Heatwave Blacksmithing

Oh no! I think that we have cut the value of my hammer in half by identifying it as a vintage mason or bricklayer hammer. I had to research what a "scutch hammer is and that lead to bricklayer hammer. Bricklayer's hammers have that same odd long neck. Thank you all for pointing me in the right direction even if I can't call it a rare, unique one of a kind hammer anymore. I think that I can safely clean it up and put a new handle on it and make it a more functional tool which I might never use.

Since we can't figure out what exactly the large hammer is then I think that works to my advantage. I can advertise it as a "rare, unique, one of a kind, thumpy hammer with an oddly long neck." That should be worth twice as much!

The small hammer: A silversmithing hammer! Thanks Thomas. I assume that it would work for all of my goldsmithing projects as well.

The larger hammer: I can accept that it is not a cobblers hammer. At the same time I am not convinced that it is a "dishing" sort of hammer. The face is square with sharp edges and would leave a rough textured surface. When I make bowls, it is with a round face and radiused  edges. Is it a geologist hammer for splitting rocks?

I won a couple of auction bids for antique tools this past weekend and got two unique hammers. The larger one I think is a cobblers hammer or shoemakers hammer. The little guy I am not sure about. The face is round on one side and square on the other side. The handle gets down to 5/16 round which is so thin that it bearly controls the head. If it is used for swinging then it is not a powerful hammer. Is it also for shoe making?

I think this is a question that I can actually answer. My store bought stainless steel spoon for mixing juice is around 20 gauge. I made some stainless steel spoons and spatulas several years ago out of 16 gauge. Several people have mentioned that they would rather use my homemade utensils over the store bought because they can really lean on them without them bending. Heavier gauge will make your utensils standout from the crowd.

Hi Kuzuzu,

I hate to admit it but I have not tried to recalibrate my machine because I have no idea which thingy to turn. It reads close enough for me. When I use it twice a year, all I do is subtract 3 from the reading. It measures consistently but slightly off. If anybody knows which thingy to move to adjust it, that would be great.

I put the carbide cutter shaft into the fire to see what happens and it is the weirdest steel I have ever used. I thought that it would crumble apart but discovered that it is forgeable but moves slowly. I tried to harden it with oil and then water and it will not harden. Therefore it has a low carbon content but I suspect a high alloy content which makes it very tough. I tried the anvil devil (thank you for the proper name) and it worked adequately but being low carbon it will not stand up to the abuse for very long. My conclusion is that this is not a great steel to work with. It makes a great carbide holder but is not worth the effort of forging. The only redeeming quality is that it is high heat resistant but stay with H13 if you want a high heat steel.

Yes, I have a Rockwell tester that I bought cheaply off of a local buy and sell website. It is an old machine that was owned by the Canadian Government and it consistently reads about 3 points low according to my test disk. It is not suitable for a machine shop but it is close enough for smithing.

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

What did the spark test show? Do you have a set of known test pieces to compare it to?

I made a pocket hot cutter out of the carbide cutter shank with stock removal which should keep the original hardness. I tested the hardness before starting and it was around 47 Rockwell C. The spark test while showed very little spark much like cast iron. Therefore I will suggest that it is ductile iron. For fairly hard material it is surprisingly soft to grind. I have not yet tried it as a hot cutter to see how it stands up to hitting.

I was wondering what kind of steel is used in the shaft of carbide cutting tools. It certainly needs to be hard and tough but not necessarily high speed steel. Ultimately the question is whether it is worth throwing in the forge and shaping into something.