making a hammer at john b's :)

[beth]

here are some photos of weekend at john b / blacksmiths guilds workshop in devon we did lots of different things on a tool making course, here is the hammer head making bit we did - just like tying shoe laces for john, but i thought it was very exciting and very cool, and also blew away some of the intimidation mist on this subject for me . THANKS JOHN !!

first he got section of tool steel (crank shaft i think) welded on a handle, and used a fullering tool he had made of two bits of round bar on a spring under power hammer to make groove either end. he squared off with the tool first and then knocked off the corners to round till there was nice even groove.





then in the vise with hot file to take the sharp edges off



here he and striker norman punched the hole for the handle through, john had previously flattened a strip across top and bottom to help orientate the hole.







heres the little lozenge that came out



here is making the waist shaped hole he wanted for the handle, going in from either end up to a marked point on his punch to create the size/in and out shape he wanted.



shaping/flattening the sides with the drift in



and the finished head - took hardly any time - john told us how to make ball and cross pein ends and modify old hammers we have lying about - so interesting and useful, and a pleasure to watch him make it look so simple. when i was a littel girl (and a big girl!!) i would look at things like forged hammers and think this is so far from what i would ever be able to have something to do with, and john has shown what a straightforward operation this can be, and that you dont need to make a huge old song and dance about it all. so now i want can try to do one in my workshop, and thats extremely coolio!

[John B]

Steady Beth, you'll give the impression I know what I'm doing, but Thanks for the pics and a good weekend enjoyed by all.

Material was a half shaft, and your tongs turned out OK (eventually) probably 'cos your heart was in it.

On to Forge welding next I think.

[TomN]

Here are a few other photo's of John forging the hammer (with Norman's help).



Norman hammering in the slitting tool.



Here is John filing a head of the hammer into shape.

I didn't get more photo's of the process sadly, as I had a camera malfunction at the time.

Very informative session though!

[HWHII]

Neat stuff there. Its nice to see some faces from the other side of the pond.

[bigfootnampa]

Nice pictures! Thanks Beth and TomN! It is neat and fun to watch when any kind of skilled craftperson is working their special magic! I even amaze myself once in a while! I well remember a particular day working on a very large faux finish project... I was doing a distressed woodgrain finish and had cool damp weather that day... I had refined my stain/glaze to perfection and was spraying the glaze on with one hand and forming the grain with a scrubby brush in the other hand... it seemed as if wood was just flowing right out of the spray gun! I flowed on a lot of grain that day and it was exhilarating!