Does anyone have any tips on holding a steel hammer face in place during heating and welding to a wrought iron body? I've seen drawings (maybe in Bealer?) of the technique in which you use a chisel to raise little spikes around the edge of the face, then drive those into the body of the hammer at a high heat to temporarily hold it in place. But I've tried something similar (in a slightly different context) and never had much luck getting the pieces to stick for long. Does anyone have any tips on this technique, or suggestions for a better one? And how thick should the steel face be, anyway?

Duhhhh. Never mind. The should've-been-obvious solution is a couple tack welds! Still, what's a good thickness for the face steel?

Basic Blacksmithing , harries and heer, pg 78 (in the pdf) recommends a "piece of leaf spring" and a nail made out of a spring to fasten temporarily in the center.

Phil

If you don't want to use tack welds there is always the old standby re-bar tie wire. On the old hammer I used to have in my collection the faces were about a 1/4" to 3/8" thick. On the one face it was pretty thin toward the one edge and pretty thick toward the other, the other end was fairly even all over though. I have a straight peen that is solid steel on the one end and an eighth inch thick steel face wore off on one edge.

Thanks, guys. Both good ideas. Phil, the one you describe sounds a lot like the method Lee Sauder described to me on another forum.

when we re faced stonemasons hammers the peice of steel was nearly cut through to the size of the face then the hammer and steel were brought to heat the hammer to a full heat, a long drift was then knocked into the eye ,to keep the eye open and to handle the hammer ,the hammer was then stood on its end on the swage block with the hammer in a hole with the drift accross the hole ,the steel was then dabbed on and welded and the bar twisted of , ,usualy two heats were needed the job never went on the anvil, untill it was welded then just to square it up.

Another good one. Thanks, Bruce!