MangoSmith

Thomas Powers - By cleaning off the mushrooming, do you mean just grinding it off or by reforming it back into the shape of the hammer?

Thomas Powers - Sorry about not having photos, i just uploaded them! Also, i would like to wrap leather strips around the hammer. Frosty - Its also been sitting in a shed under 150 pounds of old metal for 40 years lol. He was a skilled blacksmith, but not dor small jobs. He made rails for his farm.

Its kinda weird lighting, but here you go! Frosty - Now that i actually have it in my hands (i was at school when i posted this), it seems closer to 15 lbs. Strangely light for how massive it seems. Also, i looked up stone mason's hammers, and it does look similar. I've just never been able to find a single image that resembles this hammer. My Great Granddad was quite an odd fellow, so i don't know if this was made by him, if its just a normal hammer, or maybe even that its been bent out of shape. He did use it quite a bit in his prime, but never when i was alive sadly.

I have an old blacksmithing hammer my great grandfather had used a long time ago. I'm removing the rust, and i want to add a nice leather handle to it. Bad thing is, its oddly shaped. Similar to a scythe. Its a straight peen hammer, probably 50 to 60 years old. The hammer is fully steel, and its been used quite a bit (so much that the hammer head has been rounded and the peen too). The handle is by far the strangest. Its connected like how an axe handle is to the head, but its somehow extremely tight on there (idk how they out it on, but it won't come off anytime soon). The handle itself is fully metallic, with this S like shape to it, similar to a scythe's handle. I'm going to use it as a very nice blacksmithing hammer, for jobs that need a lot of heft. Its gotta be around 20 pounds at least, and its either iron or rusted steel (idk if steel rusts... I'm new at forging lol). This being the case, i want a nice and sturdy leather handle, to reduce shock and to just make it look alot nicer. What kind of leather and adhesive should i use, and how should i wrap it???

What you described as a forge fits my preexisting forge already! I will have to clean up my old forge, its filled with old cigarette buds lol. it is just a small 5 or 3 gallon galvanized bucket with a 3 inch lining of concrete around the interior, and a small pipe for attaching to a hairdryer. Would that work? I mean, i still probably need an anvil, tongs, gloves, and hammer, and i do have my eye on a nice 2 lb hammer i found. I just want to forge knives, so i do plan on eventually getting a small forge with a burner and everything for it, but that day is not today, lol.

So i would like to make a classic forge, the kind where you have a trough made from the ceramic bricks and steel casing, and bellows, an anvil, etc. Im new at this, so go easy on me, lol. I have so many questions. What is tempering? Normalizing? Should i use oil or water for quenching? what hammer should i get? What's the easiest metals to work for a beginner? How would i go about this? I would like to know any details, as this is my first attempt into blacksmithing. I used to cast aluminum, but i never had a real forge or anything. Just a trash can filled with cement, and a hole in it for a pipe with a hair dryer as a fan lol.