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Hammer Collection: are these good for anything


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So I've heard that using claw hammers for forging is a no but I have some hammers that seem like there shape would be good. I'm building a gas forge and I should be ready to fire up and start forging by Wednesday. Here's the first hammer that seemed to be useful. Any thoughts ill be very active in the next few days trying to get all the info I can before starting.5929956bb19a7_photo3.JPG.d9ba0567a04ec8d7999e32317c5b064b.JPG

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Body hammers made for working on thin sheetmetal; the good ones are good for that, there are some bad cast iron ones that are not even good for that.  Not very useful smithing as they tend to be very light and "unfocused".  I do use one that is a crosspeen opposite the face for doing the turning of the counterbends on 1/4" sq stock S hooks. I tell my students I used to do it with the 1500 gm sweedish crosspeen to brag about my hammer control but I'd rather not need elbow surgery than need to brag.

The jewelry making versions tend to have better fit and finish.

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That's an auto body hammer. used on sheet metal.  They are not made for heavy work. A claw hammer would be better then that unless you are working thinner sheet metal.

on a side note I knew an excellent body man that was down on his luck and had lost about all of his tools and wouldnt you know he could do a heck of a job straightning body panels with a claw hammer.

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I also have a large and smaller ball-pein hammers that I will most likely be using. Thanks for the info. I will be sure to post more and more. As far as steel goes I have four railroad spikes and some other pieces of mystery steel as well as about +50 ft of old re-bar that is rusted very badly. I'm only planing on using the re-bar for practice with hammer strokes so don't worry. As far as Forge design I'm using a large metal can filled with 50/50 plaster of Paris and sand, with steel wool to keep it from breaking down and crumbling. Any thoughts/ tips.  

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Thoughts and tips; 1, watch the language. 2, Do some reading on the site in the forges section.( and other sections of interest)  You will find that your forge design should be changed, no matter what fuel you are using. You will also find many common beginner questions have been answered.

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Plaster of paris and sand is probably one of the WORST lining materials you can use.  Whoever put the youtube videos out using it should be horsewhipped and have all internet privileges revoked until they learn not to lead people astray by present horrible ideas as a decent way to go.

BTW you haven't mentioned what fuel you will be using in your forge; however plaster of paris breaks down way below forging temps.  Also if you are using propane, it's not an insulating refractory and so you end up spending much more money buying propane than you saved NOT getting a proper lining material like kaowool---the old "I saved money by doing it this way, I saved US$10 and will be spending US$100 extra in propane!"   If you are using a solid fuel: charcoal, coal, coke, plain cheap clay based kitty litter mixed with wood ashes makes a better liner.

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Ayup, that's a plannishing hammer, body and fender or other sheet metal work, there are hundreds of "standard" shapes of sheet metal hammers. Any smooth faced hammer of 32oz or less is a good one for blacksmithing. Don't go heavier than 32oz. till you've developed hammer control, 2lbs. is plenty to move metal efficiently and doesn't make mistakes permanent nearly as fast as a heavy hammer. It'll also tire you much more slowly and isn't as likely to injure you. Joint, especially elbow damage is common for blacksmiths, ESPECIALLY beginners.

Forget the rebar it's bottom of the grade scale that still meets minimum specs to reinforce concrete. It can vary considerably in alloy and carbon content sometimes within inches, it just depends on where the old car bodies got stacked in relation to the drops from the cold chisel factory. They don't stir the crucible when they melt scrap for rebar so it ends up an exercise in evaluating scrap steel.

You'll learn much faster with less frustration just buying a stick of 3/8" square or 1/2" rd. bar from the steel supplier. A-36 has mostly taken over for what we used to call "mild steel" and it too is random scrap but it's a higher grade than rebar and though A-36 can be pretty inconsistent it's much better than rebar.

No, that won't do for a forge liner is in fact dangerous at gas forge temperatures.  Actually Thomas there are a couple YouTube "exSpurts" recommending PORTLAND CEMENT and sand or perlite for forge liners. Now THAT'S a Dangerously B_A_D thing to expose to a camp fire let alone a gas forge burner. Portland Cement won't last long enough to do ANY forging and can spall explosively. No, not a big BOOM but like a string of firecrackers that throws chips and shards of HOT concrete around the place.

 The gas forge section of Iforge has thousands of posts discussing the hows and whys of building gas forges plus lots of discussions about how they work and what went wrong. We have a LOT of information regarding the mistakes we've made over decades of experience and we offer you our mistakes to learn from.

Frosty The Lucky.

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