Another Hammer

[Ricky]

My name is Ricky and I’m addicted to hammers. “Hello Ricky”. I am no longer allowed to go alone to a flea market, yard sale or ANY place that tools might be sold without first surrendering all forms of payment with the exception of a single ten dollar bill. That is because my wife knows that I cannot be trusted with more money than that. She does not fear that I will be enticed by another woman, (when I suggest this she just laughs at me) nor doe she worry about gambling, booze, or drugs. What she knows is that I am incapable of walking past a forging hammer without it following me home. My eyes get all shiny and just like that the seller has my money and I have a new hammer. It matters not that I have seventeen of exactly the same make, shape, size, and weight, or that the one I just bought only slightly even resembles a hammer, I’m coming home with a “new” hammer. I have fantasies where I’m walking down a back street in the bad part of a big city. As I walk past a dark alley I hear a low voice whisper, “Hey buddy, wanna buy a ball pein?” A shady character steps out from the shadows in an open trench coat. “I got anything you need. How about a B.B. hand forged rounding hammer?” “How much?” I whimper, already knowing the answer. He sneers, “Ten-fifty”. Nooooooooooo! I sit up in bed and wipe away the cold sweat. It has become obvious that I need professional help (or for my kids to NOT tell their mom that they gave me twenty dollars for my birthday).

[Charles R. Stevens]

Get on your knees and thank that woman, Rick! For who else would put up with you. 

[Hans Richter]

Hi Ricky, glad to hear I’m not alone out there. I have the same addiction but to tools in general. May be I’m even related to a family relative of your wife’s clan, she take my credit cards every time I intent to go to the hardware shop. According to the amount of money I spend the last 10 years at my local ‘Bricoleur’ (hardware store) I actually deserve a ‘Platinum costumer card’.

I suggest to build a anonymous IFI contact group of confessional and secretly ‘tool addicts’ supported by a professional shrink to talk about and have some cure from therapy.

Till than I will ask for a track & trace electronic foot shackle for me, and an receiver for my wife to check my position within a circle of 2 miles from the Bricoleur.

Wish you strength and discipline and of course a happy new year soon,

Your fellow addict, Hans

[1forgeur]

I figure hammers are like iron, how can you have too much. Now the wife on the other hand ..........

[Ricky]

For me, this all started with a combination of two things. 1. I have been a maintenance mechanic all my life. (oddly you would think that I would be better at it). 2. I have a little bit of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I wii explain how these two things are connected. As a mechanic I am required to buy the tools that I need to do my job. You guys understand, right? Now here’s where the OCD kicks in. How can a guy buy just one wrench from somewhere in the middle of a set? That wrench screams for its brothers and sisters on either side of it in the set. And is it not madness to have one wrench of a different brand making up a set? Thanks. I knew you’d understand. Now back to the hammer addiction. One of my favorite makers, N.R., though I’ve never met him, I feel sure is an evil and miserly man. Not only does he make seventeen thousand different models, they are always displayed for sale laid out in a beautiful display in order or “sets”. And so I sit here thumbing through catalogs and surfing web pages and calculating, “She doesn’t even wear that ring anymore.” and “Do I really need two kidneys?” Then I watch those videos where those show offs  forge an entire, lift-sized dragon with a single hammer that they bought for a dollar from a quick mart. Maybe I should just pick one hammer, put down the mini-tablet, and actually practice. Naw, that’s crazy talk. Now where did I put the kid’s college fund savings book.....

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Rick,

      Kinda new at this are ya,, I for one have a beautiful understanding wife and better than 200 hammers. Life is good.

Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

[Ricky]

Jim, 

My wife is also beautiful. Except for the rolling eye and sighing part. And sometimes I find her to be completely ungrateful. Like the year that I got her a wonderful, dedicated knife-forging hammer for Christmas. Do you think that she appreciated it? Oh no. She reacted so violently that I was forced to take the hammer out to my shop and lock it up out of her sight.(Purely for safety’s sake you understand). I then had to rush out and buy her a new pair of shoes to calm her down. I have no idea what she needs so many shoes for. The only good thing that came out of the whole situation was that while shoe shopping, I was able to pick up a sweet little cross-pein for half price. 

[Hans Richter]

LOL, nice move to distract, keep this on my mind, ...................b.t.w. my wife is beautiful too (looking over my shoulder while typing)

[Charles R. Stevens]

Perhaps the solution is to start an IFI support  group for the spouses that tolerate us and live with our addiction to hot metal and the tools to manipulate it? 

As a suggestion, Rick. Start forging your own hammmers and other tools... 

dang sure won’t have to worry about them walking off, as no one else will have one with your mark. And forging a set of hammers in 8oz increments from 8oz to 4# and a cuple sets of box end wrenches from 1/4 to 2” auto to keep you out of the flea markets for most of a year...

not to mention that beautiful custom ball peen just have to have a matching set of cross peens...

 

[MotoMike]

This thread would be infinitely superior with hammer pics. 

[JHCC]

My strategy is simply to keep the amount I spend on forging tools and supplies at less than what she spends on yarn.

[Ricky]

Yes Mr. Charles, 

But won’t I need tools to make the tools with?  Hmmmmmm....let me think about this for a little bit.  

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I think my situation is the exact opposite. My wife is the one who is addicted to hammers. She seems to have radar when it comes to locating them in piles of old tools at the junk shops.

When I point out that she already has several of those large ball peen's, she says ya, but I can forge this one into a straight peen and that one into a diagonal peen, not to mention the hot cut and punch hammers.

Her hammer bucket is almost too heavy to lift.

[DuEulear]

Iron dragon is a lucky man 

[SLAG]

Mr. Dragon,

I wish that MY wife had an interest in tools including hammers. I suspect that she just tolerates my interest and purchases.

Fear not you can always gift her another bucket for her over flow. It could make a wonderful 2018 Christmas present for her. Perhaps with a few specialty hammers thrown in. Hammers are a relatively cheap cost to enhance domestic relations

Helping her tote her collection is a gesture that I am certain would NOT go unnoticed. My spouse appreciates jewelry, household appliances, and fashionable clothing ("Dernier Cri" no less). A bit pricier.

But it is a worthy expense in order to maintain domestic bliss. (or peace, at the least).

Hammers would be a bargain in comparison.

Hey!

Perhaps both ladies could meet up and your spouse might convince her that that a complete hammer ensemble is a wonderful 'hobby' and collectible.

Mr. Dragon, count your blessings! You, indeed, are a very lucky man.

Just my two cents, from Saint Louis.

SLAG.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I am lucky indeed. She has another bucket that's almost as heavy as her hammer bucket. It contains tongs, punches and hardy's. She found these on our last outing.

Her latest hammer that she modified for a straight peen. A bottle opener she started too. She let me make the punches.

 

[Marc1]

Mm ... hammers he? ... I am a compulsory acquirer of tools, any tool. In fact I take up a project just to have an excuse to buy the tools for it. Bought an Echo pole saw when my daughter asked me to prune a tree, bought a honda powered, professional brick saw to build a pizza oven and imported a T180 Bobcat to level a driveway. One of my workshops turned into a storage unit with hardly any room left.

I think I would be classified as a hoarder if I didn't use most of my tools.

I do have some tools I never ever used, but no one knows that ...

[SLAG]

Marc1,

There is an old bumper sticker that reads,

"He who dies with the most tools wins".

Tool collecting (i.e. hoarding) is something we have in common.

Regards,

SLAG.

[Marc1]

Mm ... you gave me a good pointer, it is a collection.

"Collector" sounds much more professional ... sort of purpose driven. Thanks

I am a collector of tools ... wow! Who would have thought

[Ricky]

Fellow “Tool Enthusiasts “,

I tried the “It’s a collection” ruse. DO NOT- I repeat, DO NOT attempt to use this argument with your wife if you have ever attempted to “collect “ anything before. She will not fall for it. She has a detailed list somewhere in her brain of all of the stuff you’ve ever “collected “. Also do not try to tell her that your collection will one day be valuable unless you are impervious to snide remarks. Well, when my collection of old, used fishing sinkers turns out to be priceless some day, we’ll see who has the last laugh. 

[ThomasPowers]

I get US$25 a week allowance for *all* my vices (and vises).  Works well for me.  Seems like I can find stuff I can use on the cheap and it does pile up over the *years*!  When cleaning some in my shop---so I could walk in it you know---I was noticing as I added another scrapyard found chisel that I had a PILE of chisels and really don't need any more most likely.  I've started giving away items just to reclaim space for different things---like the 14" diameter 7" long section from a graphite electrode from a steel melting plant---figured I'd never do the edm work I had scrounged it for and so passed it on to my Daughter's boyfriend who does glass work.

However Rick; if you will just send me your wife's phone number we can arrange an intervention and clean out all that temptation and replace it with cross stitch and quilting items...

And I'm another one in a Steel Wool relationship.  My wife of 33 1/3 years has been teaching spinning for over 40 years; I've only been forging about 37 years.  She gets the house save for my small study, (smallest room in the house that's not a bathroom or closet), and I get my smithy dedicated to *my* stuff!

[Ricky]

Dear Thomas,

 I truly appreciate your advice although I’m not sure that I fully grasp two of the odd phrases that you used, specifically “don’t need” and “giving away”. It’s entirely possible that there is some difference in dialect or culture but these are alien terms to me. How could I possibly have too many chisels, hammers, or metal thingys that look sort of like a question mark without the dot at the bottom? (unless you put one of the big ole rusty ball bearings from the five gallon bucket underneath them.)Then they look exactly like a question mark. I’ll just have to keep trying to reason with my wife.(FYI- Threatening to leave and take all my stuff did not work and if fact, only added a pile of discount advertisements from local moving companies to my workbench. Still, all is not lost. Those ads are great for lighting forge fires. 

[ThomasPowers]

Perhaps you should look up isostasy.  When the scrap pile is driving down the local crust such that the waves start washing around your anvils; then perhaps you have too much stuff...luckily for me that's over 4000' away!

[John McPherson]

We have not had a similar discussion in my household since she bought her THIRD (!) programmable sewing machine. Which cost more than any vehicle that I have bought in this century, BTW. There is a (formerly) walk-in closet in her sewing room that is packed solid in cardboard office paper boxes and plastic bins of fabric 'stash'. The overflow is in drifts around her sewing table and ironing board, the only visible flat surfaces.

There was no discussion when I purchased two high cube storage trailers for our stuff at the farm. Not since the the local crackheads had stolen our golf cart, welder and weedeaters, among other things. 

And as for walking around money for impulse tool purchases unexpected bargains, I feel naked with less than $500 on my hip at all times, and $5000 reserve in the farm savings account for the big stuff. I am willing to make trade-offs in other areas to afford my 'stuff'.

[Charles R. Stevens]

When ones wife is as crazy as you are (don’t mess with any one crazier than you, it never ends well) it is a godsend! For those of you who’s SO is not yet as crazy as you, give it time. Blacksmithing is an insidious malady, prone to mutate when paused to spouses.