a friend just gave me a nice 2" square flatter hammerhead. no maker's mark I can see. it's rusty, the face has some roughness, I'd like not to have it marking my work. just use it on stuff I am not to worried about until it is smooth? burnishing wheel until smooth? sand/grind it smooth? then polish it?

Wire wheel it till you can see what you have,  all depends on the nature of the marks after that whether it needs a flap disk on an angle grinder or a sanding block,  may need a light touch with a file and nothing more.  Hard to say what your best approach is without pics.  :)  Could always use it a little and see just how much transfers

cheers, using it was going to be my step 1. I am forging with a friend Thursday and we will see what it looks like.

but after...make it shine like a brazeal rounding hammer face?

Flatters are used for taking out hammer marks. So, it really out to be pretty darned smooth and flat. Mirror polish not required.

You can clean the rust off with Muratic acid.  That's the same stuff they use to clean excess grout from new tile work.  Just soak it in the acid for a few hours. Then clean it with water & baking soda.  Be sure and do it outside cause the fumes will get ya and tend to cause other things to rust.  I was given an  old hammer head that had been in a basement crawlspace for years.  Once it soaked the rust off I could read the name on it.  Of course any pitting will still be there.

You also get rid of rust with electrolysis.

or soaking overnight in vinegar.

I use evaporust for removal when needed, but it's not in this case...I'll hit it on the debuting wheel at the machine shop at work, then know how to proceed. Flat, no need for mirror, got it! Thanks, all!

I prefer to hammer such that I don't need a flatter---I have a 1500 gm swedish cross peen with a smooth rocker face that I can pretty much leave a very good surface ready to file for bright work.  I call it my bulldozer and many a student's gnarly first S hook taper has magically become smooth and even from one run with it.

 

However if you have a striker flatters can be a big help

I agree with Thomas the vinegar works very well...

Bring it tomorrow, we'll need a flatter for some of the hotcut project we'll be working on and mine is unhandled as yet.

thomas, i am but a padewan in all this.  and it's a cool tool to have and fix up... ;)

 

i hit it with the deburring wheel and there's definitely some texture on the face of it.  i will work with it for now, and see how much marking it leaves on a surface so i know what needs to come off.  still no maker's mark, and it's a tiny hole for a handle, my guess is thus home-made.

 

michael, i'll bring it, but it's unhandled as well.  unless i can carve one tonight.

If the hole is quite small the original handle may have been made from 1/4" rod stock bent around through the eye and twisted to make a nice handle.

I wondered about that, Thomas. I think it will work either way...barely for the wood (but hickory is tough stuff ;) )

a follow-up:  we used this flatter to help finish the forging of a brazeal-style hot cut, and it worked fine, even with the markings.  it did break the thin-necked ash handle i carved for it on the fly (michael has a shave horse, and a supply of ash), probably from being tipped up while being hammered flat (thus breaking the handle right at the flatter).

 

i see that, if nothing else, as a reason why that tool would have a rod stock handle, which i am going to make at some point.  can anyone suggest pictures of such a handle?