What is a good price?

[nwaite]

I am starting to buy more tools for smithing. I only have 2 hammers atm so im looking for more. im very new to this an don't really know how to make my own. What i need to know is how much should i be paying for a good hammer? I found a few at a antique shop today... a large arrow shaped chisel and large rectangle one both around 2 lb's. they were $12 each. i just don't know how much i should be spending on this stuff. don't have much cash so i would like to get all i can for what i got. any one know a good site i can compare prices or something like that. any info would help. thank you.

[ThomasPowers]

I prefer junk shops and fleamarkets and garage sales to antique stores.

Generally I don't spend more than $5 per hammer head and *try* to buy them minus the handles as you generally have to reset them anyway and you can do it *right*. (I also buy handles at fleamarkets, garage sales or when the local hardware store has a sale)

One time a fellow was trying to up the price on a set hammer I wanted telling me that the *new* handle was worth more than what I thought was fair to pay---well it was handled so badly that I pulled the new handle out of the head and handed it to him and said now how much? I would have had to toss the "new" handle he had botched into the head; so I saw no reason to pay for it.

Have you asked your neighbors, folks at church, co-workers, etc what's lurking around their basements, garages, sheds, barns, etc?

[infinityblacksmithing]

I personally would not spend $12 on a used 2lbs hammer unless I really wanted it bad. I usually pick up used hammers for $1-$3 each at the flea market. Sledges are usually 5-7$. I find the antique stores around charge alot more for everything since they seem to know what they actually have. The one I like to go to has a 30lbs post vice selling for $165 firm, they won't budge on the price even though they've had it for 2 years.
I have picked up 2lbs cross peins for $15 brand new from TSC, to give a reference to price.

Good luck on your hunt for tools, I don't think it every really stops.

[pkrankow]

If I came across a makers mark I know, like Brian Brazeal's or Hofi's I would be hard pressed to not be giddy as I handed $12 over.

Phil

[maddog]

What everybody else said.

If you know hammers and you spot something you really want, it might make sense to go $12 or quite a bit more.If you are just getting started and looking for utility hammers, then $5 is the max IMO.

Almost any hammer you buy will need the face ground and probably some work on the handle. Some, like ball peins can be reforged into small top tools. Sometimes the steel wont stand it. You will be much more likely to try these things on a $2 tool than a $20 tool.

[nwaite]

thank you very much guys that makes me feel good ... $5 is about what i have been going on. the pieces that i fond for $12 were i think you place them in the anvil. ill see if i can find a pick of them. i think it mite have been a bottom fuller or swage?

[nwaite]

oh an there were tongs for $8 about 2ft long... is that good?

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

oh an there were tongs for $8 about 2ft long... is that good?

Only a good deal if they'll hold what you want to forge. Sound a little big.

[nwaite]

sounds good... I just want to buy every thing i can ... it's driven me mad. I cant wait till i get to the point were i can make my own tools.

[maddog]

thank you very much guys that makes me feel good ... $5 is about what i have been going on. the pieces that i fond for $12 were i think you place them in the anvil. ill see if i can find a pick of them. i think it mite have been a bottom fuller or swage?

Tools made to fit in the square hole of the anvil are called hardy tools or bottom tools. A well made bottom tool is easily worth $12. Like wise a well made pair of tongs. But as Grant said, only if you need them. It will take some experience before you know what a well made smithing tool looks like and whether it suits your work. Of course if you want to buy these just to collect them, thats another matter, otherwise I suggest you wait on that stuff. It will be there later.


If I could give advice to myself when I was getting started, this is the list of tools that I would suggest. Assuming you have a forge and anvil:

A couple of cross peins 2lb - 3lb. Grind the faces to a watch glass profile and the peins to a radius of 1/2". A 5lb or 6lb hammer to use as a sledge is also useful.

Tongs to hold 3/8" & 1/2" bar stock. If these cant be found second hand, buy them new if you can afford it.

Flat jawed vice grips for everything else.

A cuttoff hardy tool and a good quality hacksaw

Any kind of cold chisel or punch longer than 8" that you can get for a $1 or less. These are very easily reground or reforged into small hot working tools.

If you are going to make your own tools then look out for scrap in the form of: Coil springs, leaf springs, sucker rod, lug wrenches, torsion bars, leaf spring ubolts, trailer hitch balls.

[dkunkler]

One time a fellow was trying to up the price on a set hammer I wanted telling me that the *new* handle was worth more than what I thought was fair to pay---well it was handled so badly that I pulled the new handle out of the head and handed it to him and said now how much?

I would like to have been there to see the look on his face when you pulled the handle out and handed it to him.

[monstermetal]

I have at least four hammers that cost over a hundred bucks each... And several that are not worth $.50....

Thats like asking how much a car is worth..... Well is it a Pinto or a Rolls Royce?

Find a hammer and forge something... If it takes $2 or $20 what is important is it feels right and you use it...

[bigfootnampa]

My favorite hammer was bought for $3. The smith who sold it to me felt a little guilty about the price as it was kind of mushroomed and rough looking... I saw that it had good bones though. I said "it just needs a little love" he muttered "a lotta love". I explained what I would do with it and he said "you're talking about reforging it!". "That's right" I replied. It was one of the best buys I ever made on a tool! In addition to forging in the mushroomed material I had to grind off a fair amount that was too splintered to be trustworthy. Then I shortened and thickened the peen, domed the face a bit and redrifted the handle hole and reheat treated the head. Afterwards I used the shaving horse to make a new handle and fitted it carefully. You'd have to offer me well over $200.00 for it to tempt me now. I use that hammer for about 80 percent of my hand hammer forging. So price is quite variable as Larry says... depends on what you are getting. If you could afford it I would say that you could hardly spend more wisely than to invest in a Nathan's Jackpine hammer or a Brian Brazeal custom hammer (preferably by hiring him to teach you how to make your own) or a Hofi hammer (they sell them here) or a Brent Bailey hammer (works of art in hammer form). These hammers are not cheap (I think the Jackpine hammers are about $75 to $90) but the most expensive (the Brian Brazeal custom hammer class) is probably the best bargain of all!

[ThomasPowers]

Don't go wild over hardy tools until you know what you are likely to use, think of the pain of going broke for a complete set of XYZ only to find out you really need a Q and now don't have the money for it.

At Quad-State there was a fellow with a large number of old battered hardy tools and top tools that started selling them at a decent price, whereupon I bought a couple I really could use. By the end of the event they were quite cheaper and I picked up several that I could modify into tooling I could use. (Helps to have anvils with a hardy holes that will take top tools turned upside down!)

You definitely want the Hardy for cutting hot stock and may want a fuller. Most of the rest you may not want or need until you figure out how to use one to make a job you do regularly simpler---I've now bought a couple of bottom swages as I use them when rolling rasps into rasptlesnakes faster and easier than using the cutting step on an anvil which I did for years...

[bajajoaquin]

I'm not sure how many more tools you really need at this point. There are lots of comments in threads on here (usually about really nice anvils) that it's the smith who makes the tools effective, not the other way around.

If you have two hammers all ready, you probably have enough to keep you going until you come across bargains, or find an expensive one worth while.

You don't say what you have right now, but if you have a 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 lb hammer ball or cross pein, and a smaller ball pien, that's a pretty good start. For forge welding, you probably want a small ball pien. But that's pretty easy to find at a garage sale.

Patience!

[nwaite]

Well thank you very much guys .. Appreciate all the feed back all very helpful. I do have two smaller hammers an a 5lb so i guess i will stick with that for now. Man i could not image spending $100 on a hammer. I hope i get good enough some day that i will have a need for one.

[ThomasPowers]

I have a bucket of hammers as I generally pick up any decent hammerhead that's a dollar or less to use as stock for hawks or even to give to "idjit" students who want to run out and pay $25 for a hammer that should run them $2 (1 for the head and one for the replacement handle).

One of the joys of smithing is that you can do it and do it well "on the cheap"

I once traded away my bucket to a friend who couldn't find any out his way. Took less than a year to have another one full up over the top...