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I Forge Iron

How is this hammer much different from a Hofi hammer


Timothy Miller

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These style hammers have been around for about 100 years or more. I have owned one they are well balanced hammers. I understand that Hofi hammers are heavier but these hammers were available in many weights. The handle is thicker and shorter on a Hofi hammer Ill give him that. But smiths have always altered there handles to suit. I know he also uses and flexible adhesive to hold the head on these things were not invented at the time. There is a subtle difference in the shape of the head but the distribution of the steel is the same. There is not much difference between a round faced hammer and a square faced hammer you can still fuller with the edge.


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I think that's sometimes called a 'cat-head' and as eric sprado points out, they were popular with horseshoers. The ones I've seen have been on the small side, 1-1/2 lbs or less. Frank Turley may have started a thread about them some time in the past.

Other than the round face I agree with your comparison to the stubby shape of a Hofi hammer. I don't see a lot of functional difference between a Hofi style hammer and a Peddinghause French pattern hammer either. (Some other makes may be longer, but the big French patterns that were so popular a while back had a tall head with the face and pein a very short distance from the center.) I assisted a class taught by Hoss Haley and he had a hammer based on the hammer of the Czech smith he learned from. All of his description of it was the same principles that Hofi uses, so I am inclined to think his hammer is a refinement on an Eastern European design rather than a bolt from the blue. (It seems that way because we were unfamiliar with it.)

Lewis

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I used to see that style made by Heller Brothers and Champion in the old Kennedy-Foster, New Jersey, catalogs. It is very much a rounding style of hammer, but with a cross peen, and sometimes called in the old catalogs, a "fitting hammer." The fullering demarcates the head and the peen, giving it a nice appearance. The elongated eye gives more gripping surface for the wooden haft. Besides drawing clips, I think the peen was an aid to the old farriers in sharpening calks for wintertime...called sharp shoeing. The eye is smaller than that of the Hofi style. The round face is typical of most early, manufactured smiths' hammers in the U.S. The square face was very much used on the Continent. The Hofi hammer has a quite large eye leaving little material in the cheeks on either side.

Although designed primarily for the farrier trade, there is no reason the Heller or Champion cross peen hammer could not be used by any smith.

Tim's pictured hammer is not a cat's head hammer. The cat's head was also designed for the farrier, but it had a more 'rounding appearance,' overall. It had a relatively small eye with a great deal of material either side of the eye in the so-called cheek area. When hefted, if was deceptively heavy because of this. The cat's head had a very small, rounded face and a cross peen with not much width. The 1890's catalogs called the cat's head a Chicago Pattern Turning Hammer. In early farriers' parlance, horseshoes were not spoken of as being made or forged, but they were turned.

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The main difference is that Hofi's hammers are forged. Those hammers are ground to shape. If you take them off of their handles and look at them, you will see that the eye is done with a broach, and there is no hour glass shape to the hole. And if you try and figure out how they forged such a shape, you only need to see how it fits nicely on a belt sander to see how they achieved it.

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Brian I have a real nice belt sander and use it every day, I also have another grinder set up with small wheels, The smallest of the ones I have is half inch...I am not sure I could make that little radius on each end of the body of that hammer with my set up, I looked pretty good at the pic and in at least one area it appears to be cast, Like you suggested a peek into the hole would tell a story also.

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Based on the tool manufacturing technology of the time. Most likely these hammers were drop forged in closed dies. I don't think they had belt sanders in the late 19th century where this design originated. If I remember correctly the belt sander for metal is 1930's invention. These hammers were most likely drop forged and ground with vitrified wheels the finished with a buffer. Grinding wheels are and were available in many grades, diameters and thicknesses. Felt wheels coated in emery grit aka "set up" wheels were common for intermediate finishing. I have owned a hand forged version of one of these type hammers as well the cheeks were thinner on that one. My shop got robbed in the early 90's and I lost a bunch of tools. Cast steel not forged from cast steel hammer heads would have been a an exotic thing at the time and most likely suspect to the smiths buying them.

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Let me prefrace by saying I have never owned either type or even used the type pictured.

I have used a hofi hammer that a spectator loaned me at an event. LOVED IT!

From my understanding of the hofi hammer (I.E. what other smiths that use it have told me) the center of effort (CE) goes through the center of the eye. The short stubby head allows the CE to remain in the same place even when the hammer is tilted at a very sharp angle (45 degrees I think.) That gives you a full 90 degrees tilt that you can apply while hammering with the hofi hammer and since the CE is in the center of the eye still, the rebound force picks the hammer straight up.

Now maybe the one you pictured works the same way.....like I said, I've never used one of those.

I do know that the rectangular handles on the hofi hammers are nice. I ground all of my hammer handles down similar to the hofi handles and really like the way they feel.

That's my take on the difference from what I've gathered.

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Oh, to have been a fly on the wall, to have seen those old manufacturing processes! I tend to agree that the old farriers' cross peen was drop forged between dies. When this is done, there is a resulting thin flash squeezed out between dies. Nowadays, the product is put in a flash trimmer which crops it off. However, a parting line can sometimes be seen on a finished tool, because not enough metal was ground away. Grinding has an old history, so I think that some finish work was done on the old hammer heads by grinding. There is a neat photo of a man at the grinding wheel at the Hudson Bay axe factory. The photo is titled "Riding the Pony" and depicts a man astride a "saddle" on a wooden beam in front of the grind stone. This was his job, day in, day out, profiling the drop forged axe heads. The photo appears in "Blacksmiths' and Farriers' Tools at Shelburne Museum" by H.R. Bradley Smith, 1966.

At the Snow and Nealley factory in Maine, I witnessed axes being drop forged and after flash trimming, the axe was put between steel spacer slabs, and at forging heat, a hydraulic eye punch came down to punch the slug all the way through, no back punching.

Some old tools are stamped "CAST STEEL" but the tools are not cast. They are forged of a material called "cast steel," especially a term used in England. In the U.S., we termed that type of steel "crucible steel."

We don't want to confuse cast parting lines form drop forged parting lines.

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Thanks for clearing up my confusion on the cat's head hammers, Frank.

I'll try again, my understanding is that cast parting lines are thinner than drop-forged parting lines because a drop forging dies usually have a gutter formed around the outside for excess material. (Excess material is required for the complete filling of the die, unlike a mold in which smaller areas are readily filled by the liquid metal.) Drop forgings are also usually trimmed in a punch as part of the manufacturing process which can leave a sheared surface that is often visible on the sides of hammers and in other parts of the forging that don't get ground to shape.

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"Cast Steel" was a common descriptive term; I have a number of blacksmithing and wood working tools marked that way. As Frank mentions it refers to the use of crucible steel to make the item and not that the item was cast as casting of steel to final shape was not much used in those days due to the problems they had with grain size, piping, etc. For a more in depth coverage see "Steelmaking Before Bessemer, Vol II Crucible Steel" or look up Benjamin Huntsman and crucible steel.

In some ways it became an advertising buzz word like we see in later items "Vanadium steel" or "440" stainless with no other details of what *else* is in the alloy or if it's a good alloy for the purpose!

Cast steel was used in comparison to "blister steel" or "shear steel" made from carburized wrought iron (see "Steelmaking Before Bessemer, Vol I, Blister Steel"...

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The main difference is that Hofi's hammers are forged. Those hammers are ground to shape. If you take them off of their handles and look at them, you will see that the eye is done with a broach, and there is no hour glass shape to the hole. And if you try and figure out how they forged such a shape, you only need to see how it fits nicely on a belt sander to see how they achieved it.


I seem to recall a blueprint or a post by Hofi that stated he preferred the cast versions of his hammers. I don't recollect his reasoning, however.
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"the center of effort (CE) goes through the center of the eye. The short stubby head allows the CE to remain in the same place even when the hammer is tilted at a very sharp angle (45 degrees I think.) That gives you a full 90 degrees tilt that you can apply while hammering with the hofi hammer and since the CE is in the center of the eye still, the rebound force picks the hammer straight up." Sparky, if you look at the hammer head when the face is flat on the anvil, I could agree with your statement, but tilt that hammer 45º to either side and you will easily see that the eye is then to the right or left of the edge making contact. As it is offcenter from the line of impact, your CE obviously is not in the same place. Besides, IMHO, most hammers are (or should be) made to be balanced with as much mass in front of the eye as behind it. I try to make mine that way. If balanced that way, shape becomes window dressing if it's not for a specific function, so one well made hammer is just as effective as another. Like a firearm, it's the person using it that determines how truly effective it will be.

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I'm a little cobwebby on recollecting this anecdote but IIRC, Freddy Habermann used to tell a story about being in a shop where they would put candle black all over the face of the journeyman's hammer; at the end of the day, the center of the face should still be black. The point was that a flatter was used when things needed to be flat - but the hand hammer was first and foremost a fullering tool.

Hofi constantly uses the edges of the hammer when he forges, which is one reason why he moves material so quickly. The edge of the anvil and the edge of the hammer are where the bulk of all forging is done - the work done on the face of the anvil amounts to smoothing out the bumps. A squat hammer head can be tilted and used on the edge without stinging your hand from an off-axis hit.

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I seem to recall a blueprint or a post by Hofi that stated he preferred the cast versions of his hammers. I don't recollect his reasoning, however.








The HofihammerCasthammer vs Forged Hammer

To my opinion the Cast is better then the forged. The deference is small. An amateur will not fill the difference.

The 6150 steel of the Cast is a better steel then the c45. The Cast is more balanced because casting on a mold I could arrange the steel in a better and more balanced form and there for more ergonomic. I myself forge today mainly with the Cast hammer. There is a belief that the forged because the grain re-organizing is better then the cast. Not any more !!

To day with the lost wax system that the air is leaving the mold from all around the mold and not only from the air outlet the grain dispersion in the Cast is better. Even in the industry many parts that were forge are Cast today. And it is very interesting also that more and more I sell more Cast hammers then forged. The people loves them.
Hofi
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I have a old ball peen hammer it is cased like the hammer in Tim's photos it has a piece missing off the face as well. I have not seen a forged hammer just loose a piece off the face and have much older forged hammers. Will this happen to all cast hammers at some time. As a side note I have the same effect on the edge of a cast steel anvil.

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Many of the old plain carbon steels were prone to chipping like that if not carefully hardened and tempered. Unlike us who make hammers out of 1045 and 4140 they used higher carbon steels chipped hammer faces were common. I have a book called the "20Th century Toolsmith and Steelworker" from 1905 it suggests using steel with 75 points to forge a hamer AKA 1075 steel. I have seen many old hammers with chiped faces. There are many old books with sections on tool forging that give detailed instructions on how to forge a blacksmtihs hammer. As said above casting tool steel was an exotic and problem prone process.

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I believe you are correct Timothy about the older hammers of that style. I was going off of information that Jay Sharpe was telling me for making versions of that hammer that he had been making while he was alive. That is a popular style of hammer amongst the farriers. I have a Maude "S" rounding hammer that is of the same style with the convex cheeks, and I recently rehandled it and shined it back up. It does fit exactly to my 2" belt sander which would be the same for some of the older grinders and buffing wheels. The ones today of that style are being done on a CNC machine.

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I have btoh..I have a champion just the one in the picture that weighs 2 pounds..Lisa uses it all the time..She also has a 2 1/2 pound big blu hofi style hammer..They do feel differently. They are balanced differently and swing differently..Its hard to explain..

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hi there,
thought i'd throw in my two cents' worth.
been using hofi hammers for many years now, and by that i mean hammers actually coming out of hofi's shop. lots of copies out there, some quite inferior. it has to be understood that the hofi hammer's shape and proportions are not random -- they come with a very particular type use. a very well-known and skilled smith derided the hofi hammer in a conversation, stating that the head of the hammer was too short, causing him to scrape his knuckles on the anvil. it was immediately obvious from this remark that he simply didn't know who to use it properly -- it's the equivalent of complaining that the knife is at fault for you having sliced your finger. the difference in technique is subtle and takes practice as old habits have to be broken, yet the payback is well worth it -- you get much better accuracy, faster metal deformation, reduced fatigue and whole lot less stress on joints and ligaments. suffice to say that my wrist and elbow issues went away once i have adopted this method. i am sure that there are people out there who use similar grip and technique without even thinking about it - some of us have real smart bodies. i was introduced to the hofi hammer and forging method after i have already spent years apprenticed to various smiths in japan, and naturally assumed that i knew all the was to know about swinging a hammer. i was very, very wrong. so, again -- to derive full benefits from a hofi hammer one has to know, understand and use the particular forging technique. the hammers come with fairly sharp corners, and the individual smith is expected to grind & polish them to his specs. they can be cast of forged, doesn't really matter -- both work very well. at this point, i am not sure if hofi sells his hammers in the usa at all. i just came back from israel and got myself yet another one -- hofi has neat rows of finished hammers, cast and forged, waiting to go. in any case, a hammer made by hofi will always carry his name, and usually the date of manufacture, too.
regarding other remarks about the hammer, making claims about the process: the forged hammers always have a slight hourglass eye (happens naturally when they are forged on a tapered mandrel from either side), and the shape is almost completed on the power hammer, not ground. naturally, the hammer is ground before heat-treatment and polished after. i was there during the manufacturing process, more than once, so i think i have grounds for saying so. it is not feasible to grind so many forged pieces to shape, especially since there is only one very simple simple belt grinder in hofi's shop.
hope this was helpful for the discussion.

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