My first hammer

[infinityblacksmithing]

This is my first attempt at a hammer. I felt like I wanted a straight pein, so I made one. I am also working on a diagonal pein, and a double diagonal pein just for fun.
I think this hammer was a great success aside from being a little smaller then I wanted. It is just under 2 lbs, I was trying for around 2 1/2 lbs. Both ends are tempered to a brown, just shy of purple. I didn't want them to hard and am testing out how I like it before I temper the other two hammers. I don't know what the steel was, it was from a 6ft pry bar I found in my Grandma's garage. It's somewhere in a medium carbon range, I've made two hardies out of it both of which have held up very nicely. The handle is just temporary, I want to have a rectangular shaped handle once I either find or make one.

Let me know what you all think of it. Also, I would be interested to hear what you all have tempered your hammers to.
Thanks for looking,
Aaron



By the way, the touchmark used on it is my first attempt at one that I posted about today aswell.

[Wesley Chambers]

Nice work for your first hammer.

Its 3:20 am and Im bored so Im going to talk about setting the handle! please dont take offense if you know all this, again Im just very bored.

In a replacement handle you will find a nice cleanly cut section the width of the handle, this is to allow the handle to pinch closed and slide into the hammer's eye. Once fitted on the head a slim wooden wedge is hammered into that cut spreading the wood back out filling the hourglass shape inside the hammers eye, this section then has a metal wedge, generally barbed hammered in perpendicular to the direction of the first wood wedge both locking it in place and spreading the handle in two directions giving it a firm grip to the head.

I found with a lot of store bought hammers that the handle is a bit over sized for most peoples use/comfort and will have plenty of length to make a clean cut under the old head allowing for a refit of your new/old head!

I think another reason for this reply is that I dodged a number of flying hammer/punch/fuller heads from improperly fitted handles while I was in school so I'm just a bit tainted but no matter, you did a great job on this hammer and thats the point! or the blunt? Bah I wish I could sleep like a normal person!!!!

[bigfootnampa]

IMO you have tempered it over much. I temper to a dark blue or very light purple. The head is good but Wesley is right about the handle fitting, as is it is an accident that will likely happen sooner than later. I would not use it like that!

[ThomasPowers]

Tempered over much how? Brown is a harder temper than blue. If anything I would say under tempered but as a medium carbon steel Brown may work as a forging hammer---use will tell.

For "special" hammers I like to use Ipe wedges (rasped out of some flooring boards) and pattern welded wedges, (you generally can't see the pattern but when you tell folks they get a funny look on their faces...)

[infinityblacksmithing]

Nice work for your first hammer.

Its 3:20 am and Im bored so Im going to talk about setting the handle! please dont take offense if you know all this, again Im just very bored.

In a replacement handle you will find a nice cleanly cut section the width of the handle, this is to allow the handle to pinch closed and slide into the hammer's eye. Once fitted on the head a slim wooden wedge is hammered into that cut spreading the wood back out filling the hourglass shape inside the hammers eye, this section then has a metal wedge, generally barbed hammered in perpendicular to the direction of the first wood wedge both locking it in place and spreading the handle in two directions giving it a firm grip to the head.

I found with a lot of store bought hammers that the handle is a bit over sized for most peoples use/comfort and will have plenty of length to make a clean cut under the old head allowing for a refit of your new/old head!

I think another reason for this reply is that I dodged a number of flying hammer/punch/fuller heads from improperly fitted handles while I was in school so I'm just a bit tainted but no matter, you did a great job on this hammer and thats the point! or the blunt? Bah I wish I could sleep like a normal person!!!!

Wesley, Thank you for your concern as I do understand it to be dangerous as is. However, I'm sure you missed it, I did mention that it was just temporary. I just had to try it out and only had about 30 mins left in the shop. That would be why it is just secured with a couple of nails. I wanted it to be easy to take out for the permanent handle.

[infinityblacksmithing]

My thought on the temper was since it was on the lower end of medium carbon that having it a little harder would be better. If I find it to be too hard I can always redo the heat treating process. I am going to test if out for a few days and see how I like it before tempering the other hammers.

[MattBower]

For "special" hammers I like to use Ipe wedges (rasped out of some flooring boards) and pattern welded wedges, (you generally can't see the pattern but when you tell folks they get a funny look on their faces...)

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who indulges in this kind of frivolity. One of my hammers has a helve of laminated hickory, oak and mahogany. Just for the heck of it. :)

[Frosty]

Looks fine to me, especially for a first hammer.

The only suggestions I have are to note it's balance and adjust on future hammers. Getting a good working balance between the pein and face can make for better working results.

Heat treating can make a big difference depending on variables such as who's using it and how often they miss the HOT iron/steel. For instance, if you actually hit the face of my Soderfors it's going to mar the hammer unless you're too close to the edge, then a hard hammer face might chip the anvil and that can be dangerous. A hard hammer will also flatten the edge of a hot hardy so a soft hammer is good for a beginners's use.

Frosty the Lucky.

[infinityblacksmithing]

Looks fine to me, especially for a first hammer.

The only suggestions I have are to note it's balance and adjust no future hammers. Getting a good working balance between the pein and face can make for better working results.

Heat treating can make a big difference depending on variables such as who's using it and how often they miss the HOT iron/steel. For instance, if you actually hit the face of my Soderfors it's going to mar the hammer unless you're too close to the edge, then a hard hammer face might chip the anvil and that can be dangerous. A hard hammer will also flatten the edge of a hot hardy so a soft hammer is good for a beginners's use.

Frosty the Lucky.

Could you, or anyone else, tell me a bit more about the balance. My assumption about the balance is to have equal weight on each side of the eye. I have found that the majority of store bought hammers have more material on the face side then the pein. When I started this hammer I drilled small pilot holes for slitting and drifting the eye so it would be in the center of the bar, length wise and width wise.

[ThomasPowers]

As a gedanken experiment thank of taking that same set-up and putting it on a piece of 1/4" stock to balance and mark that point. Now draw out the peen side to 1' long. Put it back on the balancer and mark the balance point---are they the same point? Lever arm calculations play a part too in having a well balanced hammer.

[bigfootnampa]

Okay, I was thinking of the second brown that occurs after the grays and is toward the very soft end of the color scale. I agree then that the first brown may be a bit hard as my blue hammers seem just right and harder than most factory hammers as they are. BTW just from looking your balance seems quite good on that hammer to me.

[maddog]

That's a nice looking hammer. Much nicer than my first hammer. Standard practice is to flatten out the swelling around the eye, but I love the way it looks on yours. The same tool could make a nice fuller if the face were soft.