Just finished this the other day, forged from 3" hydraulic shaft, man that 3" thick stuff is a lot harder to move than 2 1/2"!  Anyway, it works great and is fast becoming my favorite hammer.

That's a great looking hammer! Did you forge by hand/with striker/power hammer?

Squared it up on the press, then punched and drifted by hand, did the cheeks and indents and round face on the treadle hammer.  My knee was aching for a couple of days, it did not seem to want to move.  Best I can tell, it's 1045, or close to it.

Nice looking hammer. Sounds like a lot of work to move that metal. 7 lbs. though WOW! - I have trouble swinging my 4 lb. for very long.

On 2/16/2017 at 0:35 PM, John in Oly, WA said:

7 lbs. though WOW! - I have trouble swinging my 4 lb. for very long.

My thoughts exactly. It must move metal pretty fast though!

That's what I like about it, you can just lift it and drop it and it does the work and with a good anvil the rebound helps you lift it again.

Did you grind the round in or use a cupping hardy?

Used a swedge block, tried a cupping hardy at first, but it was too small and started to pinch the edges.

that's a dandy...guess I need to look for some 3", that makes the one I just forged seem like a tack hammer!!!

Well, I've got a 2 and 3 pound and 7 pound, now I just need something in between like say 4-4 1/2 pound.  The larger the stock the easier it is, but I had a couple friends over a few weeks ago and we forged 3  and 3 1/2 pounders out of 1 3/8 axel shaft, just had to cut long and upset, kinda a pain, but that's the beauty of metal working, you make the material fit you, not you fit the material.