stuarthesmith

Thank you so much for expanding my horizons, Thomas Powers! I just looked up Euler Angles of Rotation, and you are right, the placement of my thumb controls all three angles of rotation in an Eulerian Reference frame. The practical application of Euler angles is generally referred to in aerodynamics as pitch, roll, and yaw. You just taught a very old dog some new tricks!

Thomas Powers, I have never tried a rectangular hammer handle, but I am not adverse to experimentation. All my hammer handles are the oval variety spun on a lathe by my handlemaker, who also turns the wooden handles I use in manfacturing longshoreman and hay hooks. As far as "pitch" and "roll", I am not familiar with those terms, but I am going to research them right now, to better understand your question.

Excellent question, kst1! I have a "favorite" ball pein hammer, a four pounder, that I made myself. The edges of the face I hand filed at an angle, which miminizes hammer marks left on hot steel. First chance I get, I will take a photograph of that hammer, and post it here. I file the same bevel on all other hammer faces; even the "store bought" hammers I acquire at flea markets from time to time.

for 34 years, with "thumbs up", I have never been injured, except for scale burns on my right forearm. Some other smiths I know occasionally complain to me about elbow tendonitis, using thumbs up. I have never suffered from such an affliction. Everyone reacts differently to stresses put on the body. What I do know for sure, is that you get better angle control with the thumb up..........and after all, this is all about hammer control. Because I forge tools, mostly edged tools like cooper's drawknives, slate shingle rippers, and other cutting tools, lack of hammermarks makes grinding a pleasure, and not torture. This is why the russian who taught me stressed hammer control, hammermarks are a pain in the derriere to grind out. That control gained by "thumbs up" also makes repetitive work more uniform, when forging 20 shingle rippers in a day and then doing the final grinding, you want every last one of them to be exactly the same as the previous one you forge. This is also why I wrote the article on using vise-mounted bending forks to bend with, rather than hammering shapes over an anvil horn, it eliminates those HATED hammer-marks and flat spots, facillitating much cleaner looking bends.

wow, steve, that is an incredible piece of information.....................you mean maximus misunderstood commidus's verdict?

I used to "play" at forging pattern welded bowie knives. Much easier to grind if they lack hammer impressions.

my finishing strokes remove two things, hammer marks and all doubt

He and I worked in a tool forging shop, a subsidiary of AMerican Hoist and Derrick. He would speed up our work so that at the end of the day, he could teach me how to forge fancy doorlatches, strap hinges, and all manner of other interesting forgings having NOTHING to do with the work we were being paid to do. He derived great pleasure teaching me anything he could.

My mentor died in 1996, exactly 15 years after I served my apprenticeship..............he was very generous in gladly transfering his knowledge, without reservation, to me.

Fyodor Czub, the man under whom I apprenticed for five years, told me, after a year, through a translator, that I was the fifth apprentice candidate he had worked with in succession, in order to train someone to take over his work in the plant. He told me that all the others that preceded me didn't know enough to keep their mouths shut, and emulate him and his work. My self-pride(some would say arrogance) wouldn't allow me to fail; I was determined, through my work and PRACTiCE, to impress him and prove that an American could be a worthy student of his. Morally, I was always old school, and had inculcated upon me at an early age by my father that workmanship was an honorable thing, and that God gave us two eyes and two ears, and only one mouth, for a reason, we should listen and watch twice as much as we TALK.

I got caught in a rainstorm doing a victorian museum blacksmith demo. For some reason, that confounds me, the heel that he forge welded to the body does not rust as fast as the rest of the anvil

I remember watching the movie Gladiator, in which Maximus beat the daylights out of the champion gladiator Titius of Gaul. When the Emporer Commidus had to make the choice, as to whether to slay the vanquished Titius, he signaled "thumbs down", ordering Maximus to slay the loser. Instead of killing him, Maximus tossed aside his sword, occasioning someone in the forum to yell "Maximus the Merciful" I feel like General Maximus in THIS FORUM. When the Emporer Glenn signaled, in my thread on blacksmithing for the general public at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, the other day, he signaled "thumbs down" as far as hand position when swinging a blacksmith's hammer. General Stuart Maximus, instead, insists on "thumbs up" when swinging a hammer. I detailed the reasons why in response in that thread. As a humorous sidenote, while I was serving my apprenticeship, the russian who trained me had zero compunction regarding HITTING my right hand with a four pound ball pein hammer if I held the hammer wrong, with my thumb wrapped around the hammer handle. It was HIS WAY, or the highway. He told me that if I was his son, had I held the hammer wrong, he would have denied me my dinner that night. I had a choice, either hammer correctly with my thumb atop the hammer handle, leaving NO hammer marks, or getting corporal punishment from a 74 year old man and suffering even worse, his scorn and wrath.

A long time ago , I posted a thread about a 225 pound hay budden that the great blacksmith Jim Keiffer from pennsylvania repaired for me. It was broken off at the hardy hole, but otherwise was in perfect condition. It sat on my shop floor for three decades. Jim Keiffer forged a new heel, then forge welded a high carbon steel plate to the top of it, then forge welded the entire mass onto the body of the anvil, using his tandem brick forges. The finished product rings like a church bell, and works like a brand new hay budden. I am reposting the pictures.

Last night, I promised, in the chatroom, to post pics of a billfold I forged in the shape of a horse head. Giddyapp!

Thank you so much for the information, guys. I am going to play with it today after my normal course of work, and I will take pictures!

As a favor, I have been making pig roasting spits for a reenactor friend of mine. To return the favor, he gave me, in exchange, a 20 foot bar of three quarter inch round pure titanium. Does anyone out there have experience with forging pure titanium in a blacksmith coal forge? I looked up "titanium forging" on google, and the articles I read aren't much help. According to what I read, titanium undergoes a structural phase change, just like steel, at around 1650 farenheit, in which it changes to a face centered cube in structure. Can anyone give me some tips and hints on how to "play" with this material?

these days, mark, all and I mean ALL anvils are hard to come by..................big or small

I have a seven hundred pound hay budden that I paid 650 dollars for back in 1977 or so...............that money then is worth 3000 DOLLARS today, probably, and I don't regret buying it for one moment, I have been using it for over thirty years!!!!!!!!!

you must be paul bunyon reincarnate

everything is relative

nice big hay budden for 1200 dollars in texas for four dollars a pound................kinda worth it if you crave a large anvil My link and you have money to burn..........lol

you can buy borax pretty cheaply in rural agways and general stores, they use it for laundry

the old tap and die sets are wonderful, and even came with hand crafted wooden boxes!

here is a glimpse of my shop

I have a set just like these, they are excellent My link