Seven pounder?

[WNC Goater]

Last week find at the flea market. Saw the cobblers anvil (is it called a "last"?) and went for a closer look. Got that, & the iron pot and the sledge hammer head.  My initial thought with the hammer was to bore a hole in my stump and stand it on end as a secondary "anvil" or flip it on the  straight peen side for a fuller of sorts.  After I got home I noticed how small the eye was, way too small for a sledge handle and realized that...well I ASSUME this is a hand hammer.  The eye is approximately 1 1/8" x 7/8".  It is stamped with a 7 and another stamp I can't identify. It measures 7' long and weighs 6.8 lbs.  

So do I have a hand hammer here?  Or some piece of junk?

So now I'm rethinking that perhaps I should wire wheel it, oil and find a handle for it.  Though I can't foresee swinging a 7 pound hand hammer. 

[ThomasPowers]

I have 2 7# straight peens; but both are dated and with the broad arrow on them, one is dated from the 1940's and the other from the 1980's.   Not a bad weight for a striker to use, especially if they are not well skilled...(the question is: How did a British hammer dated 1982 end up in a Las Cruces NM fleamarket 30 years later?)

I'll probably handle one for one handed use next time a striker breaks a handle...

[Michael Cochran]

23 hours ago, WNC Goater said:

Though I can't foresee swinging a 7 pound hand hammer. 

You could always let gravity do the work. Save the effort of swinging for when you need it but you could use the weight to help persuade things to straighten out. I have a 6lb sledge (with the handle cut short for a striker) that I use on occasion just for that occasional dead weight adjustment. 

[WNC Goater]

Okay so a 7 pound hammer isn't that crazy then, huh?  Any ideas as to date or manufacturer?

[ThomasPowers]

Nope, mine were date stamped. Can you clean up the stamp any better?  The fact that I found a UK sledge a few miles from Mexico in the USA shows that they do travel.

[WNC Goater]

On 5/20/2017 at 8:12 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Nope, mine were date stamped. Can you clean up the stamp any better?  The fact that I found a UK sledge a few miles from Mexico in the USA shows that they do travel.

The deep stamp took a little hand work with a fine wire brush to reveal.... "JAPAN".    So I don't know if that means post WWII cheap goods Made in Japan, or if that is a good thing.  I don't see any other markings other than the 7 stamp but haven't cleaned it up yet.

[Kevin Olson]

Ive seen Brent Bailey on youtube forge with a 7 pounder. He makes it look like hes swinging a 2 pounder. Dudes an animal. Hes forging a 5 lb cross pien and gets the hole punched in 2 heats. Awesome. Hes really got his process down. 

[ThomasPowers]

Use it and see! I'd check it for hardness/brittleness first though.

[rockstar.esq]

On 5/23/2017 at 6:41 AM, Kevin Olson said:

Ive seen Brent Bailey on youtube forge with a 7 pounder. He makes it look like hes swinging a 2 pounder. Dudes an animal. Hes forging a 5 lb cross pien and gets the hole punched in 2 heats. Awesome. Hes really got his process down. 

I've seen that video and it's everything you claim. 

One thing I thought of was that a lot of guillotine tools sap energy from the hammer's blow.  I made one with sliding dies and a huge whack with a 6lb hammer on fullering dies moves the stock about on par with my best efforts working with only a 2lb cross pein.  That being said, the guillotine tool helps me to be much more precise while working alone.  Since I use the 6 lb hammer mostly with the guillotine tool for precise work, I like to think of it as "my instrument of precision".