Matthew Parkinson

useing the right grip on the hammer has a lot more to do with keeping you body safe than just about any thing else. I teach a lot and some of the biggest mistakes I see my students making are inproper hammer grip. the two most common are the tumb on the back of the handle and the death grip on the handle. the tumb over the handle will wreack your wrists and elbows I found this out early on to a painfull truth. the death grip will tire you out and lead to carpletunnel pain in the hands and wrists. I teach a loose handshake grip, this added to a good swing that uses all of you mar inplace of jsut the elbow or wrist will go a long way to protecting you body. A few other thing I see in teaching that I notice can hurt you. 1 Bad stance at the anvil. that is standing to far away or at akward angles to the work and foreing your left arm to compinsate this will lead to elbow and wrist problems. 2 the death grip on the tongs/badly fit or made tongs. I find that if tongs are fit well to the work and have light springy reins every thing is fine, if on the other hand the reins are to heave forceing you to squeeze to hard or it they are ill fit again forceing yo to bear down in an attempt to hold the work this will lead to pain in the hands and wrists. as far as long of short handle I like a short for most things but use a long for welding, as far a hammer weight I like my 4lb cross (Bertha) but I use the hammer that is best suited to the work at hand. heavyer stock =heaver hammer. MP MP

this comeing weekend (may 11th) hope to see some of you there. http://www.brookfieldcraft.org/hammer-in/

Brookfield Craft Center Hammer-in May 11, 2013 10am to 5 pm The Good Forge at the Brookfield Craft Center Campus 286 Whisconier rd, Brookfield CT This will be the third Hammer-in at BCC and should be the best yet. The theme is “Historical Bladesmithing” and we will be featuring a smelt of Wootz steel,by Peter Swarz-burt, a demonstration of forging a pattern welded Viking age blade by Matthew Parkinson and many other interesting events to be Announced. Of course, as always your $20 admission includes a hotdog lunch and an Iron-in-the-hat raffle ticket, So bring your appetite and something for the raffle. This year we will be following up Saturday’s Hammer-in with an all day open forge session on Sunday, also 10am – 5pm where you can come and get some hammer-time in working on hot metal. This session is included in your hammer-in admission price or $20 if you can’t make it on Saturday.