Let the HAMMER do the work (?)

[SReynolds]

Had a student in the class that read in a popular smithing book to "let the hammer do the work" so, thusly, he wouldn't swing it. Just pick it up and drop it. Needlessly to say ,,,,, couldn't make anything. What forging was performed say ,60/70% was myself. There were three books he had and in one of them he had read that.  The real challenge was driving  stock against end of horn to flare.  You can't drop it sideways so.........

So please help me help my students.  If the book sells and folk read it ......how do you guys forge by dropping said hammer?  

I told him many times I do a task in one heat and had to show him how I do that. I also gave him a six pound but he didnt like that. I was hoping he could drop that awhile and get more done...........

[ThomasPowers]

Hard to deal with a student whose a "one book wonder" or has a popular culture idée fixe.  Some I have had to tell them that if they are working at my forge with my equipment they need to follow my rules and they can do whatever they want when they are on their own.  (Had one fellow whose hammer control was worse than atrocious; I finally asked if he was using his dominate hammer and he told me that he wanted to learn to hammer with his off hand---damaging MY equipment as he did it!---I told him he was free to damage his own anvil's face and hammer learning to hammer off handed but when he was using mine he had to use his dominate hand, (which he barely had any control over either).  He had read a book advising to learn how to hammer with either hand...)

[Mark Ling]

I'm surprised that after the first heat or so, that he didn't realize that his technique wasn't working and changed it. Unless your planishing, just simply dropping the hammer isn't going to work.

                                                                                                       Littleblacksmith

[SReynolds]

He did a better job in the welding class but that was a month ago and since has read up on the subject.

He had a good question about fullering and I could not offer up a satisfactory answer.  But when I saw him refuse to perform the "near corner" fuller method and implied the "far corner" method is easier and the same, I discovered the leaf stem won't form correctly and is clearly distorted. So he actually helped me realize the why and not simply "cuz that is how I was taugh"

I had a side view of the stem (steel stock) taking shape under the blows of the hammer. 

[rockstar.esq]

I once took the brother of a friend out to a range to teach him how to shoot a rifle.  He'd spent a lot of time playing video games and resisted my every effort to teach him proper form.  After many shots, the target had yet to be hit.

Eventually I persuaded him to just try a few shots from a proper position and we finally got a couple hits on the target.

While we were packing up I noticed him putting on a pair of prescription eyeglasses!

I tried to politely point out that the safety glasses I'd lent him were made to fit over prescription glasses.  He said "Yeah, I knew that, but I didn't want to look funny".

Turns out he is severely near sighted!  It must not have occurred to him that his marksmanship was far more embarrassing than his appearance.  To this day, I'm thankful that I was at his side the entire time to ensure everyone's safety. 

 

[Kozzy]

The hammer does do the work....you provide energy to the hammer on both the upswing AND downswing to accomplish that work.  The difference is, your energy application to the system tends to stop before the actual energy transfer to the work--you've given the hammer all the energy it needs for the work prior to contact so at contact, your energy is instead directed into CONTROL rather than more hammer energy.

If you don't let the hammer do the work at contact (keep giving it energy), you are wasting arm-energy trying to knock a whole anvil off it's base (and ripping your body to bits in the process)...or conversely like this student not giving the mass of the hammer velocity and appropriate energy to do it's job.

Yes, most newbie smiths figure "letting the hammer do the work" out in short order after the first time they go to bed with an arm hurting like xxxx from trying to move an anvil with a hammer.  Your guy seems to be so focused on what his interpretation of words in a book meant that he instead accomplished little actual work rather than the usual beginner arm-destruction.  

I don't know how to convince someone like this that their INTERPRETATION of what a book said was wrong...maybe some explanation that the book was speaking of the point of contact with the work, not the whole downswing.  Or maybe he's just an idiot since he refused to take instruction/advice from someone more experienced.  That affliction is more common that we'd all like to admit--even among people who are quite intelligent.

 

[matto]

Did Babe Ruth just let the bat do the work?? It is all based on mass and velocity.  To make mass (the hammer) work you have to get the mass moving.  Or it can't "do the work". 

[jmccustomknives]

Both opinions are right.  The hammer does do the work, it's up to the smith to give it the energy to do the work.  Your going to move more metal if you double the kinetic energy in the hammer.  The difference, and a painful one to learn, is not to "push" the hammer through the work.  There's also the anvil which is lost in the discussion, an anvil with a high rebound will move a lot more material than a soft anvil with the same energy exerted by the hammer.

[SReynolds]

You know.......if that is true and I don't particularly have reason to believe it isn't, I have thought about the anvil and why it's so important to locate the 80% rebound anvil as opposed to , I don't know........much less I guess. I subscribed to the wear resistant surface of high carbon compared to a softer surface.

 

And moving the mass (velocity) is one I will try to remember. wish I could have said something more intelligent than simply "YOU GOTS TO SWING THE HAMMER" !!!

[ThomasPowers]

Size matters too as the inertia of a honking big anvil helps channel the energy into deforming the work piece vs moving the anvil.

I notice how much more work I accomplish in a day using the shop anvil vs the travel anvil  of course it's about a factor of 5 between them...

[Frank Turley]

I had a student who brought with him an ugly, bulbous hammer with an extremely short haft. He struggled with it. I approached him with a decent shop hammer, and told him to try it. I showed him how to swing for light, moderate, and heavy blows. A short while later, he was back to his old hammer. I attempted to show him three more times with the same result. He told me he apprenticed for a time with a bladesmith, and the smith was a master who used the bulbous type hammer. Hey! I know when to back off. I gave him the curriculum as I would anyone, but I allowed him to sloppy hammer; no more hammer corrections from me.

[gote]

Very wise words. A combination of the posts above would be an excellent part of a tutorial in hammer control. I am amazed that the students did not realize the obvious.

[SmoothBore]

I'm a lousy teacher, ... and lack the patience to "suffer fools gladly".

But it's been my lot to have "trained" literally hundreds of machine operators.

Not surprisingly, ... that experience has taught me, that "you can't fix stupid".

That's the harsh reality.

 

.

 

[JHCC]

Next time someone says, "Let the hammer do the work", say, "Okay, drop the hammer! Put it down right now! Step away!"

Then ask, "Okay, how much work is the hammer getting done?"

[Mark Ling]

6 minutes ago, JHCC said:

Next time someone says, "Let the hammer do the work", say, "Okay, drop the hammer! Put it down right now! Step away!"

Then ask, "Okay, how much work is the hammer getting done?"

good one, that will tell him.

                                                                                          Littleblacksmith

[natenaaron]

4 hours ago, SmoothBore said:

, that "you can't fix stupid".

That's the harsh reality.

But someone competent has to clean up the mess stupid creates. 

[rockstar.esq]

Reading these posts I'm reminded of how difficult it was to learn physics.  I think most of my struggle was due to the pervasive use of incorrect terminology.  Acceleration is spoken about like it only means going faster. It was very difficult for me to think of acceleration as a change in a vectors magnitude or direction.  From a purely scientific standpoint, a typical car has three controls which could be accurately referred to as an accelerator; the throttle, the brake, and the steering wheel.  

Potential energy and inertia are concepts that get very, very, muddy when terms like acceleration are misunderstood.

I remember the incredible difficulty I had trying to do vector force calculations on static systems.  It's bizarre to think of a component in a non-moving system as having a gravitational acceleration on it.  Same story for tension in belts or pressure from a column of water.

I had absolutely no idea what a "moment" was in physics, or how it explains concepts like the force of a hammer on a pivot. None of my pre-college science or mathematics classes  taught physics with correct terminology. 

[natenaaron]

All too often the student is blamed for reading and sticking to what they read.  You could say the student was taught wrong.  You would be surprised by the amount of adults who cannot read and infer.  They take the book literally.  This creates a mind set that has to be changed.  Unfortunately undoing bad learning takes extra patience and extra time.  In many cases You have to lay down the law as Thomas said.  Young people react better to this than adults.  Adults often require more patience and that is harder for us as teachers.  We wrongly assume adults should change faster.  They don't.  In my opinion adults require much more patience and take longer to accept they learned something wrong than children are.  The current hoopla over gun control (Just an example Folks not a political statement) on the part of both the red and the blue sides proves that adults are actually worse than children when it comes to blindly holding onto false and/or inflammatory information. 

Literal reading, with no instruction, has gotten many people in trouble, and vague writing has gotten even more folks in trouble. Put the two together and you have a recipe for disaster, or amusement, depending on your mood.

I am blaming this one on the author.  The student, being naive, did not understand what is a colloquial saying in a lot of trades.  "Let the saw do the work", "let the sand paper do the work", "Let the hammer do the work", all mean the same thing.  With no schema to build off of they will not understand and will learn wrong.

Remember, deep breathing and patience.