You get good at swing a hammer, and you get tired. I assume that was part of a government birth control program, cause after 12 hours of that it would have a profilactic effect I would guess;-)

Our 2 handled sledgy at Lithgow Ironfest, when everyone had gone home.

 

Not surprised they all went home if you were trying to get them to use that hammer!

Alan

Here's one I had not seen before, great picture too:

Interesting that all their one man sledges are off set pein...

Any information of where and when the photo was taken? Source of the picture?

Alan

English I believe, but not positive.  There was a guy on FB who posted a few pics of this company in operation, this pic had the double sledge.

I'll post the other pics he had in the Anvil section as they show the chain-makers anvil in use.

The off center style of hammer dates back over 1000 years in the west; what is the strangeness?

Not strange, interesting.

Most of the chain makers of Cradley Heath in the Black Country here used similar. I was interested to see a possible international industry standard tool, hence my question about the source.

I have one which I did not like as a hand sledge which I used on my foot hammer.

I was just mooching around googling chain makers images to see how common it was in the industry and found this...any advance on three handles?.... Alan

 

 

Big heavy hammer more people to lift it!  I would think that a powered system would work better at some point.  I remember that the heavier hammer transmits more force deeper into the work so there may be a use case for it on very large chains; particularly if they are using top tools to dress a joint.

 

reminds me of the race to add more razor blades to safety razors....

The right hand double handled hammer in Alan's photo above appears to be a sphere. Wild!

Video footage of double handed sledges (dollies? mollies?) can be seen around 40 seconds in;

 

 

And a dog walking past at around 1:20?

Reddit has a picture supposedly of the forging of an anchor chain for the Titanic. There's a similar hammer in view.

 

I worked at a scrap metal yard on Tyneside in the mid 60's where we broke up large cast iron machines, including transformers. There were only two of us employed to break up these machines and we individually used 28lb hammers and a double handled 56lb together. It was hard work but I enjoyed most of it.

Edited July 31, 20196 yr by Alex 34
missing word

Maybe most of y’all know this Already, but I thought I’d post this here too. I hope everyone is doing well.

Back in June, I was hired as a demonstrator for canIRON, and it was an absolute honour and one of the best things I’ve done in my short start to my career as a Blacksmith. I invited Mark Ling to come up and help me out (he’s the well known “littleblacksmith” that used to post here lots) 

Anyway, we wanted to forge a 2 handled sledge, as a special project. So we forged through the night, with a decent crowd, with only strikers, a two handled sledge. And we were very happy. Here is some pictures.

Great job on the sledge. I'm sure it was no easy task. What I'm sure everyone will want to know is, have you used it, and if so how was it? 

Congratulations on the position too. You know what they say, " Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." 

Pnut

Thank you sir

id saw it was just a little awkward. It was very tiring, not because it was heavy (it was less than 20 pounds) but because the motion that the handle has to travel in is a little different than in you were to swing yourself, so you end up working against the other person sometimes. If you just got comfortable at it over a few days, great power and accuracy could be achieved.

it was cool how much BANG it had when it hit hot steel, compared to a normal sledge.

I bet it packs a wallop. It looks like a tool that would take practice and the same partner to get truly proficient with. 

Pnut

Very cool hammer, well done Ethan. I've used tools that require coordinated effort between two and it takes practice. A regular partner makes a huge difference and the timing will take time. Maybe drive stakes in the yard would be good practice without having to worry about: fire, iron, holding, results, etc. Just effectiveness striking. 

Once you get it I'll bet it's a lot more effective than you'd think. I'm thinking the effects will be greater than the sum of the two.

Frosty The Lucky.

Evening, looks like a load of fun.  Was wondering though, most of the ones I've seen have had the handles mounted evenly, either center of the hammer, or towards the rear like a dogface.  Why did ya'll offset the handles one slightly in front of the other, and does it affect the use?  Feels like it would make it more difficult to swing in unison, but I haven't tried it.  Either way, you've made something cool. 

Also, almost every video or pick I've seen of these has been for forging large chain.  Aside from being huge and heavy, anyone know why this would work better  for that application?

Nice to see some pics of the Black Country chainmakers.  What yiu really want though is to see the chains the women were making in the outhouses attached to the backs of houses.  Baby's were hung of the power hammers to rock them to sleep.  I'm from a line of chainmakers from my great grandad back to 1800.

On 4/1/2015 at 7:30 PM, Black Frog said:

English I believe, but not positive.  There was a guy on FB who posted a few pics of this company in operation, this pic had the double sledge.

I'll post the other pics he had in the Anvil section as they show the chain-makers anvil in use.

Black Country.  The building was rebuilt at the Black Country museum and is used in Peaky Blinders.

I served my apprenticeship some 65 years ago at C. A. Parsons & Co. on Tyneside, England where they built steam turbines for power generation.

The fasteners on turbine casings and pressure-vessels were substantial and the twin handled sledge hammers, in conjunction with flogging spanners, were used for final tightening.  This method was preferable to the pneumatic impact drivers used on lesser fixings.

I have seen russian gulag documentaries with clips of these in use.  Ones with longer handles were actually used by three men.  One on each handle and one guy in the middle.  They would hoist the hammer over the middle guys head and he would hold both shafts, one in each hand, in the 'Y' pose, and the three men would swing the sledge in unison.  Quite a spectacle to behold. 

Good Morning,

I was at Ness Creek when Ethan and Mark made that Hammer. They tried to use it but their size difference made it awkward. It was a pleasure to watch 2 similar size people actually make it work, except the slightly taller person lifted the slightly shorter person right off the ground on the upswing. Yes, that was at CanIRON 12 at Ness Creek, Saskatchewan, in 2019. Before COVID!!

Neil