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I Forge Iron

Forging Hammers?


JMcCormick

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How do I get the hole in the center of a hammer head for the handle? I am tring to forge a warhammer and I can not for the life of me figure out how Im going to make the hole for the handle..... Did I mess up by starting with a soild piece of barstock? Any help is very much appreciated!

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Slit and drift. I am going to say something next that may xxxx you off but that is not the intent.

I think you may be starting out a little above your skill set if you don't know this much. You will need to make a slit punch and a drift of the appropriate sizes before you can make the hole. Go to the tool forum and search slit punch and this will get you started. There are many way to do this and until you have mastered some basics making this hammer may be beyond you.

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Have you checked this site for slitting and drifting..in particular look for entries by Brian brazeal. And keep in mind that this is not a starting point in learning to forge,,,,,,Basic forging skills are a starting point there is a lot of info here for that also! I know this is not the answer you were looking for,,but seems foollish for me to type wot has already been done byb folks better at it thans I....

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On 6/18/2012 at 9:27 PM, MOblacksmith0530 said:

Slit and drift. I am going to say something next that may piss you off but that is not the intent.

I think you may be starting out a little above your skill set if you don't know this much. You will need to make a slit punch and a drift of the appropriate sizes before you can make the hole. Go to the tool forum and search slit punch and this will get you started. There are many way to do this and until you have mastered some basics making this hammer may be beyond you.


You did not xxxx me off at all. On the contrary I would like to thank you for the advice. I am trying to learn this on my own and I need someone to tell me when I am going beyone my skill set. So again thank you for letting me know that this is a very advanced process. I think I will set the warhammer aside for now and start tapering bars and making snakes and such untill I progress more. Thank you again, and I will check out that slit punch in the tool forum.

 

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You say you have been trying to figure this out on your own. Life is to short to try to recreate 6000 years of human advancement by yourself. That is what instructors, friends (and co-conspirators!) are for. Reading about something is good, but will only get you so far.

Come to the NC-ABANA quarterly meeting this Saturday June 23rd at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds in Winston-Salem. Just be prepared to drink from the firehose of knowledge. You will find 200+ years of collective experience at any random blacksmiths meeting.

http://www.ibiblio.org/nc-abana/

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Yah, none of use will live long enough to make all over again the mistakes our forebearers did. Mush faster to lean from them and go on to make new and improved mistakes!

The big problem with slitting and drifting is to keep the eye centered, working from both sides helps as does keeping the area evenly heated---of course you can correct slight errors by heating one side more than the other so the drift will tend to drift that way...

Or the *easiest* method: go buy a battered old hammerhead for a buck at a fleamarket and forge that into your design with the hard part already done and the alloy being suitable for hammers from the git go.

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Just have a go, .....do you have some car spring or tool steel? And look here and further ...



http://assets.calsmith.org/cba-cdn/406/baileycrosspein_original.pdf

YouTube will have some vids as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt23ZlEn2wU&feature=plcp

And one other thing.......give it a go!

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And, if all else fails, I'm sure you could talk Brian Brazeal or mysself, or others for that matter into instructing you very thouroughly on the subject by waving a modest stack of dollar bills under our noses. :D Personally, I don't find hammer making all that advanced of a matter, but you do need the right tooling and the knowledge of where to put said tooling. After you have that covered, the things almost make themselves.

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The very first thing that I start people on is a hot cut hardy and a hammer. I wish I would have had that opportunity when I started. I am mainly self taught, also. I have spent alot of hours banging at steel with no real good clues of how to do things better. If I had some information back then, I'd be alot further now. I try and encourage people to come by and forge or watch. I am usually here in the shop working unless I'm gone on the road working. I don't charge anything for visiting my shop and if I have time I'll make time to show anything you may have questions about. Now, if you want my day, I charge for that.

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