It is forged from 4140 steel. It will have a walnut handle when finished. About 5 hours total labor. I was inspired by a gentleman's hammer I saw in a old tool makers pattern book. I think I am gettting file happy lately. It weighs slightly less than one lb.

love it!

Nice. I bought a piece of 1-1/4 4140 today to make a few double face hammers for chasing.

Nice! You could do much worse than get file-happy.

I have an old hammer with some filework on it that I believe is a 'patternmaker's' style hammer. I should take a pic.

Tools as art - wonderfully done! We should all take the time to "pretty up" our tools.

So you are now a fileophile!!? Looks pretty good... it will be hard to reconcile it to practical use though. I guess you could say that in the making of it you had a lot of fun and that is pretty good usefulness in itself.

O.K. Tim.....raising the bar.... again ?, thats a nice piece of work, I guess the rest of us better get started .....

That's a beauty! Does the gentleman have his pinky raised in using it?

VERY NICE

Instead of walnut you can sometimes find rippled grain hickory hammer handles from a root swell or crotch. Make a fine handle and when stained and finished like you would do a rifle stock quite pretty---but still has the toughness of hickory for *use*!

Very nice work. It has artistic elements reminiscent of some of Brent Bailey's stuff -- which I mean as a high compliment.

Well done! Reminds me of some of the truly fine of chasing hammers I have seen. Once again well done.

Love it! The file-work is GREAT!!!!!!!!

Walnut would make a nice handle. We just cut down two today, and they just have absolutely gorgeous grain patterns.

Thats a beauty!

Thanks guys It means a lot. Lately your postive feedback has pushed me to make a few peices where the goal was to see what I was capable of. I have a few more ideas. I view these more as art than tools even though they are fully functional.

Thats beautiful! Do we get to see the temper colors?

I finished it hardened, tempered and handled. Its a nice little hammer to use. I did some experimental chisel work with it today. I want to teach my self to chisel engrave and carve metal. I used jax steel darkner for the patina. Walnut was not the best choice for the handle but I made it work.

Looks great. I don't see how you can fail at engraving with a hammer that pretty.

I've used walnut for a couple of hammer handles. It seems do OK for lighter work, like driving gravers, but I broke one when I got into some forging with it.

Made with visible pride and justifiably so. Well done!

That's beautiful. I just may have to do something similar when I reach a high enough skill level.

Push yourself you will be surprised what you can do when you try.

timothy - what a beautiful hammer! respect am Really liking your attention to detail on the hammer and the dividers - there is no reason on gods earth why the appearance of tools should be neglected, esspecially when someone has the skill and patience to make them look like this it always makes me happy when i find something that someone has decorated just for the hell of it and the joy of it, it shows the pleasure the maker has taken. like i said - respect - thats a quality item :)

It looks too Pretty to get dirty...put it on the desk and let others oogle over it like we are...congrats