JHCC

Not by itself, but perhaps carried by a swallow.

If you persist in pursuing this folly, you might consider positioning the hammer both so that it hits where you want and can simply be swung up and out of the way when not in use.

People will justify just about any kind of nonsense by saying “That’s how _______ did it.”

There’s also this, from Peter Parkinson’s The Artist Blacksmith:

Did you search for earlier discussions about this? There are at least three other threads about grappling hooks, maybe more.

He’s got a pretty sweet deal with his scrap guy, but charged me what he usually gets paid. It’s more than I would have liked to spend, but I’m thinking of it as a tooling expense rather than raw materials.

The husband of one of my coworkers runs a dive shop and just sold me a scuba tank that failed hydrostatic testing. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but I may be getting a commission for some bowls, and it would be nice to have a good dishing form.

Good lookin' kid! Life as you know it is OVER!!!! As a good friend said to me when my daughter was born, "Congratulations, you have exactly twelve years in which what you say makes any difference. Remember, girls have little fingers for one purpose only: to have something to wrap their daddies around!"

MrDarkNebulah, it's not necessary to quote the entire comment immediately before yours: it clogs up the forum and slows down page loading for those of us still using dial-up. Please read The Quote Feature.

And Hammahead (great name, BTW) is new to the forum and thus unfamiliar with the posting speed.

The habit the paychecks had of bouncing occasionally was another. A few months after I left, one of my coworkers had to go to the ER and discovered that the boss hadn't paid the health insurance for six months, so the coverage had lapsed.

Welcome aboard, Hammahead! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!! Your forge sounds like a really interesting approach, one that I personally haven't encountered before (although some of the senior folks here have seen more than I ever will). Please, give us some pictures!

IFI: Come for the blacksmithing; stay for the random fascinating tidbits of obscure knowledge (and the horrible puns).

One of the many reasons I stopped working there. (Although turning alabaster lampshades was a lot of fun.)

Clicking on the link downloads the file, which then plays on my computer just fine. If you have a YouTube channel, you can upload the video there and then embed that video to play directly within your post. For example, that's what I did with this little video that shows the effect of the old gate valve on my JABOD:

That was before you knew that milk was no good for metal fume fever!

Ooh, cute.

You must have a comprehensive mental filing system.

That’s “Wilkinson”, not “Nicholson”. And yes, they were fairly common.

Sounds like a fantastic class. Pity we can’t get him here, but thank you for sharing those photos and telling us about the experience.

Or just build a treadle hammer!

Quite right; I should have thought of that. It's been doing well so far, but that was a semi-protected location. I wonder if one might put some kind of filter around the casing (a cloth sleeve? an old sock?) to keep the dust out.

Or simply buy one. A decent bending iron can be had for under $200, and a copper billet could easily cost that. Aluminum would be cheaper and would still work, but either way you'd still have to figure out the heating system.

This is what Uri Hofi had to say about the Big Blu hammers: "The BigBlu by Mr. Dean Curfman that also paid twice a visit to my smithy in Israel twice special to learn how to forge the Hofi hammer and to grind it and also to learn about the quick change system for the air hammer die and about forging other tools that he sells now. The air hammer school is also my idea and I was teaching there the '' free form air hammer system''. Mr. Dean Curfmann also took three classes with me at the Ozark and in NY." See https://www.iforgeiron.com/index2.html/articles/a0019-the-hofi-hammer-r129/ for more details.

It's not a how-to, but there's a great little video online about Ruana Knives in Montana, which uses cast aluminum handles with elk antler inserts. The section with the casting starts at 4:00.