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I Forge Iron

Our first Brazeal style rounding hammer...


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Our first production hammer in its rough forged form. Made from 4 inches of 2" 1045 steel. Made with Joe striking. It weighs out at 3 pounds 3.7 oz. We lost a little more weight than I wanted due to scale because I forgot to kick up the heat from the lighter work we were doing earlier until we were mostly finished and then forgot to retune the air intake to a more neutral flame. The eye turned out a little undersized as well due to the punch we used being a little shorter than Ideal.


hammer1.JPG

hammer2.JPG

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Really nice job, Jason!
I wouldn't call it my style hammer. It is just an old way of forging hammers and top tools. I got exposed to the idea of a "house for the handle" from Alfred Habermann.
You did an excellent job on that hammer. Alfred would emphasize not to make the hole too big too fast, so you can still work with that hammer and take it farther today or ten hundred years from now. If you make the hole too big too fast, you stop yourself from going further.

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Brian, certainly didn't make the hole too big, LOL, if anything it is a little undersized, but it does have a nice hourglass to it. I call it a Brazeal style hammer simply because I indirectly learned the method from you. I'm sure some time spent with you would refine things a little, as I am certain I am doing some things less than efficiently, but I might work out those bugs with repetition too. One thing I did notice is that my eye punch is a little undersized for 2" stock, so one of my apprentices/strikers and I will soon be making one about 1/2" longer and maybe a little beefier for the larger tools. Also because I haven't gotten around to making a 3" fuller set, we just used a hardy block and flatter to clean up the cheeks a little. It worked, but certainly not the best. I was looking at the one you made for Ralph as well and noticed that I fullered the faces a tad deeper than you, resulting in about 1/2" more length than yours. All little things that will be corrected in future revisions.

Alec, Thanks man.

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