Metal Work

Snake Tongs,
built from a bicycle.

A hands-on exercise in reuse — turning salvaged bicycle parts into a working tool for handling snakes at a safe distance.

Discipline: Product design & fabrication
Brief: Design a product from bicycle spare parts
Methods: Sketching, mockups, gas & arc welding
Location: Bangalore, India

The finished snake tongs and snake hook photographed on an orange snakeskin background

Overview

The brief was deliberately constrained: design a product made entirely from bicycle spare parts. Studying the bicycle component by component, the braking system stood out — a lever, a cable and a caliper already form a mechanism that closes a grip at a distance from the hand operating it.

That mechanism suggested its own application. The result is a pair of snake tongs: a tool that lets a handler grip and relocate a snake without putting a hand anywhere near it.

Exploration

I began by sketching the bicycle to understand its form and materials. Drawing it forced me to notice components I would otherwise have overlooked, and gave me a working inventory of shapes to build from.

Sketch studies of bicycle components alongside three product concepts: snake tong, bar stool and mixer — Sketching the bicycle, then recombining its parts into candidate products — a snake tong, a bar stool, a mixer.

Component diagram mapping cycle brake, cycle rod, hand brake and tire spokes to the head, body and trigger of each tool

Digital mockup of the assembled snake tongs with a 120 centimetre overall length

Scale drawing comparing the tools against a 175 centimetre human figure

Making

With the design settled, the build began with sourcing. I worked through scrap yards across Bangalore to find frames, calipers and levers in usable condition.

Salvaged bicycle frames, wheels, handlebars and brake levers gathered from scrap yards — Salvaged stock — frames, wheels, levers and calipers.

Fabrication

Reversing the brake

A bicycle brake closes onto a rim; a tong needs to close onto a snake. I modified the mechanism so the arms met when the lever was squeezed, gas welded the hand brakes to the caliper bracket to form the clamp, then arc welded the remaining assembly together.

Workshop fabrication: grinding, welding and the finished welded shafts

Detailing

Protecting the cable, improving the grip

The brake cable was routed inside the shaft so it could not be snagged or pulled in use, and salvaged inner tube was wrapped around the handle to give a firm, weather-resistant grip.

Close-ups of the trigger mechanism, internal cable routing and inner tube wrapped grip

Testing

The tools were tested outdoors against dummy snakes. Users unfamiliar with the design were able to capture and relocate between three and six of them within a minute — enough to confirm the mechanism worked under realistic handling.

Takeaways

Constraints are a brief in disguise — limiting the material palette to one bicycle forced sharper decisions than an open brief would have.
Existing mechanisms carry their own ideas; the brake already solved “close a grip from a distance” before I designed anything.
Building the thing surfaced problems no drawing did — cable routing and grip only became design decisions once it was in hand.

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Snake Tongs,built from a bicycle.