stainless spring steel.

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I ned to make some long tongs for barbeque, the ones in the store are not long enough, I see the stainless ones in the store. How do they get the stainless like spring steel? Can you order such things? thanks. I know its not a welding question particularly.
Reply:stainless work hardens better than carbon steel .  Likely the stainless is cold worked in manufacture.
Reply:Any steel is going to give you the 'spring' feel after it's been bent and worked, and like lotech says, stainless even a little more so. I can't see bbq material being too high tech. Stainless is a little more than just difficult to work with for us average DIY guys tho. By the time you pay for a piece of stainless plate or rod, toast a few bucks cutting and spent a few hours bending it you'll probably wished you'd looked a little harder for what you wanted and just bought it. Hey, but it's always fun doing your own thing too. Get something heavy duty and close to what you want and piece it out with some hardwood handle inserts. Buy extra bits if you haven't drilled stainless before. Have fun.
Reply:stainless is a b****h to drill thats for sure, I do want to do it myself, thats part of the fun/challenge. I have quite a bit of stainless that I got for free. I could also use mild for the springy part and stainless for the other. thanks for the feed back. They don't make one long enough for me, my grill is 38" across, its is the bottom of an old water boiler. My grill part swings around on a pole which works ok with the small tongs, but for workin over the heat they have to be 36" or so.
Reply:My grill part swings around on a pole which works ok with the small tongs, but for workin over the heat they have to be 36" or so.
Reply:The reason you are reaching so far across the grill for those ribs is I took a few while you were not looking.  Damn they were good!  :'))
Reply:get a piece of small diameter stainless tubing, like 1/2 inch or so about 36 to 40 inch long, then take a pair of stainless kitchen tongs and cut the jaws off the end: now bend the tubing into a pistol grip at the end and drill a hole for the rod to exit and when done you will bend a triggerpull ring here out of the rod end. split the tube, then bend and drill a hinge on the other end of the tube. weld one jaw fast and hinge the other jaw, use a stainless rod fed thru the tube to activate the jaw. just like one of those reachie-  grabbie things they show on TV. ( I used one to grab the cat by the neck so she doesnt bite me - quite so much) if you ever see one in the flesh - its so simple its funny. easy to make with some simple parts and tools but takes patience and some planning to make sure it all works out. now when you see one for $35 at the hotshot kitchen store you know why - cause it takes 4 hours with tools to make the darn thing. you can place the grill stuff, pick it up and turn, hold things n the fire, and lots of other operations with this, and nobody else will ever have one just like it.
Reply:Get some annealed stainless wire, give it a few turns around something of the appropriate diameter, heat it up and then quench it.  Following that, you can (maybe) temper it in an oven.  Find the material properties and the hardening characteristics of the materials that you're working with.  This info can be found on the web, most likely.  The wire should be cheap enough that you could do it a few times until you got it right.  Hardening steel really isn't all that difficult.  It's just a question of how much precision one wants.-Heath
Reply:What grade S/S do you have there? Most likely it is 304, which is a softer S/S. Try finding some 316 S/S which is "Austentic" stainless. It is more acid resistant and harder. Drilling S/S is hard if it's not done right. You need to turn your bit "SLOWER" and push it harder. Also use a lube, such as "Anchorlube" (a green golored fairly thick material). This will make a big difference in your drilling, and tapping too. It's much better if you drill on a drill press than with a hand held power drill. There is a also change in grinding the angle of the cutting edge of the drill bits used for S/S but I can't recall that data at the moment. I am pretty sure that it is a shallower angle, making the bit more like a bulldozer than a chisel.Hope this helps. (If so, I want one of those steaks too)Tony, out in Hawaii
Reply:thanks for the continuing input
Reply:If you heat up 304 stainless, then quench it in water, it gets annealed, and becomes softer, not harder. Only a few stainless alloys, most commonly 440, are actually heat treatable to get harder. Most cannot be heat treated. They may work harden, but heat does nada.In fact, to drill stainless, it sometimes helps to anneal it, by heating it with a torch right where you want to drill it, then quench with water- this will make it softer and easier to drill.
Reply:i am a little confused with the heat treat, if it is not heat treated to make it harder, how do you make it softer by anealing it, I thought anealing meant to take the heat treat out of the steel?
Reply:most stainless steel you will run into is 304. There are a good 50 or so other alloys of stainless, and some of them can be heat treated. But 90% of the stainless out there is 304. And 304 is only made harder by work hardening. So when they make 304 round bar, or flat bar, they run it thru rolls to make it the right size and shape, and that rolling work hardens it. So most 304 sections come work hardened when you buy it. You can anneal it to get it softer. This can be handy if you need to bend it, or drill it.But even annealled, 304 will work fine as a spring for a pair of tongs- you just need the right size and shape stainless, and it should work fine.
Reply:thanks  reis,for the info, stainless has always intrigued me. ALways glad to find out more about it.