Romey

Part of the gig for Japanese smiths using them for bladesmithing is the Japanese anvil and all their forging is down low to the ground on one knee and or fully sitting. I have seen the strikers use large dog legs while standing up but the anvil top was still only maybe 8 inches from the ground. Before I started and completed my blacksmith apprenticeship I had been bladesmithing for a couple years and to thought a dogleg hammer was a bladesmithing only thing. The Blacksmith I later apprenticed under was a fellow with well over 200 hammers of various ages and styles and I quickly was schooled on what a dogleg hammer was in the west and that is isnt a cultural thing but a tool of necessity. Though I myself have many hammers, I have the need for each one and find myself making more of them as a different need arrives. I still am a blade smith though and though I have several dogleg hammers I havent found a use for forging blades on English anvils at "normal" anvil heights, though I know other bladesmiths that think they are keen. Funny thing about traditional smithing and tools, of the 7 recognized and license blade smiths in Japan, one of the two I visited used a ball peen hammer exclusively, go figure Get some silly putty and make a round impression and then a flat impression. This will be the start of figuring out how steel moves. Round moves in a 360 degree and flat does so but less aggressively BASICALLY. the kicker is, turn your wrist a bit and use the EDGE of a flat face and it can become very aggressive. Hammers dont have to be used in a single plane and yes smooth is best so there are no xxxxxx xxxxxx.

"Japanese" Hammers arent really Japanese per-say. That kinda gotthrown around 10 or 15 years ago by us Bladesmiths who were doing Japanese influenced work at Don Foggs. Dogleg and Sawyers hammers are same thing. Weight forward and in your case a pretty rounded face is going to move alot of steel as will any rounding hammer. Good digs, watch your forearm