Help! My 1y/o kid just shoved a salad tongs into a carboy, backwards.

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I think it's over dude. Veni, Vici, Postus-Ad-Nauseum, Benti (he came, he saw, we posted, then he bent the suckers)

....but wait---Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
 
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Based on those pictures of the silicon prongs, I'd say the difficulty level just went to 11, given that they probably cannot fit through the mouth of the carboy now.
 
Electrician's bit. Long and small. Drill hole through the end of each of the silicone tips. Thread string through both holes and back out, using extra long hemostats. From watching MASH years ago, I know there are hemostats lying all over the place. Just ask Radar. Pull thread and it will raise the tips, pull them together, with enough pull it should straighten out the bent tip on the way.

Or you'll drill a hole in the side of the thing during step 1. Then you can use @Homercidal duct tape.
 
Personally for the ease of it, I liked the hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic) idea someone else proposed. Even a dilute (easy to manage) solution and time would dissolve everything except the silicone and those parts would be easier to remove as separate entities. This would happen even faster if placed in a warm location. Reaction products, aluminum chloride and weak HCl solution would be non staining and easy to rinse out but best of all non toxic and no chance of scratching or staining your carboy. Cheaply available as concrete cleaner in any hardware store.

Also more complicated but more fun would be to get a conductor hooked on the metal beam, fill carboy with salt water, slip in a cathode, hook up to a low voltage power supply and watch your metal parts dissolve.
 
Bilsch said:
Personally for the ease of it, I liked the hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic) idea someone else proposed. Even a dilute (easy to manage) solution and time would dissolve the PET plastic carboy.
Click to expand...

FTFY. More proof that glass>plastic. You can use HCL to clean out pesky stains like salad tongs.
 
Has anyone suggested using two super magnets to push the tongs together. Seems sound to me.

Or you could hire a magician, they are able to get items to pass through solid objects...I've seen it before!
 
I'm really enjoying the serial killer responses.

"Just dissolve with this acid you can buy at the hard ware store. Nothing survives this acid... trust me."
 
Maybe the one I referenced was incorrect.. but PET and polycarbonate have an A rating on the plastics chemical compatibility chart with HCL meaning no attack.
 
If it can raise a boat..

!!!donald duck solution.jpg
 
Centrifugal force...... build a counterweighted wheel to hold the carboy. Attach a motor and spin it. Make sure the force is closing the tongs. It should slip right out, you may need to borrow a 3-phase 480V motor, but they should come out.
 
i cant believe it. i think this is the most popular thread in the history of this site.

now my idea is to use a bigger hammer. that will get it out for sure
 
watermelon83 said:
Centrifugal force...... build a counterweighted wheel to hold the carboy. Attach a motor and spin it. Make sure the force is closing the tongs. It should slip right out, you may need to borrow a 3-phase 480V motor, but they should come out.
Click to expand...

Lol, I so want this to happen and be on video.
 
Tie a noose or a self tightening loop knot in a rope. Lower it down into the jug, and wrangle it to try to get both ends of the tongs inside the loop then slowly pull to try and get the loop to tighten and the tongs to close so you can pull them up and grab them with needle nosed pliers.

Edit: looks like you've tried something similar and it didn't work. I've got nothing else!
 
Option 1! Dump the water out. Take it down to the local bar. Give people a try at removing them without damaging the carboy for $0.50 a try. You'll laugh as much as we are and you'll make enough money for a new carboy and possibly a beer!

Option 2! I'd keep it! That is one hell of a conversation piece, beer art, puzzle, etc.!
 
I believe Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize winning physicist from Denmark had this exact same problem, including the bent tong. As you may recall, he was a big drinker, home brewer, and father of curious kids. Anyhow, he developed numerous theories on the proper removal technique. One of his ideas set the scientific world abuzz for months when he discovered the weakest link in the entrapped salad grabber. Bohr's plan was to focus a laser on the location where the spring attaches to one arm, thereby reducing the 2-armed monster to two benign single and separate arms. He would then fish them out one at a time, unbending the bent one in the process.

Sadly, he died before he perfected the technique, and could never win another Nobel Prize for it.

TL;DR: have you tried a laser?
 
Coat hanger, mostly straightened out, but bent into a three-quarter-circle a little wider than the base of the tongs at the end, and also bent at a right angle to the main length of the coat hanger – it should look a little like a letter C branding iron, only with the long bit attached to one end of the C, rather than the middle.

Wrap the end of the coat hanger in duct tape, so you don't scratch up your carboy. Come on, coat hanger haters, that wasn't so tough, was it??!

Fish the bottom of the tongs and work them up and closed (as many others have suggested) – maybe you won't get 'em all the way out, but you should be able to get them far enough to snag one or both silicone bits with needle nose pliers (or maybe your kid's skinny little trouble-makin' fingers?), and bob's your uncle.
 
You might have been able to loop a wire saw around the axle pin in the tongs. They sell them at outdoor stores.

You might have have taken a bimetal jigsaw blade, jambed it into the end of a wood rod, and tried to cut through the axle pin. With that pin busted, you could probably shake the two halves apart, and they would have fallen right out of there. Maybe not now though :).

51-6NzWiDZL._SL1000_.jpg
 
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Vegas have a under/over on this yet?
Just get high flocing tongs next time. A little gelatin and they'll fall right out
 
Given what weekend it is, I'd say a quarter stick should do the trick, maybe with some extra flammables in there, just to gild the lily.

But double check your supervision first.
 
Thank god no one is left around here at work. They would all think I've gone bat **** crazy with how hard I've been laughing reading through this thread.

EPIC!
 

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