What kind of manual hammer do I get?

[LearningToForge]

I think the hammer discussion is something way beyond me and not a regular hammer. Just starting out and curious what hammer is best to get for bladesmithing. Thank you.

[Dragons lair]

Best advice I can give is use what works for you and you can afford. Glad you found a piece of track. Remember the black/bladesmith makes the tool the tools do NOT make the smith. If your track dosen't work for you you know where I am.
Ken

[LearningToForge]

thank you very much

[pkrankow]

I got some Truper Cross peen hammers at the local "big box" for about $10 each. I got a 2# and a 3#, reshaped the handles, shortened them too, and dressed the peen. I am sure they do not compare to better hammers, but the price was right for my first hammers. I reshaped the 3# first and its feel was lighter than the unaltered 2#. I like slab sided hammer handles where my fingertips barely touch my palm when I squeeze. You may like something different. Carving and abusing a $10 hammer is almost painless if you do something bad to the hammer.

Phil

[unkle spike]

I have mainly cheap HF hammers that I dressed the faces on, except for my favorite hammer, a Dancing Frog Forge hammer from Richard Thiebeau here on Iforge.

I bought a 2 pound hammer at HF for 3.99 a couple of weeks ago. Last count I have 13 hammers of all sorts, and paid under 10 for almost all of them.

[ThomasPowers]

Straight peen or cross peen, with nice wide curve peens: ( not > ; starting out 2 pounds is generally a good weight. I strongly suggest getting used cheap hammers and learning how to handle them yourself.

[Ken Ra]

Blacksmithing has always justified my scrounging garage saleing and fleamarketing addictions and there are many poor lost hammers looking for homes out there. Get as many as you can.

[ThomasPowers]

yup I once traded a bucket of ballpeen hammers to another smith who couldn't find any where he was at.

Of course some of the dealers at the fleamarket get miffed when they find out that I will generally buy any ballpeen hammer head at a dollar or less but won't go a penny higher. They seem to think that as I must have a use for them they can jack the price up not realizing that once you have enough of them you can afford to wait till a cheap one turns up.

One of my favorite hammer buys was an old hammer of interesting shape that the dealer had re-handled and wanted a pretty penny because it "had a new handle". He had done such a bad job putting the handle in that I pulled it out and handed it back to him and asked "how much for just the head"?

[rusty ripple]

just to get started i would recommend a 28 oz ballpein and a 2-3 lb cross pein any brand will do. you wont be able to tell the subtle differences between hammers at first and you wont get miffled when you learn why not to use an expensive hammer on a hot cut hardy.

its easy to get overwhelmed in the beginning of almost everything if you try to digest all information at once. eventually it falls into place.

[David Einhorn]

You usually get what you pay for. I humbly suggest acquiring a hammer, or having someone shape the face of a half-way decent hammer so that it does not add dents and dings to what you are forging. I have seen to many folks use hammers with flat faces and sharp corners that put dings into every project, and then see those smiths tell others that they don't see how someone can forge something without dings and dents, and that it is just part of normal blacksmithing. ..... Get a better hammer.