Shane Stegmeier

I would not try to use a closed die on a small hammer. I thought the kuhn dies were neat looking, but figured there were issues with learning to get the most out of them. Like needing to leave a thicker blank isolated where you were going to run the dies... IF you get the volume worked out right, you could do all kinds of interesting things. You can also use a multi step spring die. Clifton Ralph had a little 4step clapper for making bloomer buttons. There was a sissor cutter on the end, then a taper tool, the a ball swage, then a narrow round swage for cleaning up the shank on the hook for the bloomer button. If I remember correctly. It might have had one or two more tools built in to it, i think he could take the ball and slip it into the die and make a nicely domed button without nicking the shank of the hook. I think I remember that he would use the ball swage,and the the taper tool to set up to make a leaf finial where you would punch the holes to hang the hook on the wall. He would swing the clapper die out of the way and pull the leaf with the power hammer. LOVELY little clapper die set up. And you could do all kinds of things with tha die set, not just pump out handles. Austerity measures... IT's not just for Greece anymore. ;-)

I love good tools. I love good deals. I just moved my shop... URGH! In the process I came to the conclusion I had been quite indiscriminate in my collecting. All things in moderation, including "Aquire'tis". I resolve henceforth, that if I find a good deal on something I will get it, and intend to turn it around and move it on to some new home, if it is something that I don't NEED. I walk away from lots of tools, because I don't need them or like that style of tool, but if the price was right, I might store it long enough to take it to a conference or hammer-in and move it down the road to someone who would appreciate it more than I do:-) Power hammers are another matter entirely, with a power hammer the question is only do I have the discretionary income available (the answer has sadly been NO, nearly everytime I happen across a lonely hammer;-) Monster Metal is in a laudable and envieable position, NO Debt!, working his butt off, which results in Good CashFlow, which he has reinvested in his obsession. A great way to run a business, something I know objectively, but have sadly never been able to realize in my present reality;-) But something to aspire to.

I doubt your doing anything wrong, my welded on handles generally come off midway through the forging process;-) Properly sized tongs (how heavily built, and suitably long), properly fitted to the material, preferably with a tong clip so I don't have to hold the material in the tongs, just with them;-) are a beautiful thing. As for the arc welds on the end of the billet, you will tend to get better more consitant patterns if you cut the muddy ends off. You just seem to constantly be loosing material when you do patternwelding, scale loss, trimming the ends, grinding to check welds, grinding to true up the billet, possibly grinding to develop the pattern, more forging and scale loss, more grinding, then forge the item, then more grinding to expose the pattern.... I think what he was pointing out was that, forging big fat damascus billets by hand is a lot of work... But there is no guarentee that the steels you choose were goint to weld up very well??? Power hacksaw blades? I have a billet sitting behind or under the workbench that I have never gotten around to trying, and if you didn't mix some other types of steels in you might not get much patterning for all your hard work anyway, just some decarb lines between the layers??? It's just time, energy and sweat... OOPS didn't read the second page of posts;-)

The guy who owns that brings it to the UMBA Conference in Pontiac IL most years, and we are trying to get him to bring it to the ILLIANA Steam and Power show in July of 2010;-) If I remember correctly Steve Parker said it was a 400# Chambersburg, he knows I have a thing for steam hammers;-) and was trying to get me to come over to Pontiac, (which I still have never been able to swing... :-( I will be closer to Tipton this year 2010, we are moving 45 minutes east of there instead of an hour and a half west of there;-) I do hope he can bring it in they are a ton of fun (or several tons that is... ;-)

If you swing through Indiana I am sure we could find a place or two for you to demo, feed yah and provide crash space. We really enjoyed the demos you did with Tom Clark at the IBA conferences you hit several years ago. Just try to time things so you can hit SOFA and the forging contest, (Which I will sadly miss again this year :-( Building the new house and shop and getting all the animals settled takes priority, I'm not sure why, couldn't we just throw up a garage kit to live in, and then build a big shop with my overhead crane rails and a couple good sized hammers??? I know where there is going to be a steam hammer go for probably next to nothin next weekend... ??? ;-) Sad but true:-)

Starting with a flat cut end is probably one culprit in this, not enough of a soak is probably another, and if you are just cutting this with the edge of the flat die that would be the other... 3/4 to 3/8 is a good sized drop, and you probably end up moving the steel more than you realize at below a safe forging temp. Using a spring die cutter to point the end, and a spring butcher to cut your shoulder, and then work your 3/8 tenon. Taking a bit of extra time to set up the job like that would probably fix the problem. Normally you notice this kind of thing worse on square stock, but you can get it in round too. Think of it as axial fishlips;-) I think pointing the end will fix a bunch of this, then butchering in the shoulder, sets things up so they squirt the right direction... Just a guess, from listening to Clifton Ralph (haven't made the tooling either, always in a hurry and just rough it out on the dies too ;-)

Doing them with the induction coils and the powered screw press like I hear you are doing now IS incredibly efficient. But doing it on an open die steam hammer is FUN ;-)

One idea: George Dixon talks about how they did their textured finish in the Samuel Yellin shop, but I can't remember where I saw the reference. Either in the "Artist Blacksmith Quarterly", or "The Hammer's Ring" or one of the books on Yellin. Another more likely idea. They were using WI of dubious consistancy, and would have probably had to forgeweld up to the size and length of stock neccessary. You will get a lot of "character" showing through after 5 or 6 hundred years, especially on WI that has been welded up from several different sources ;-) Thomas Powers has a great strap hinge that is welded up out of atleast 4 pieces in ~10", did Scott ever get that back to you? Maybe Thomas has a few suggestions???

Bradleys, Beaudrys, and Fairbanks all have very good reputations. Most American smiths think Blackers are scary, but JohnN might have a more informed opinion;-). Thomas is quite right Little Giants were cheap and common, and they didn't come with a brake like some of the industrial type hammers like Bradley, Beaudry and Fairbanks. Kerrihards are good little hammers and despite thier often small size they move metal. In general what you need to look for is a brake and that what ever clutch system the hammer has that it allows you to get a light tapping blow and a hard slapping blow. A mechanical hammer should generally run faster than an air hammer, should hit harder, use less electricity and a smaller motor than an air hammer. Sometimes you need to use pulleys and a jack shaft to slow the hammer down for what you need it to do, and what you are comfortable working with. If all you want to do is draw billets of damascus out, then a FAST mechanical might be just what you need. Billy Merritt has a 25#LG that simply screams... If you want to do flat die forging with big dies and furniture you might want to cut the speed considerably. No matter what hammer you have, it either needs to have good control when you buy it, or you have the confidence to put the work into the hammer to get the control out of it. Nothing is impossible if you are too stupid to realize it's impossible, and too stuburn to give up. "You can't do that..." "Why, Not!" The UMBA video RD 126 shows Clifton Ralph running a 100# LG/Murray, and a 250#LG in his old shop in Gary IN when he hosted the IBA Conference in 1988... Clifton had modified one of the hammers putting 4x8 flat dies on it and beefing up the toggle bolts and nearly doubling the size & thickness of the springs. It was awe inspiring to see the control that hammer had... If I didn't KNOW THAT it was a LG (and I think it was the 250#), I would have sworn it was an air hammer because of the degree of CONTROL Clifton had with that hammer. He was getting slow taps, gentle taps, out of a 250# LG. Most of the LGs I have used have been ill mannered beasts by comparison, who would happily eat your lunch if your treadle control wasn't absolutely perfect. There are a number of excellent videos on improving the control of you power hammer. Information is your freind, and knowledgeable freinds are even better;-) EVERY LG should have a brake added to it, and should be just dripping with oil, especially the new style cone clutchs. The older slackbelt clutch is probably easier to feather. If I had used a LG with a brake and really good control, I probably would have a 50-250# LG instead of an air hammer today!!! Most old mechanical hammers can be tuned or improved to the point that they have good control, and a brake can be retro fitted to them to make the safer and more versitile. And you can go to classes with old guys who really know what they are doing and you can pick their brain. But in the end you need to learn how the hammer works, and what you have to do to the hammer to get what you want out of it... Goodluck;-)

Lots of room for doing several different radius's edges way too sharp otherwise, unless you never try and do a half faced blow... They are pretty, and from everything I ever heard Russel was a really good guy, I'm glad his wife has stayed in the business.

There is some old (at this point) research in industrial engineering that says that you can only work efficiently for about 55 minutes out of every hour, and if you don't take a small 5 minute break, your productivity diminishes. Hence the 15 minute break every 3 hours or so in industry. And sleeping on things can allow you to come up with alternative technics to solve your problem...

4140 is an alloy that will quench crack if you quench it too hard. So for smaller pieces it needs to be oil quenched, and for something like hammer dies that will give you a hard skin with a slightly softer/tougher body underneath. Thats why it was used to make shafting so much in the past, reasonably wear resistant skin over a tough body. On decent sized dies like on Steve's Beaudry or larger you can get a nice sweetspot that wears into the dies over time. I like slightly harder steels for hammer dies, cause I use lots of harder tool steels. BUT that is me, I have lots of tool steel drops, use what you have available. If you have enough you can make a set of small dies, and a bigger set of dies. Smaller flat dies can act like drawing dies and get more bang for your buck on a small hammer, large flat dies are nice if you would like to be able to use some furniture on your hammer like when bending the bow on tongs. If you want to do free form forging with little to no extra tooling then crown or drawing dies might be more to your liking... Buy the 4140, and try it out, when you come across more steel suited for making hammer dies you can make more, and try something else. "Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly 'the first time' then you can get better..." "Nothing Ventured, Nothing gained." It is amazing what you can do, when you foolishly and stubbornly refuse to except that something is "impossible." There are all kinds of wonderful stories of men who needed to do something, and did not allow themselves to be bound by other peoples (or even their own) doubts. "Well I can't throw money at this, how do I get it done anyway???"

Most steels are not hurt by allowing them to cool slowly in the ashes, or even in the coals if you have NO draft. Throwing things into the slack tub is hard on springs and most all tool steel (except the W series since they are designed to quench in water or brine.) Some things will aquire a thicker scale doing this and you can loose a bit of your surface finish, but a good butcher block wire brush can strip that off after the first heat or two once you start up again. I have peice that have been worked on over a period of a year or more, the rust burns off in the fire and you might get a bit more texture, in general don't worry too much about it. Even on knives in my opinion depending on your setup and techniques used most of the decarb will come out in the grinding... Don't worry be happy;-)

Originally patternwelding was done to overcome the limitations of the materials available! Thomas Powers pointed to one of the best/easiest to find books on early patternwelding. But he didn't put the cookies on the bottom shelf. Most of the "countries" in Europe had their ore contaminated with phosphorus and/or sulfer. The Swedes didn't and thus had best iron ore sources in all of Europe, (Which is why Huntsman always used Swedish wrought in his crucible steel, and why Swedish tool or crucible steel is still a name that we recognise for its purity and quality...) Some localities also had some benificial alloying present in the ores, which made steel produced in that area have slightly different characteristics, often these places became metalworking centers (an example was Insbrook, which became a center famous for its armour making.) Into this you can add to the fact that many early patternwelded blades often added extra phosphorus to hardened/embrittled steel. To get the durability it was neccessary to do the laminating with non-embrittled "alloys", early steels were not reliable/durable enough to make into long blades. Patternwelding "disappeared" between 900-1000 in western Europe... Because smelting and steel making improved to the point that they could produce not only "more" wrought iron and steel, but "better" steel that could be made into long blades that stand up to combat. It was also at this same time as iron began to get "cheaper" that iron horse shoes began to come into common use. The Japanese laminating process was developed to overcome the Magenese found in the iron sands which they made their steel from, which made it a deep hardening alloy. Again brittle sword bad, hard edge good, flexible shock resistant sword blade good. People don't generally come up with really complicated exhausting processes just to make themselve feel important, and for bragging rights;-) You work to make the material do what you want it to do. Laminated and patternwelding were originally done to overcome the limitations of the materials, and to economize, steel was expensive... What is cool is that these innovations ended up having superior working characteristics, the micro serations on the western patternwelding, and the superior slicing of the japanese blades... Now a days when steel is cheap, and time is also cheap;-) (we have hobbies right;-) Now a days "damascus" is for bragging rights;-) Damascus hammers are "pointless" pretty but pointless... Now if you lamninated hard faces, on medium carbon steel around a mild steel center, and punched your eye in the mild that might have some benifit??? ;-)

Lots of little things to nitpick;-) PSI... most old steam hammers and air hammers that I have heard of were run on LOW (30-100)PSI and HIGH Volume. All of them when converted to air are major air hogs:-) Big sturdy industrial cyclinders need a LOT of volume FAST you need a big supply pipe. So there are lots of people who would rather not run their shop air @ 140PSI and I know a few people who run Bull Hammers which were specked to run @ 135PSI at a lower pressure just to be on the safe side (I often do that...) What you do in industry with crazy high pressure hydraulics, not withstanding, blowing out a hose or some other component with over 100PSI is going to scare you at least... We all have different comfort levels with different dangerous situations some of us don't like line shafts, some are leary of high pressure in shop lines, but will be fine with a hydraulic ironworker working at much higher pressure. Everyone is intitled to their own opinion. Patrick made some very good points in his posts, flat die work is different (and I am more used to that style of work.) To be honest I think most air hammers with goodsized flat dies seem underpowered compared to mechanical or steam hammers (with enough free air) You will notice that many air hammers ship with small flat dies as one of the suggested options. VARP (Volume Area Resistance and Power) big dies mean you will TEND to be striking a larger area, which generally requires more power to get the punch you want. Thats why the drawing and crown dies are so popular, you get the most bang out of the power available.

I can bury a 7.5 hp Quincy light industrial 2 stage compressor with a 80gal reciever, drawing heavy stock in a production run on my 75# Bull Hammer. It does most of what I want to do without waiting but if I was drawing long tapers on 1 1/2" square with more than one iron in the fire I will be waiting. I cannot recommend Bull hammers or the new company Pheonyx Power Hammers, they work very well, but when something goes wrong if you couldn't build the hammer yourself, you are essentially orphaned because the company doesn't provide support. I have broken my Bull twice, and had to figure it out myself and order parts from a standard hydraulics supplier, and I still don't have the controls correctly reset. When the hammer was brand new it had incredible control. As for the Big Blu, it is a nice hammer, but sand does not equal steel, it does deaden the ring a bit, but steel mass is what helps with hammer efficiency. If I remember the specs correctly the IronKiss is heavier, and has a better anvil to ram ratio. This is not a slam, its physics, and it is also one of the reasons the IronKiss is more expensive, big fat chunks of steel are not cheap. Both hammers have nice controls, the IronKiss uses a control system like on a steam hammer to adjust the length of stroke which is very nice for some types of work and cumbersome in others, once you get used to it there are lots of possibilities with it. The Big Blu has a standard treadle which is very sensitive and works great. They are different. If I were to buy a new utility style hammer (instead of a good used Chambersburg, or building one myself), I would probably go with the Big Blu too, it is after all cheaper. It is hard to argue with price, if price is a consideration. If money is less of an obstacle, then you buy whatever you like best... Which still might be the cheaper hammer ;-) As for noise run a heavy hose from the hammer exhaust and run it outside and put a good sized muffler on it. Hammers are noisy invest in good hearing protection, protect anything you want to keep. Of course Clifton Ralph thinks that a good sized mechanical with the proper brake and tuning will outwork an air hammer, be cheaper to buy, and cheaper to run. My caveat to that is it takes a bit more skill to opperate a mechanical and the learning curve is a bit steeper and longer in my opinion. Personally even though they don't hit as hard as a mechanical, or generally as fast flat out, I prefer the control on an air hammer, utility or selfcontained. I have played on a number of different hammers over the years, and I have a weakness for steam hammers and Nazels. Written with absolutely no malicious intent, I like the guys at Big Blu, and John Larson.

Yep Clifton is the man for power hammers. Flat dies and furniture, and a good bit of daylight between the dies and he can do some really interesting stuff. I have had the opportunity to take a private class with Clifton and Kurt, and have enjoyed listening to Clifton at a bunch of conferences tell stories about working in the forge shop in the mill, and any number of thing. And I know Jo Ann is a saint, cause she is such a sweet person to talk to in her own right, and she hasn't killed Clifton yet... ;-) I know he really knows his stuff, and he has been instrumental in diseminating much of this information about flat die forging. Clifton is a treasure, an opnionated, crusty and cantankoris treasure, but a treasure none the less... :-) Clifton is also a confrontational type A personality, I am not. I can recognise that we both want the same thing, to get the peice made correctly quickly to the best of our ability. But what that looks like when I do it is different from when he does it, but he pushes and wants to work faster and smarter, and has a lot of confidence in the machine he is working on and in himself. I am more cautious, and I don't trust myself on a mechanical hammer. But in my own defence Clifton is fond of saying 'Anyone who says there is ONE right way to do something is full of ..... If my way works, and it suits me better, then for me it is 'the right way'... Clifton just doesn't have a lot of patience (I could end the sentence right here;-) with people with more money than sense who buy these little self contained hammers, and love then and watch then tup' but don't manage to produce much of anything. If you can make the machine sing and can produce something, you might get a little grudging respect, and a lot of ribbing;-) Nathan has seen a lot of demonstrators, and to be honest that flattens out your learning curve, you don't tend to run across a "new" useful bits of information very often, so you look for situations where you are considerably more likely to be able to pick up a few "new" ideas to add to your toolbox. That demo had a huge wealth of experience and there were some neat tricks that most smiths have never seen before, having never worked in an industrial setting with a bunch of immigrant blacksmiths and steam hammers. I stayed glued to the demo for as long as I could, but I had to get up occasionally to stay awake and/or still be able to move, and to check on my son. I missed most of Steve's demo on tongs on the hammer, and the dvd focuses on Clifton while Steve is working. Steve's paddle for making tongs works just slicker than snott, he makes it look just so easy...

The third guy was Kurt Farenback also an industrial blacksmith, who has a complete set of LGs and a couple steam hammers. Clifton worked in a steel mill in Gary IN, till he retired. Steve Parker makes tongs for big hydraulic forging press work, he works all day long on a Nazel B3? or B4? and it was 2007;-) You didn't make it to the 08 IBA conference;-) I was agrueing with Clifton last weekend at a local hammer-in... He was poo pooing the small selfcontained hammers, and contending that you had more power and a wider range of blows on a mechanical hammer, and you could get it cheaper. Which is all true, but I was explaining that I was a "timid";-) and didn't like a mechanical hammer eating my lunch, when I could get an air hammer to ease up to the work if that was what I needed... The other advantage of an air hammer is that you do not need to make physical adjustments to the hammer to use tooling, which you often should do with a mechanical hammer. Clifton would like to see me get a little more gumption and a decent sized mechanical hammer, so I could get some real work done;-) If I got to work on one everyday, and could get a really accurate feel for how the hammer is going to behave, I might. But right now I don't get into the shop everyday, let alone every week, so walking in cold I would rather have a nice polite but less "capeable" or "aggressive" air hammer, rather than a mechanical hammer that hits harder and faster... YMMV Air hammers suit my temperment better, I will likely get around to buying and or building a mechanical, maybe after getting a decent small steam hammer??? ;-) Depends on what God drops into my lap first, and hopefully he only figuritively drops it in my lap, any hammer I would likely buy would certainly kill me if it literally fell in my lap of course... ;-) Anything remotely well behaved is better than working too much by hand (this said by someone who regularly forges 1" square by hand, urgh!) ;-)

There is a place for crown dies and even combo dies, but I really like flat dies. I don't do a lot of free form forging, but when I do I use the edges of my flat dies or drag the material where I want it with a paddle fuller. Though I do like the way crown dies work, and will eventually get around to making a pair for my hammer. If you have the time and the money, and an extra hammer or two set up in the shop, dedicated special purpose dies can be worth the money, but for most shops you can do everything you need to do cheaper and faster with flat dies and a little tooling, and maybe one or two other sets of dies. Saddle tools, and paddle tools are fast and simple to make, and take no time to change out. Spring tools and a fixture or two to drop over your bottom die are a little harder to make, but are still easier than cutting a pair of dies to fit a sowblock. Plus they are pretty quick to use and change out, and when well made will give good consistant results, maybe not quite a good as fixed dies mounted on the hammer, but then again you might not be able to tell the difference... ?;-)

What do you really need it for??? I really like the looks of the flypresses I have seen, and they seem to suit how I work pretty well. But I can build a hudraulic press more easily than I can a fly press... So we will see weither I get freetime or disposable income first;-)

I suppose this is just semantics, and how you conceptualize the way the controls work... ;-) Selfcontained hammers are cool because the system is balanced, and using this to good advantage is pretty easy on most hammers. Most of them have wonderful control and you can vary the force deliviered by how long a stroke you allow the hammer to attempt to make. By precisely controling the length of the stroke you can just barely "tap" the stock you are working, like when you are breaking corners. This is the point where the hammer is just beginning to pull ram back up, so the vector on the ram is shifting, so in a way it is zero-ing out, ie a lighter blow. The hammer hits "harder" when the ram is accelerating past the surface of your stock, think follow through. The closer the turnaround point is to the surface of your stock the "lighter" the blow will be. Steve Parker regularly pencils some of the tong reins down to a shade over 1/8" on a Nazel B4, which is slinging a 450# Ram. Now that is control! A selfcontained hammer will hit a weaker blow if it isn't allowed to develop much of a stroke. If you have too much tooling between the dies, or the stock is too thick the ram cannot travel far enough to have much punch, and will hit weakly. Having more daylight between the dies will tend to make a hammer slower, but will tend to make it hit harder, and give you more options as far as tooling goes. Try fitting a good sized V-block onto your bottom die, a goodsized piece of stock and a top tool shaping things up and you will understand;-)

The fall weight of the hammer doesn't normally change, but by amping up the PSI you can get a bit more force out of the ram. A lot of hammers run on low PSI I've seen some old steam hammers run on air between 35-100 PSI. BUt to be honest in my experience the difference with big flat dies is practically negligable. If you want to hit "HARDER" think smaller. With all smithing opperations, but with power hammers especially you need to understand VARP: Volume, Area, Resistance, and Power... All increases in the first three result in a greater need for Power... And by reducing one or more of those first three you can work like you have more power. It takes 4x as much Power to forge 1" square than it does to work 1/2" square. But by reducing the Area you are striking you can functionally increase the power you have. Resistance can sometimes be over come by working hotter, (be carefull with high carbon or alloy steels on this)and quiting when you drop below a certain level of acceptable work heat. Generally when the steel trys to jump out of the tongs and attack you then you are working TOO cold;-) That is why small hammers have SMALL DIES, the Area that a small air hammer can reasonablly be expected to be effective working IS smaller. Tooling is another area where you can focus your energy and get the most bang for your buck. You can do a lot with top tooling, and that gives you a geat deal of control. But the spring fullers and swages can be designed to really give you an advantage. You can also put stems on them that will allow you to make a fixture that clamps to your bottom die and locks the spring tool down

I have a 7.5HP Quincy Air Master light industrial air compressor with an 80 gallon reciever. It produces 21.3 CFM @175PSI and to be honest I can bury it with my hammer. If you are planning on doing a lot of drawing, you will want a lot of compressor. If you mainly use hand tooling and use it like a striker or a treadle hammer you will likely be happy with just the bare minimium for your compressor. Questions to ask yourself to figure out just how big a compressor you really need??? Do you work multiple pieces at the same time? Do you have a gas forge, and do you stack it high and deep? Do you want to do a lot of drawing, table legs, tool handles, damascus??? Do you mainly like to work one piece at a time? Do you use a coal forge with a hand crank blower? Do you mainly want to use the tremedous control of an air hammer? Do like using hand tooling? There are lots of people who get by with smaller compressors and are happy with their hammers and the amount of money they have invested. But to be honest even an inefficient air hammer is better than trying to beat your way through by hand, if your not smithing all the time. An air hammer always works better with extra free air, and lot of capacity. ALL hammers work better with a proper foundation, that is isolated from the main floor of the building. Do big wooden bases work, yes most of the time. Is it the best type of base, no. Would I use one, maybe;-) There is a big difference between ideal, and what we need to settle for in a practical world. Ideally you should have a anvil to ram ratio of between 20-40 to 1, but there are a lot of hammers built that have an anvil to ram ratio of 6 to 1, they bounce abit more than they should but they do work, and if built strudily enough they will last and do an ok job... Bottomline... Strech and do the best you can, and don't let the lack of being able to do what is "IDEAL" keep you from doing what you can;-)

That would have been Nathan Robertson @ JackPine Forge. He makes a nice hammer, and does production runs on a KA 75. Using tooling under it is very nice and has good control. My foot gets tired tapping for each blow, but I am used to a hammer that cycles. They don't use air at the same rate as a utility style hammer, so you should be able to get by with a 5hp with a big reciever and not run it to death. If you can afford it, like using top tooling, and don't want to do mainly long draws I would think about it seriously. If I were in the market to buy a new hammer, my personal preference would be for one of the Turkish self-contained hammers. Since I have already disposed of my discretionairy income;-) I can only dream about buying an old Nazel B3 or larger... So I will be building any new hammer that I get.