[Glenn]

The following is an email rec'd from Hofi. Posting was delayed so minor corrections could be approved.


The letter of Mr. Clark is full of inaccuracies and perceptions. This is one of the reasons I terminated my relationship with him on Sept 11, 2001.

He never new the real relationship with my first teacher in blacksmithing, the late Mr. Fredi Habermann. From the first visit of Fredi to my smithy in Israel we disagreed on many things, but always on the end he came to me and said ''Hofi you are right, you are looking to the future and I am the past”.

Three weeks before his death I called him which I did very often to see what I can do to help him. He was hardly talking and said “Hofi if I’ll be better and healthier I would like to come and finish my life at your forge”. For me it was a very great compliment.

Mr. Clark still does not understand what makes a ‘balanced hammer’ and his explanation is completely twisted. The balance of the hammer is achieved not with the equal mass on both sides of the hammer but as less ‘momentum’ on the peen side. On the Habermann hammer the distance from the handle to the face is 30 mm or 1.181 inches and from the end of the peen to the handle it is 46 mm or 1.811 inches. In my hammer it is 34 mm or 1.338 inches from the face to the handle and 36 mm or 1.417 inches from the end of the peen to the handle.

If one tilts the Habermann hammer more then 35 degrees it will rotate and damage the wrist. In my hammer even if one goes more then 45 degrees it will not rotate and therefore is very much more balanced and most of the forging energy is going into the steel.

Now if we add the type of handle eye that I developed that the mass is not gone or removed, it stays in the middle it makes the hammer more balanced and you can hold the handle better. The glue of the handle with the pu sikaflex 11 fc gives better rebound to the hammer and also absorbing the vibrations from effecting the forging hand. All this makes the Hofi hammer – Hofi hammer. If you look at the hammers photos they will see the difference.

I attach here a photo of a hammer that was forged in my smithy 20 years ago on my 53 birthday. The small 5 pound striking hammer was forged as a present to me by Fredi and was broken on the first use because the hammer was not tempered, but I still keep it because I love it. One can see the dimensions that make it not balance enough.

And final line the ''Habermann hammer'' was developed by Fredi's grand father. No Czech hammer is existing. Every family of blacksmith in the Czech Republic forge with a different hammer. And I know them all.

I am now in the process of designing a new and more balanced hammer, with two different materials and two different specific gravities. This is not simple and will take more time to finish.

Uri Hofi