What is this lifting ?? tongs for ??

[Gordon Gould]

Found this in the woods. I can see that it is for lifting something like an I-Beam maybe. It looks like it has a specific purpose. It was near a high tension power line ???? Someone knows what it is, Thanks

gg

 

[CalG]

Would work for logs, work for ties, work for rails, work for barrels and kegs,
Heck, you could hang a cow from it's hocks with those.

I've got something similar, made of flat iron, sized for 55 gal, drums.

 

[M59]

Most likely use was logging. Looks like homemade forging/ welding on ring so probably homebrew tool. Most log hauling tools have slight belly ( bowed legged ) so the points dig into lifted pulled log below the centerline of the log.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Most likely use was logging. Looks like homemade forging/ welding on ring so probably homebrew tool. Most log hauling tools have slight belly ( bowed legged ) so the points dig into lifted pulled log below the centerline of the log.

That's the thing. If you spread it wide enough for a log, never mind a barrel, the hook angle seems/is all wrong for it to bite in. And to hang a critter, like Cal suggested, I'd want the hooks going the other way and add a spreader. Most of those guys that could make tools back in the day were no dummies. They knew how to make things that worked to do job at hand. I was just wondering what that job might be.

gg

 

[Jstpssng]

I would lift beams with that all day long. You said that it was near a power lines Perhaps it was used for moving the cross arms around, or for dragging the poles.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

My Ice tongs are about the same size and configuration.

 

[IndyJay]

My Ice tongs are about the same size and configuration.

My vote...

 

[M59]

Here is link to Natural Museum of American History and ice tongs.

Ice tongs

Well into the 1930s, households used large blocks of ice to keep food cold in “ice boxes.” Some households chilled food only seasonally, taking advantage of cold temperatures by keeping perishables in the cellar, on the porch, or in window box refrigerators.

americanhistory.si.edu

How was the single ring, on Gordon Gould's find, lifted unless there was chain and equipment ( not humans) involved?

All credit for pic goes to National Archives

 

[Jstpssng]

Granted there are different styles yet here is my bigger pair of ice tongs… shown holding a bucket for demonstration purposes… the same as in the picture above mine.



Someplace I also have a pair of log tongs, which are shaped similar to the above except instead of handles they simply have a ring to hook a chain into… similar to the picture which the OP posted.

 

[DGZRT]

Those might be homemade tongs but not good for logging. Most log tongs cross so the harder you pull the harder it bites.

You would have to pound the hooked ends into the log but I'm thinking they would still come loose .