Hammer making conundrum

[Hefty]

Hi all,

Still fairly new to the game. I'm working with a 1kg (2.2lb) engineer's cross pein and a small Record brand anvil (or ASO, I think it's cast iron).

I'd like to try making a "squared circle" style rounding hammer as espoused by Brian Brazeal, Alec Steele, et al.

My issue is that I have no hardy hole or leg vice for holding a bottom fuller or spring fullers to fuller in trough lines behind the faces. (I have an engineering vice but I'm worried it may crack.)

Should I:

1. Hold the billet in tongs (with a tong clip) between my legs and hold a set of spring fullers in place with my left hand? Pro: cheaper/less material required. Con: would this be safe enough for a noob smith having to strike pretty hard to get the fullers in? (I have nightmare visions of a red hot billet going somewhere I really don't want it to.) Can you (sort of) grip the billet with spring fullers to add stability?

2. Make a portable hole and a set of spring fullers to fit in it? Pro: I know this will work and will end up being more useful long term. Con: More expensive/ more materials required that I currently don't have (and I'm impatient like a little kid!)

or can any one recommend another method for solo hammer making without power hammer, striker or hardy hole?

Having written this post, I think I know that my answer really is point number 2 above but I'm still holding out that someone might point out a cheap and simple option that I've over looked. 

 

Cheers,

Jono.

[pnut]

Aren't those lines cosmetic? Couldn't you just make the whole billet the shape of the faces along the whole length? I'm not familiar with a squared circle hammer but if it's like a rounding hammer I don't see any reason for the Fuller's except looks.

Pnut

[Jasent]

Could take some 1/2” round and bend in a U.  Then lay that on your anvil, set billet on top.  Then you have both hands to run hammer and top fuller.  Still would be nice to have a hardy of some sort so you can draw the cheeks out if that’s what your wanting to do

or....

make a bottom fuller and drive it in a stump

[JHCC]

A slightly more elaborate version of Jasent's idea would be to make a spring fuller from a piece of 1/2" round (mild is fine; no need for spring steel) and bend it into a shape that would both fuller both sides of the blank and grip the anvil sufficiently to hold it in place while you set the fullers.

This wouldn't help with fullering the cheeks, but I suppose that — with some more complicated bends and a support block — you could make a version that would, like this:

Remember that there's never anything wrong with making a single use tool to get you through an immediate challenge. When you're in a position to make proper fullers for a good anvil with a decent hardy hole, you'll do that, but there are plenty of legitimate workarounds for what you want to accomplish right now.

[Hefty]

14 hours ago, pnut said:

Aren't those lines cosmetic? Couldn't you just make the whole billet the shape of the faces along the whole length? I'm not familiar with a squared circle hammer but if it's like a rounding hammer I don't see any reason for the Fuller's except looks.

Pnut

Yes, they are cosmetic but it's an aesthetic I like. I could make the hammer without them. I have a billet slit punched and ready to drift. I could just round one end, heat treat and dress and be done. But I do like the style and I think if I can make one it'll be a great learning exercise but also a bit of a personal achievement. 

12 hours ago, JHCC said:

This wouldn't help with fullering the cheeks, but I suppose that — with some more complicated bends and a support block — you could make a version that would

I'm less concerned about the cheeks because the horn on my ASO is flat topped because it is cast so I can isolate the cheek over it. But I do like the anvil clampy kinda spring fuller idea!

cheers,

Jono.

[pnut]

I understand. If that's how you want it to be that's how you want it to be. I wanted to make sure you knew they weren't critical. I like the look also. Do you have a chain hold down? If you do you could make a simple hand held spring swage out of a piece of round stock bent into a U. Hold the billet with the hold down. Spring swage in one hand hammer in the other. 

Pnut

[Benona blacksmith]

Can you get a friend to strike for you? You could make a bottom fuller and use a top tool to forge the troughs in using a striker. 

[JHCC]

13 hours ago, Hefty said:

But I do like the anvil clampy kinda spring fuller idea!

By an odd coincidence, "Anvil Clampy Kinda Spring Fuller Idea" is the name of my band.

[anvil]

Both of your choices will work.

Make two hammers using both techniques.

Then you will have two hammers and two ways of making them by your self.

I have a set of hand Fuller's made from coil spring. The distance between when parallel is where they are sized. When forging, use multiple Fuller's on bigger iron so as not to open them too wide, and quit when they are parallel. I've done a lot of fullering with your first method. Then I made it easier by getting my 25# lil giant.

Have fun.

[Hefty]

6 hours ago, JHCC said:

By an odd coincidence, "Anvil Clampy Kinda Spring Fuller Idea" is the name of my band.

I love it!

9 hours ago, Benona blacksmith said:

Can you get a friend to strike for you? You could make a bottom fuller and use a top tool to forge the troughs in using a striker. 

My 12 y.o. son is keen to strike for me but he's still a little green. He can lift the sledge but he's not super accurate so neither of us feels confident about it yet.

20 hours ago, pnut said:

I understand. If that's how you want it to be that's how you want it to be. I wanted to make sure you knew they weren't critical. I like the look also. Do you have a chain hold down? If you do you could make a simple hand held spring swage out of a piece of round stock bent into a U. Hold the billet with the hold down. Spring swage in one hand hammer in the other. 

Pnut

Looks like I'll have to make a chain hold down. I have bicycle chain but not motorbike chain so I'll have to scrounge a little.

[ThomasPowers]

I ran across some half round railing cap that has a flat base and so sits nicely on an anvil.  You could bend it around to make a spring fuller from it.

However in the long run...this is a 50# plate with two 1" sq holes with round tops I found at the scrap yard. Put on a stump with a hole beneath each hardy hole, a few nails to keep it from moving and a fast cheap improvised hardy hole...

[pnut]

I've had my eye out for something like that for a while. When I run across something similar I'll grab it. No real scrapyards around my area anymore unfortunately. Single buyer contracts put an end to those. There used to be a good sized scrapyard in a city right across from Cincinnati on the confluence of the Licking and Ohio Rivers. They load railcars and barges at the scrapyard but they won't let you purchase from them anymore.

Pnut

 

[BillyBones]

On 2/23/2020 at 7:38 PM, Hefty said:

I have bicycle chain but not motorbike

Any transmission shops around you? Go and ask if they have any scrap transfer gear chains. A lot of times they stretch and we scrap them. These chains go from the size of a bicycle chain to 4" wide. 

[Latticino]

On 2/23/2020 at 7:38 PM, Hefty said:

My 12 y.o. son is keen to strike for me but he's still a little green. He can lift the sledge but he's not super accurate so neither of us feels confident about it yet.

If you have a secure pair of hammer making tongs, you might consider having him hold the stock and you strike...

[Hefty]

Well, I made a chain hold down with some bike chain and a trampoline spring to hook it to the staple in my anvil stand. I think it will do the trick for now but I will definitely look into transmission chain for something a bit more substantial, as Billy Bones has recommended. I've screwed it into the stump and then also screwed a small plate over it with big lag bolts to spread the stress when it is clamped on, so hopefully it won't pull free, spring up and hit me in the face!

One step closer to fullering this thing! Now I just need some free time to get back to it.

I also recently got some garage door spring that I'm hoping to straighten and use as my first size of spring fullers for this thing (Already had some larger round bar for the finished size). Should I quench and spring temper it or just use it normalised? I experimented with spring temper for a tong clip but clearly it was still too brittle coz it snapped like a twig when I tried to adjust it.

Cheers,

Jono.

[rockstar.esq]

Hefty,

I watched a youtube video of some smiths making an axe in a very different way.  They fullered cheeks into the stock before they slit and drifted the eye. They fullered in roughly 1/3 on one side, then they flipped it over and fullered the other side down to match.   There are several advantages to this approach.

First off, it's a lot easier to fuller the first cheek into rectangular stock because you have the full support of the anvil under it.  When they moved to the opposing side, they had a squared off set down section which was bolstered with scrap of the same size.  Again, there's full anvil support for the work and you don't need a special bottom fuller.

When they went to slit the stock, it retained the rectangular cross section at the end so it held itself upright.  The slitting went pretty quickly because there was less stock parallel to the chisel to resist.  It was also easier to tell when they had the chisel centered because the long axis is defined by the fullers, and the stock width at the eye is closer to the blade.

The drifting went especially quickly because they weren't trying  to move 2/3 of the stock thickness with a top tool, drift, and bottom tool.  That's a lot of moving parts, each of which has inertia resisting the hammer blow.  

When these guys did it, their drift width was equal to 2/3 the stocks starting thickness.  Once fully drifted, the eye cheeks were pushed parallel to the original stock dimensions.  That being said, there's no reason that the proportions couldn't be altered to end up where the eye plus the handle was thinner than the original stock width.

 

 

 

 

[Hefty]

Thanks Rockstar.

I like the idea, but I have already punched the eye on this blank. I haven't drifted it yet though. I need to make a drift so I might take up the 2/3 initial stock size idea.

I'm slowly getting through all the steps I need to cover to actually be able to shape the hammer. I'm also still in the process of making some gooseneck tongs because the hammer eye tongs I made will work for most of the processes but I'd like a more secure, surrounding grip for some parts of the job.

Doesn't help that at the moment I can only really get time at the forge on weekends. I'm spending more time on here talking through my problems than I am in the shed, solving them!

Cheers,

Jono.

 

[Goods]

Hefty, you may be able to fuller the cheeks now. Very little chance of the slit welding shut. You’ll need something as a bolster and need to be careful to forge both sides evenly, but it could be an interesting approach.

David

[Hefty]

Not a bad idea. I'n guessing it will be a little less efficient until I close up the slit, though. Again, being new to this I don't have the experience to tell which will be more efficient but the explanation I've had of using the drift as a secondary "anvil" to fuller the cheeks over makes sense in terms of maximising transfer of kinetic energy of the strike into the cheek.

Although, I suppose if I made a spring fuller that could isolate the cheeks, as in JHCC's second sketch, I would be fullering top and bottom reasonably evenly if I did it now before drifting (with continual rotation to check that it's even).

cheers,

Jono.