Hammer Marks, How To

C

clivehamilton77

Joined
Aug 16, 2012
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Hi All,

I've tried searching the net and the forums before I posted so I'm sorry if I didn't search hard enough.

I was wondering about how to get "attractive" looking hammer marks on my blades. I've just started forging after being a stock removal guy for some time and I'm thinking my 2 lb Swedish hammer is too smooth because I see no hammer marks that look like other knife makers such as Behring Made knives. (Please note that I'm lightyears behind doing anything close to resembling a Behring Made knife)

Do I need to marr up my hammer face or am I just completely wrong about how to go about making and keeping hammer marks.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.
 
Hey man, you should be striving for zero hammer marks! ;)

If you want to get that type of textured effect that bearing made knives has just get an old (or cheap a new one) hammer, either a sledge type or a ball peen (use the flat faceon the ballpeen) and use a cut off wheel on an angle grinder to cut some cross hatch (#) type lines in it at different angles .. there are bunch of ways to add texture, such as using the ball end on the ball peen hammer etc. but thats how you can get that specific style of hammer texture.

Here's a blade made using that style of texter, but I was alot more aggresive with the hammer :D





Hope that helps :)

-Paul
www.youtube.com/Lsubslimed
 
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I use weld spatter to create different patterns on hammer heads which will them transfer to your work.
 
Awesome. Just the advice I was looking for. Thanks Paul/Fred.

Paul- I hear you on the no hammer marks, but a few people would like some very rustic knives. Although I do really like the forged look; I figured learning a new technique won't hurt me.

I'm assuming the deeper you go with cut off wheel the more aggressive the patten would be?

Thanks again you guys.
 
It is called a "hammer finish" and done with a polished face hammer. I like large ball peen hammers to get the rounded divots - 24 -32oz works well. You can re-shape the head to get several types of marks. Sand and polish the ball as a slightly flattened spherical surface. Sand the hammer side to a very much more flattened curved surface.
 
Or you could use an old anvil like I have and you will get marks from the anvil. I have old Fisher that is dated 1905. Its face is nice and flat but the face has a texture to it from years of use and presumably sitting out in a not so leak proof barn.

I think it is interesting that people try for texture these days to imitate "old blacksmithed" pieces. Most of the old timers worked hard to have a smooth machined like finish. They would keep their hammers smooth and file out any forge marks on their work. Now the trend seems to be to create hammers that intentionally leave a marked up surface.

If you want a more natural looking texture take one of your hammers and beat the snot out of it on a cinder block or the concrete. After doing that you can then sand the hammer face to knock off the sharp high spots. This will mar up the finish on the hammer that will result in a much more natural looking forged finish on your work.

Good luck,
Greebe
 
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Thanks Stacy, so if I'm imagining right it would be a smooth faced ball peen large enough for the divots to overlap this creating the texture?

Greebe, I've gotten lucky over the past few weeks and salvaged an old anvil from someone. Brought it by Dan Graves place and he showed me the ball bearing test and apparently it's a really good anvil. I'll upload a picture to see if y'all can tell which kind it is
 
I know a lot of folks will tell you to take a hammer and pound the He!! out of the blade, but cold forging to put dents in steel is bound to make serious dislocations. Some may be repaired in the HT and some may not. It is far better to do any texturing at full red heat ...... 1500-1600F as a minimum. Even well annealed steel should not be heavily worked. You can crack a blade just stamping your mark in it....imagine what a few hundred hard blows could do.

In the same way, pounding on a cinder block or other abrasive material may drive pieces of hard stuff into the steel that will haunt you later.

An excellent tool for texturing is a treadle hammer with a set of texturing dies to make the type mark you want. Both sides can be textured at the same time ( or just one side). Not exactly an amateur device, but really neat to use and not at all hard or expensive to build.
 
Awesome. Thanks for the advice Stacy. You preempted my next question which was going to be about cold forging. I guess if I really wanted hammer marks without forging the entire blade I could stick remove and bring up to red heat to texture then go on how I would usually with completing the knife. I can see how stresses could occur but it would be an interesting experiment
 
Haha, yea I was just messin around with ya an the no hammer marksthing, but it is something to strive for none the less :)

But yes,, the finish is called a hammer finish like Stacy said. I was inspired a while back to figure out how Murray Carter achieved his hammer finishes that he does on his neck knives, they are very similar to the texture behring made knives does. Even though I experimented alot with using 1-welding splatter on a face of a hammer. 2- putting sand and small gravel on top of my anvil then fonging on that. 3- grinding down old ball peens to an angled shape and hammering away with that. 4-using a normally round shaped ball peen to get some divits... I still wasnt getting the texture I was looking for.. So I found a picture of the hammer Murray Carter uses in his book (Bladesmithing with Murray Carter) and made myown version, I was finally satisfied with the texture I was able to get..

Here are a couple pictures of the hammer that I have been using to get the texture of the knife I showed above, but I textured that knife shown abaove at a high forging heat in order to achieve that really marred up surface, as wall as laying the blade on a hardy "tool" I made that had a chunk of steel welded to it with similar cuts made on the surface, because when you go to hamer the other side on a smooth surface like an anvil, it will start smoothing out the texture, and thats not what I wanted.

But in these pics, I show the same hammer, and a piece of scrap steel (1084) that I just hammerd on while it was cold so you can see the type of the texture (not as crazy as the knife above) that you can get using the same hammer.... here they are..

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So all the texturing on that piece of scrap 1084 was done while it was cold, but since I'm not goin to make it into a knife, I agree with Stacy when he says ta texture it at a lower forging heat.. although I know a number of people who do it cold.

So anyway, just mess around with cutting more or less lines on the hammer face, and making them deeper of more shallow etc etc and try doin it at different levels of heat while forging, or try it cold forging, just experiment until you find what you like best :) I will probably make another one to mess around with so have fun with it ..

I Hope that helps ya out man :)

Let me know if you have questions about anything I've shared .. And go check out at Murray Carter's neck knives that he does his hammer finish on :D

-Paul
www.youtube.com/Lsubslimed
 
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Great info Paul. Thanks for being so generous as to take the time to post it. I had a few "blacksmith" hammers from Home Depot that I experimented on with different patterns with an angle grinder. I'll see how it goes.

I'm glad you mentioned Murray Carter. A few years ago I happened upon a YouTube video of him making a knife and a few weeks later at Christmas I received his and Wayne Goddards book.

Thanks again for all the great info. Btw, your YoUTube handle, LSUBSLIMED, do you happen to be an LSU fan or is that something else?
 
Here's texturing hammer used by Tai Goo:

DSCN4225.jpg~original


I did some architectural samples a few years ago using textures.



The tooling to get that? The domed head of a railroad bolt that had been buried in dirt for many years and was wonderfully pitted. I made it into a spring tool for my power hammer.



I also used the spring tool to make a set of texture dies for the hammer. You can roll a hot piece of round bar in them and make it look like it too had been corroding in dirt for years.





Never have done so on a blade, though.
 
Hi Paul,
I really like that textured blackened finish. How did you blacken the blade like that and what steel did you use?
Cheers,
Tim
 
Sam,

I was talking more about after you're done forging to shape if there is a way to put texture in the blade. Sarcasm is hard to get across in a forum I suppose. Lots of good info here. Thanks guys.
 
There should be a natural texture from forging, it shouldn't be something faked. Always reminds me of cheap chinese blades with ball peened fake hammered texture. That's my proffessional opinion from a knifemaker to another. BUT, as a businessman however, people eat that crap up so your mileage may vary. my soul would die a little if I ever did it.
 
I've textured blades with Murray. He used textured dies in his power hammer on cold steel as a final step.

What's surprising is how light and how few strikes he uses. You don't get there without practice.

We were using laminated steel, so that probably didn't affect the inner Hitachi White nearly as much as it would homogenous steel.
 
I think there's a place for it. I have seen some people beat the crap out of a chunk of steel with a ball pein and then grind the blade, and it looks like crap. I think what we're talking about in this thread is a different animal. There's leeway for folks to play with texture on a blade, just like there is on the handle, fittings, and sheath.

That being said, I've never deliberately textured the blade. It might be something I play with down the road, but I haven't yet.
 
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