Little sad. A lot at the north end of town is being cleaned up as scrap. Tons of old treasures here and there. A good 2/3rds of it is nothing but scrap the rest... If only a guy could really go through it and have a place to keep it til it found a home. Did manage to pick up a bunch of 3/4" round stock that use to be bridge stringers. Think it is 1018-1020 hardens some but not enough that a file skates. Can make a heap of tongs an things now. Darned good score for $40.


Made a set of tongs out of the material seem to have turned out pretty good. lots of spring in the reigns. Goofed up on the offset for the reigns when making the first half of the tongs. So the material was retasked to 2 leaves. The metallic flake silver paint sure shines them up.



This is a pic of the grain as is off the stringer material. The next is after quenching in water.



An old Japanese Gentleman passed away recently and his kids were cleaning up the garage. He had all sorts of goodies stuck in the corners. Kinda like vultures on a carcass down there. Found a few hammers that I needed as well as this interesting one. Anyone seen anything like it. Makes me think of cutlers hammer or maybe something to do with trueing saws? Feels nice in the hand.


Would post a few more pictures, but they are not wanting to upload . At least the important ones made it.

Are you sure about the material that the rods were made from? I got some bridge stringers, last year, and it broke similar to what yours looks like, after cutting about half way thru. But I forged it out and intentionally let it lose color while hammering. It split open. It was wrought iron. :)

Forgot to put up the pics. I got some 1" X 1", 5/8" X 1 1/2", and some 5/8" and 3/4" round.



You got a good deal on your stash. :)

Hey Curly, you also grabed the bridge out sign! :D Kinda makes you think, is the bridge out because you got the bridge stringers or............. ^_^

It's not impossible that it could be wrought. Would be very cool if it is. I Don't have any Wrought around to compare spark tests with. It does harden a fair amount. Doesn't seem to be fibrous down the length of it where rusted and pitted. Though where bent/broke at cut it does pull apart a little funny. Any links handy for good ways to test that I have missed?

cut 2 more bits off the end, bent til broken in vice.
cut thru a 1"piece of A36 round rod similiar coarse grain, but no pull out in the middle

touched angle grinder to stringer, to a sliver of mild plate and A36, spark the same near as I can tell.

shined one bit up toss it into the vinegar jar for a while and see what it looks like

Not wrought and not mild either. I'd make an educated guess and say it's in the 1040 range. Wrought doesn't break with smooth shiny facets, you can clearly see the direction of failure in the faces. If it was mild 1028-1020 it would've bent before breaking.

Good score, well scavanged.

Frosty The Lucky.

The hammer might just be a forging hammer. Japanese hand tools are different from western tools. The mass is often off set, and they go opposite to ours. Japanese wood saws cut on the pull, unlike western wood saws that cut on the push. Japanese planes are pulled toward the user, not pushed like western planes. A cultures tools are a reflection of the culture, the Japanese are known to have a special something for everything, be it ceremony, tool, or belief. My understanding is shallow at best, but that is my guess.

Cliff

I'll assume I almost made the perfect score and ended up with 1020-1040 steel. Wrought would have been super sweet.
You could be right that it is just a forging hammer. Either way, made for an interesting find. Now if I can pry myself away from other chores. Need to make some bolt tongs to hold all this new 3/4" stock I have. Thinking maybe a spearhead or three in the near future too.

I'll have to go back and do some digging. But vaguely remember 1045 being used for axes. If the stuff I have hardens enough might have a few other projects to play with...

Since the previous owner was Japanese I would go with it being a hammer he liked, though the offset hammer is no more Japanese in style than western---it was a fairly common style in Europe historically as 150 year old engravings of the cutlers at Sheffield England show as well as the saw tuner's hammer still found in America at times.