Show off your hammers!

Joined
Apr 16, 2013
Messages
52
We all have our favorites, and varied other ones we use regularly.

This is my most used hammer, an old doghead I snagged on eBay.

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It has a pretty flat face, and I use it for bevels and straightening usually.

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Next one is a hammer from Nathan Robertson, a 4# two face English pattern.

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I use this one primarily for big operations like hammering in the bevels for the first pass, and upsetting handles and tangs with the flat face. Shoring up the ricasso, etc.

Next one is a big ball peen.

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I use this one for choils and tight spots that need a rounding face. It's useful for those things, but I don't use it for much else.

Next one is a Japanese pattern variant from Nathan as well, a 3# one.

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I use this one primarily for forging in plunges, and setting tang shoulders.

My most used hammer for general operations is my Peddinghaus Swedish pattern.

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It's a French made one, and the faces came extremely rough. I believe historically that's a common thing, with hammer makers figuring the end user knows what and how they'll want their hammers faced. I dressed the face and the peen how I like them.

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I've found that I use this one more than any of the others lately. I use them all in every blade, but some get used more than others.

Are you a one hammer forger, or do you have a bunch of them? Let's see what you've got!
 
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This is my favorite hammer. It's a 3.5 lbs Brian Brazel style rounding hammer. I struck and a member of the international young smiths directed. He was 16 at the time.


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This is a very cool thread !
I have nothing interesting or intelligent to add.
I can say I have hammered some hot iron (well steel anyway) but never correctly or well. I did it enough to learn to hammer with my left as well as right arm. Do you guys switch arms ?
I don't know enough to know if that is how it is done or if a real dude just keeps on with his dominate arm only.
. . . oh . . . and I learned it is a lot of work.

Thanks for starting it.
 
This is a very cool thread !
I have nothing interesting or intelligent to add.
I can say I have hammered some hot iron (well steel anyway) but never correctly or well. I did it enough to learn to hammer with my left as well as right arm. Do you guys switch arms ?
I don't know enough to know if that is how it is done or if a real dude just keeps on with his dominate arm only.
. . . oh . . . and I learned it is a lot of work.

Thanks for starting it.

It is DEFINITELY a lot of hard work, and there are lots and lots of dudes and dudettes that are way better than me at it.

Personally I just use my dominant arm, and have learned to use my other hand and the tongs to manipulate the position of the work into a convenient position to whack it.

It's a lot of fun for me, much more so when it isn't blazing hot with ridiculous humidity outside.
 
Man... those hammers don't even look like they've been touched. Get to swinging!

I have a hammer fetish... 40+ and counting. Mostly made or modified by me. Here are my main go to hammers at the moment.



From top to bottom...

2.75 lb Double Diagonal Peen
1.5 lb Ball Peen
2.5 lb Ball Peen
4 lb Modified Rounding Hammer(by Andrew Mcrain)
2.5 Modified Rounding Hammer
3.3 lb French Pattern
2.2 lb French Pattern

I can do just about anything with those French Pattern hammers. They were what I learned on. That said, the Rounding Hammers are growing on me.

Hammer on, brother!
 
Hey Don... you done with that little green one, yet? I was thinking about converting it into a sewing machine.:p
 
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