What good are ball pein hammers?

[maddog]

I know they have their use in general metal working for peening but what place do they have in a blacksmith shop? Why are they so popular in general purpose non-blacksmithing work? I pick them up at garage sales and the pein shows little or no use. I rarely use them. Mostly I convert them into small top tools. I find them unbalanced and the radius of the pein too small for most work.

[rustyshackleford]

I agree on the unbalanced part, thy almost resemble cutler's hammers in that regard. I guess we should look at old ones to see if the eye has shifted back away from the face over the years. I suppose the Lay person uses them on cold chisels and other generic metal-whacking where a carpenter's hammer would fall short.

[DennisG]

I make things with the ball side. If you can think it, you can do it. Also the ball is good for making textures. I think it has been around so long because it is very versatile if you take a moment to think about what you can do with it besides using the hammer end.

But what do I know?

[ThomasPowers]

Large ballpeens are a general smithing hammer you do anything with them that you would do with a 2 or 3# singlejack.

I tend to make hawks from them and also to forge them into dishing hammers as Weygers suggests. Armour makers *love* large dishing hammers!

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

I'm always surprised how many old pictures (100 - 150 years ago) of smiths at the anvil show them with a ball pein hammer.

[Sask Mark]

Wasn't Phillip Simmons main hammer a ball pein?

[Spears]

The ball pein hammer is my number one tool when I put a new or additional wedge into the top of an old hammer or axe when the handle starts to loosen up. Perhaps on some of these old tools the handle wasn't installed very well or correctly in the first place, but I sure love the ball pein for that. Flat side to set it, pein side to sink it. Not sure of the number one intention but it sure works good for that. Excellent topic of discussion. Spears.

[John B]

Dishing, rivetting, texturing, spreading, planishing, forming shouldering and anywhere else I find it useful

[fciron]

The ball end can also be used for 'erasing' mistaken center punch marks, adjusting squares, tighten wobbly holes and all sorts of cold-worked adjustments.

[Sask Mark]

As per what John B said, I have used a ball pein to plainish out a couple of missed blows on the face and horn of the anvil as recommended by Mr. Sarver.

[chyancarrek]

Dishing, rivetting, texturing, spreading, planishing, forming shouldering and anywhere else I find it useful

Ditto to John . . .

99% of my work is done with BP's, even the heavy forging - I've always found them very comfortable to use.

[Timothy Miller]

Form what I understand it was in the English speaking world the "mechanic's hammer". I use that in the old sense of the word as somebody who built and fixed machinery of any kind. I know English smiths used a ball pein as their primary hand hammer. Machinists used them to chip castings before taking them to the planer. They were used to set rivets cold and for driving cold chisels and punches. A round peen is good for forming certain kinds of scarfs when forge welding.

[maddog]

Ditto to John . . .

99% of my work is done with BP's, even the heavy forging - I've always found them very comfortable to use.

How often do you use the pein when forging hot?

Added later:

I use a square faced, Hofi style hammer with a rounding face in place of the usual cross pein. I use both faces about equally. With hammers that have cross peins, it seems to me that they dont get used that often. I can't imagine using the pein of a ball pein while forging hot except very occaisonaly. To me it seems like a strange choice as one's primary forging hammer. This probably means that I dont understand how a BP can be used.

[tzonoqua]

Hi Maddog!

I guess it all just depends what kind of work you do. I use ball peins of all sizes all the time when I'm forging, for ornamental and sculptural work, and anything else that suits it.. I was also taught to use the pein to rivet with. (hot and cold) I can't imagine life without a ball pein hammer!! As you say they are great for modding, especially since they're cheap and plentiful!! I can't think of a more versatile hammer to have. Yeah, I guess you can tell I'm in the ball pein hammer fan club!! :D

[Phil H]

Like tzonoqua, I use the ball of a ball pein to work both ends of a rivet. As for general work, I don't really care what is on the non-striking end of the hammer head. In fact, one of my favourite hammers for light work is a claw hammer with a fibreglass handle. Definitely not 'true path'.

[jimmy seale]

also the peen makes a great paper gasget cutter.a small one of coarse.you can also use it to flair pipe

[Steve Sells]

I use the flat face for driving tools like chisels and punches, and gentile finish forging as mine is a 1# hammer. The ball end is used for texturing but mainly I use it for peining tangs of blades into the pommels and for rivets.

[chyancarrek]

How often do you use the pein when forging hot?

Hey MD,

Most of my work is small scale and hammered vessels so I'm not trying to move large cross sections - For myself, I've found that the round pein works great for moving specific small areas of metal and I can get into tighter areas than I would with a cross-pein.

[Eric Farrar]

When I first started out, a ball-pein was all I had so my #2 BP is still my next to favorite hammer (first hammer I re-heat treated and polished up pretty too).... I use ball peins ranging from 4 oz up to #3 for all types of forging....

Things that get the ball pein more often than not: texturing, scrolling, drawing out fish tails, rivetting, shouldering, straightening, bowls and spoons,..... I'm sure there's more but these in particular come to mind quickly.

[Steve Shimanek]

Spoons, ladles, hammered copper bracelets, making the dimple in horseshoeing tongs......

[JNewman]

A ball pein hammer is one of the hand hammers I use the most. Even when I use a cross pein hammer I rarely use the pein for drawing I use the edge of the far side of the anvil for that. The industrial smiths I know from the steel mill here in Hamilton and Charlie Sutton who apprenticed in the shipyards in England all used a ball pein as their primary hammer. That being said they all had either a striker or power hammer for heavy drawing.

[ianinsa]

Not ever really thought about it yet on reflection it's the first hammer that I would grab to hammer with? Possibly from habit. More likely due to the fact that they are always around. Years of collecting and surely the most abundant of hammers.

Ian

[maddog]

Thank you very much for all the comments. It has been an eye opener. I still can't see myself using a BP as my primary forging hammer but I would like to start using them for some of the work mentioned above.

I have a bunch of old BP heads. I am thinking of dressing a few and making them serviceable. What do people recommend as a useful set in terms of weight and pein radius.

One thought: It seems to me the fact that the BP is weighted on the face side would make it more accurate when using the pein since the center of gravity will be following the handle not leading it.

[ThomasPowers]

I like to have at least one where the main face is a wide shallow dome---very handy for cleaning up knives where you need a tap right near the edge to pop a thicker slightly recessed area out to the "edge". The dome allows you to work right at the edge without hitting the anvil or places to either side of the contact point that may be *perfect* already.

Of course some of this is neo-tribal knifemaking where you will be finishing all by hand and want less than 10% stock removal on the finished blade.

[pike3e]

I was at a hammer in and Rob Hudson passed around a ball pein hammer that he had forged the pein into a bowie blade. It did not have much of a function but it was pretty cool.