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I Forge Iron

Thor's hammer


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Pretty off-topic, but I recently saw a movie poster for the upcoming movie Thor, and its ridiculously oversized hammer. I did some rough estimates, and I figure that the hammer is about 4 3/4" by 4 3/4" by 13.5", which would put it (very) roughly at 86 pounds. Good thing he's a god, I guess, I feel reasonably confident I wouldn't look quite as graceful carrying an 86 pound hammer. :P

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Is This movie gonna come out in theaters????
I don't keep up with things. We Don't have any theaters in my town or county.
Only 200+ in my town. So internet and TV is only chance I get to hear of such.
But wouldn't mind seeing a movie about old Thor.

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Biggest hammer I've seen was last week. Brian Brazeal had it with him. I believe he said it weighed 30 lbs.

toolworkshop056.jpg

That's my little six pound hammer to the left by way of comparison.

And yes, they did actually swing it...to drive an anvil stand with the anvil on it into the ground to level it.

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I talked to a fellow who had been in the CCC and he said they had to swing a 32# sledge all day long road building in the mountains. Don't know as to the accuracy of that story but have run across other 32# sledge reports. Seems like 20# is the largest the stores carry nowadays around here and when I married my wife she came equipped with a 17# sledge+handle that is my max in the shop...

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We had a sledge that weighed over 20 pounds when I worked at Sample`s Shipyard. Everybody call it "Monday", cause no matter what day it was if you had to swing it it felt like a Monday.
They also had a huge wood mallet had out of Hornbeam that we used to drive oak dunnage and wedges. That one was "The rear admiral" cause it packed more punch than a commander and always kicked your butt.

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We had a sledge that weighed over 20 pounds when I worked at Sample`s Shipyard. Everybody call it "Monday", cause no matter what day it was if you had to swing it it felt like a Monday.
They also had a huge wood mallet had out of Hornbeam that we used to drive oak dunnage and wedges. That one was "The rear admiral" cause it packed more punch than a commander and always kicked your butt.

Did you also use large wooden mallets known as commanders?
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Did you also use large wooden mallets known as commanders?


I used to know the proper progression of wooden mallets.They ranged from beetle thru commander IIRC.
Most of the shipyard hands weren`t as concerned with correct names. They just referred to them as a BFH, RBFH or "Get the Admiral". :)
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This i me holding a 25Kg sledge.
This sledge was used by a man working in the foundry in Björneborg, Sweden. He worked with breaking up the 60Kg pig iron ingots but he was disappointed with the standard sledges since it took him 2-3 blows to break the pig iron, so he ordered this sledge instead. With this sledge he could break the pigs with only one blow.
post-820-0-04830500-1302520330_thumb.jpg

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Just keep in mind the Norse were a little more practical than that. The Mjöllnir ("Crusher") of legend can change size so that Thor carries it around in his tunic (imagine your hammer shrinking so that you could carry it in your shirt pocket), and when he needs it, it will change to whatever size he happens to need it, usually the one that lets him crush skulls. Although, there was that incident where he flattened a mountain...

...in any case, I doubt you'll see it shrink up and go on a necklace or something in the movie, because Hollywood has no setting other than "huge, loud and flashy" :P

As an interesting aside, Mjöllnir is actually a screwup. The handle was supposed to be longer, but while the smith was forging it, a fly (purportedly Loki in disguise)came down and bit the guy on the bellows in the eye, which made him stop pumping air into the forge for a second and messed up the heat. Apparently whatever material Dwarves forge is very finicky for heat, and their forges are very finicky for air...

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