The Iron Claws on the Butcher Block: What That Scissor Tool Is, and Why Every Farm Had One

The Iron Claws on the Butcher Block: What That Scissor Tool Is, and Why Every Farm Had One

The tool in your photo is not a torture device, a farrier's tool, or a weird pair of pliers. It is a pair of ice tongs — also sold for a century as log tongs, timber lifting tongs, or skidding tongs. The one you have is a forged steel 16-inch pattern, probably made between 1900 and 1940, stamped "160" for the size.

It looks brutal because it was designed to do one brutal job perfectly: grip something heavy, round, and slippery that human hands cannot hold, and never let go until you decide.

1. How to read the tool

Look at the photo:

Two curved arms cross at a single rivet, like giant scissors

The jaws end in sharp, inward-turned points, not flat pads

The handles are short and looped, made to be squeezed, not spread

The steel is black, hand-forged, with a hammered rivet head

That geometry tells you the physics: the heavier the load, the tighter the grip. When you lift, the weight pulls the arms down, the pivot closes the jaws, and the points dig in. It is self-energizing. You do not need strength to hold it — gravity does the work.

There are three nearly identical versions, and collectors still argue which yours is:

Ice tongs (most likely): Used from the 1870s to 1950s to carry 100 to 300-pound blocks of clear lake ice from ice houses to iceboxes. The points bit into the ice just enough to lift, without shattering it. Yours has the classic 12- to 16-inch spread and blunt tips — ice men dulled the points slightly so they would not split the block.

Log tongs: Same shape, but heavier steel and sharper points. Loggers used them in pairs with a chain to skid logs behind horses, or to lift a log onto a sawmill carriage. If yours says "160" that is a logging size code — No. 160 meant a 16-inch opening, rated for about 500 pounds.

Hay bale or railroad tie tongs: A later farm adaptation. The design never changed because it did not need to.

2. Why it was everywhere

Before refrigeration, ice was the third-largest American industry after steel and timber. In January, crews cut blocks on frozen lakes in Maine, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, stored them in sawdust-insulated ice houses, and delivered them by wagon all summer. Every delivery man carried a pair exactly like this on his shoulder.

Before chainsaws and hydraulics, logging was the same. A team of two men could not lift a wet oak log. One man with tongs and a horse could. The tool turned one person's grip into a mechanical vise.

Your tongs sit on an end-grain butcher block, which is fitting — butchers also used them to hang beef quarters in coolers.

By the 1920s, companies like Armstrong, Diamond, and Peck, Stow & Wilcox mass-produced them for $1.25 a pair in the Sears catalog. Blacksmiths also forged them locally, which is why yours has that uneven, hand-hammered look and no brand name, just a size number.

3. Why it disappeared, and why it is back

Three inventions killed the ice and log tong:

Electric refrigerators (Frigidaire, 1918, mass market by 1935)

Chain hoists and hydraulic grapples (1940s logging)

OSHA — sharp-point lifting tools are now banned on most commercial job sites

For 40 years they rusted in barns.

Now they are back for three reasons:

Decor: The industrial farmhouse trend turned them into wall hooks, towel holders, and fireplace log carriers. A clean pair sells for $45-90 on Etsy. A blacksmith-forged pair like yours, with patina, sells for $120-180.

Bushcraft and homesteading: People heating with wood again use log tongs because they are safer than wrapping a chain around a rolling log. You can lift a 16-inch round without bending over.

Blacksmith revival: Modern smiths copy the design exactly because it teaches the fundamentals — drawing out, bending, punching, and riveting. It is a first-year project in many schools.

4. How to use it safely (and how not to)

If you want to use it, not hang it:

Test the rivet. If it wobbles, do not lift. Heat and re-peen it, or replace with a Grade 8 bolt.

Sharpen the points only if you are moving wood. For ice or decorative use, keep them blunt.

Always lift vertically. The jaws are designed for a straight pull. Side loading will open them.

Never put your hand inside the jaws. Old-timers lost fingers when a block slipped.

Do not use it as a farrier's hoof tester, a blacksmith's pickup tongs, or a meat claw — the geometry is wrong and you will spring the arms.

To clean yours: wire brush, wipe with boiled linseed oil, leave the black patina. Do not grind it shiny — collectors value the forge scale.

5. The bigger story

That simple scissor is an example of American vernacular design. No engineer patented it — it evolved in ice houses and logging camps because it solved a problem with the least metal possible. It is pure leverage, no springs, no locks, no failure point except the rivet.

It also marks a transition. Your grandparents' generation was the last to touch their food, fuel, and water directly. They carried ice with tongs, they skidded logs with tongs, they hung meat with tongs. When you hold it, you are holding the tool that kept milk cold before the grid, and built houses before diesel.

That is why people post photos of it in Facebook groups with "what is this?" — because it looks medieval, but it was in every delivery truck in 1925.

Bottom line

Your tool is a 16-inch ice/log lifting tong, hand-forged early 20th century, made to grip heavy round objects by using their own weight.

It is not rare, but it is authentic. Keep it oiled, hang it by the handles, and if you ever need to move a 200-pound block of ice for an old-fashioned fish fry, or drag a log to the splitter without wrecking your back, squeeze the handles, let the points bite, and lift.

It will not let go until you do — which is exactly why it lasted 100 years on workbenches, and why it still works today.

The Iron Claws on the Butcher Block: What That Scissor Tool Is, and Why Every Farm Had One