shape. You will end up with something looking like Donald Ducks beak.

Filing close to the hinge leaves the rigidity of the arms and points intact, just easier to close.

By the way, if a duck is the female of the species and a drake is the male, surely the cartoon character should be called
Donald Drake.

eli griggs · Sep 16, 2024

Yes, when you're burnishing something, in this case, metal, you're pressing down on the metal surface with a harder, very smooth metal or stone, ie. Jade burnishers, shaped semiprecious stones mounted to finished wood handles, with ferrules are used to press down on gold foils and by burnish rubbing, polished and further embedded into the substrate.
Mechanical, Etching Artists, and engineering burnishers because of their strength and highly polished surfaces, can also shape and, in some cases, work harden metals, like Bronzes, Copper Gold and Silver, even Steels.

Think about how the kitchen steel, a burnishing tool, with and without long groves, is used on a knife to remove or reshape the fine edges from used nicks and sharpening.

A small, bent machinist burnisher is inexpensive and easy to use, so I'll suggest you start there.

Art supply stores that sell print making supplies, inks, including metal etching plates should have some of what you'll need and YouTube will have training videos, I'll bet.

Cheers

Rekusu said:
Thanks.

Cold burnished tweezers ban be finally adjusted, one stroke at a time, as needed, and stay hard.

Not sure I understand; do you mean rubbing back and forthse

eli griggs · Sep 17, 2024

BobUK said:
Softening the metal is the same as taking the temper out of the steel. If softened the stiffness at the tips will likely be lost, and when an item is tightly gripped in the tips deformation takes place. The fine tips will bend outwards and not return to their almost parallel shape. You will end up with something looking like Donald Ducks beak.

Filing close to the hinge leaves the rigidity of the arms and points intact, just easier to close.

By the way, if a duck is the female of the species and a drake is the male, surely the cartoon character should be called
Donald Drake.

I seem to remember Donald in drag, more than once.

Rekusu · Sep 17, 2024

Interesting; never thought of tweezers being like leaf springs. I have tried a bit of filling and I do think there is a slight reduction in the required pressure.

Will not try heating as they are black coated and do not intend to 'destroy' the appearance. It is not as if I am using then for hours every day, so for the limited use they will receive, perhaps best to leave as it.

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