What good are ball pein hammers?

[John B]

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.

It would seem you are using a ball pein hammer, just a larger ball than what you perceive as a normal ball pein hammer
so you can see how useful they are.

[maddog]

It would seem you are using a ball pein hammer, just a larger ball than what you perceive as a normal ball pein hammer
so you can see how useful they are.

Yes this is true. But it always seemed to me that pein was too tight on a BP. I shall dress and handle a few heads and look for opportunities to use them in ways people have suggested.

[Frank Turley]

I started as a farrier with a rounding hammer which has a ball face. Peens are smaller than faces. Presently, for most of my work, I use a cross peen. I reserve the ball peen for a few things. One is cold and hot riveting. If the rivet is beginning to bend, it is more easily caught with a peen/angle blow to bring it back to center. When heading a rivet in a heading tool, there is less chance of hitting the tool itself, when using a ball peen or ball face. The scarf on the side edge of a flat bar prior to T-welding can be done with a ball peen. If you have a spoon bowl already shaped and thinned, it can be sunk hot into a wooden block starting on a flat place and using a ball peen. It will make its own cavity into the wood. The bowl can then be fine tuned over a ball stake. The ball peen can be used as a top-tool bob punch, but should be struck with a brass or copper hammer. I make horsehead hoof picks, and I make the cheek of the horse with a small ball peen used as a bob punch. As a horseshoer, I would draw the thin projection [clips} off the side/edge of the shoe with a ball peen.

The ball end of some of the newly made hammers has a kind of radiused "conical" shape, whereas the older ones had a spherical ball. The older, well made hammers had a nice octagonal section between eye and ball.

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

[arftist]

Each of the peins move the metal a different way. The ball pein's movement is all directions away from the blow. It is he only pein shape capable of This. A large variety of sizes can be aquired cheaply. It is easy to modify the flat face into an additional size.

I have many ball peins and use some of them very often.

[forgemaster]

I will often use a BP when starting an eye on the anvil, when making my right angle bend prior to bending the ring. the ball is the right shape to bend the material over the anvils edge and to allow a nice radius to develop. We also have a few ball piens with long handles which are used exclusively as firewelding hammers as that allows you to keep your hand away from the heat and the ball is usefull for welding in the end of the scarf if it has not welded properly when you first tacked it.
We also have a BP which I made as an apprentice as my final TAFE job, only the ball has broken off now, we call it a pain hammer. Still is a fairly usefull hammer, its nicely weighted.
I often find when using a cross pein etc that I will go to use the hammer with the wrong pein presented. never happens with a ball pein or a flogging hammer.

Phil

[ishoe]

I was told that it was the smith's chosen hammer when using a striker. For an untimed blow from the striker the collision would simply glance off the pein of the masters hammer. I don't know but it is as good a theory as any I guess. Probably why you see the ball pein in use in so many of the old photos. Being a horseshoer by trade I used a two pound Heller ball pein for years to draw the source and finish drawing clips on horseshoes. It worked very well but I now use a one and three quarter pound cross pein for the same job.(My hammer control is greatly improved since those early days!) I seldom use a ball pein anymore. My hammer collection has grown to the point of obsession,(as per my brides thoughts anyhow) so I have alot of hammers that are better suited to what I am doing and for my style of forging. A good smith once told me a hammer is nothing more than a rock with a stick attached to it. I guess he had a point. Most seasoned smith's could get the job done with some pretty rudimentay tools and equipment.

Troy

[Bentiron1946]

I've got, oh wait a minuet, I had an old, really old ball peen but I just sold it today to HWHII along with a lot of other stuff and it isn't off balanced the way most modern ball peens are, the ball is round but the flat face isn't as big as in proportion as on modern hammers, it tapers down some so it is a very comfortable hammer no matter which end you are using. It is a reasonably heavy hammer maybe two pounds. I have a little Heller 2 oz. and my biggest is a 32 oz. Stanley.

[Willis]

90% of my work is done with a ball peen hammer. All of my hawks are made from ball peen's unless someone specifically request a rr spike hawk. All my 'iron age primitive' knives are 'aged' using the ball end. The larger the knife, the larger the ball I use.
Even my cross peen hammer is an old ball peen with the ball flattened to my liking.

[Caius]

i use a 1# for most of my fine tuning, a 4# sledge for my metal moving. my dad has a 3# i think, in his truck's toolbox that he refers to as a "Fittin' Hammer". i asked him about it once, he said it was named such because "if something don't fit, i beat on it with that hammer til it does." i have a 2# bp that i need to put a handle in and use.

[ThomasPowers]

Picked up a smallish Heller ball pein at the fleamarket today for fifty cents; guess I'll throw it in the bucket of hammers!

[tagkver]

I use ball-peens for all types of smithing work all of witch have been mentioned but as far as non smithing work I keep one on the tractor for changing equipment driving out pins and what not the peen works good on stubern pins