Benona blacksmith

Spark testing is how I figured its wrought. The reason I thought it was Spanish is because of an old advertisement I seen somewhere that showed a hammer just like it with the eye punched back farther with the weight forward and stated it was a Spanish pattern hammer? I chose to reface it. Here it is before welding.

Well I'm bored and cant think of anything to do in the shop so i think i will go for option 2. I like option 4 as well. I do have plenty of sledge hammers in the shop and this one weighs in at 12.5 lbs which is a bit heavy for my liking.

I found this old spanish(?) Crosspeen sledge hammer that is missing most of its steel face. Would you guys restore it to a useful life?

A couple cross peen hammers I've made that I find I use quite a bit. a rounding hammer I made at a hammer making class i took with Dan Moss and James Davis. I just recently broke the handle a Japanese style bladesmiths hammer made from the pivoting jaw of a post vise I found at an antique barn/store. With a forge welded face. these are the 2 most used hammers. Bothe are straight pens. The first one is 4 lbs and the second is 8 lbs. this last one is the only "new" hammer I use daily. All the others are antiques or hammers I've made.

In case anyone was wondering about drifting an axe with the lugs like this there is several ways of going about it. One is obviously the swage block. next is a bolster which would be good for people that dont have a swage block and a small hardie hole in there anvil. This bolster was actually made for making viking style hammers but works excellent for a viking style axe. that's my tip for the day. Have a good night everyone.

This is the last wrought iron axe I made. This one is a bit smaller than the one I'm making now.

No I haven't. Most of these went to there new owners that wanted to put there own handles on them. I do have some pictures of bladesmiths hammers that Ive handled. I will dig up the pictures and I will ask the owners of the hammers to share some pictures with me of the handles they put on them and I will update this as I receive the pictures.

This started as a 4 inch wide wagon tyre. I cut 2 equal lengths that one ended up 32 ounces exactly and the other 32.2 ounces. I split them down the center to make 4- 2 inch wide pieces. I ground, stacked and welded them at the corners. I didnt weld on a working stick I just held it with tongs. I forge welded the 4 pieces together drew it out a bit and hot cut and folded it to make 8 layers. I'm not going for layer count just refining the wrought a little to make it easier to work. This wagon tyre is not very refined. Then I forged into a fairly uniform billet roughly 7 ½ inches by 2 ¼inches by ⅝ inch. And began the shaping. I did most of the forging from here with a striker. one spot of concern is here at the set down. all that was yesterday's work. Today I got everything welded up and the one spot i was concerned about showed its ugly face again. I'm not sure what in going to do about it now. Maybe try to forge weld it back shut AGAIN. This time I will bring it up to welding temps and drive the drift home and hope for the best?the little spot near the poll is just a mark from what I belive was from the tongs. It's not a delam though. More work will be done tomorrow morning. I try to be done in the shop around noon before it gets too hot. This northern blood is too thick for these hot summer days!!!

Wow this thread took off fast!! I agree with and have encountered many of the things mentioned above. The small delamination twords the back of the eye is actually quite minor I started an axe like Jennifer's today. Made from built up wagon tire. Here is where I got to before my striker had to head out for the day and we are climbing up over 90°f today and I figured chilling in the air conditioning was better than next to a raging fire. There is one spot of concern at a set down but I think I can bring it back together.

I totally agree with this. This is my hammer drift. I've made probably 30 hammers with this little bugger. It's time for a new one.

Now that I think of it I did have him swing the sledge to hot cut the blade back and make it more uniform.

Yes it was punched and drifted but not with a striker. 80% or more of the work was done with the power hammer. I was walking him through the process because he didnt wanna do all the heavy work himself. Like you said it really takes a toll on the body working this much steel by yourself. I've had 3 back surgeries and I'm only 33 years old. I know the feeling. That's the reason I built a power hammer and now have a self contained hammer. I tried talking him out of using the O1 and use 4140 but he insisted on the O1. He started another smaller axe to try and follow suit but he hot shorted it and it just crumbled. It was the first time actually seeing it for myself and it is interesting to say the least. It looked like cast iron when its "forged" Oh yeah. And I have a 250 lb swage block and a 66 lb holland anvil swage block. This anvil is the one I let friends use when there forging so they dont mess up my nice anvil.

Forged this viking camp axe with a friend from O1 tool steel. He is going to do all the heat treat and finish work and give it to is dad for father's day.

Thank you Frosty!!!