I forged my first hammer!

[Awrksmokey]

I'm forging my first hammer! It's been a ton of fun so far. I started with 3 inch 4140 round, cut a disc off and shaped the billet first. I punched the hole accurately (or so i thought!) and once i drifted it, I saw it wiggled a bit off center. I got some help trying to correct it by drifting to round then oval again, but it didn't really work sadly. I forged in the fullers and then forged the faces, round side into octagon and the flat side I hit the corners to octagon on the rounding side, but on the flat side i just smashed the corners in a bit. i've rough ground it and heat treated it, and this is what it looked like. The next day i heat treated it and finished grinding the faces. I made an 11 inch ash handle, charred the end a bit (for aesthetics mostly, lol) and put a walnut wedge followed by a steel wedge in. The hammer ended up around 2 pounds. I wasn't sure if this was going to turn out well at all, and even though there are a ton of annoying flaws I'll try to correct on the next one, I like it. I forged the leaf with the hammer too.

[BubbaNash]

Beauty! 

[Virusds]

Real nice! thanks for posting this, love to see other people's creativity.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Looks great. Good work!

[DSW HandCraft]

It's a nice looking hammer!
The pleasure of using the tool that you've made from scratch outweighs those small flaws.

[Awrksmokey]

Thanks guys! I agree, it is much more fun using a hammer I've made instead of a hammer I bought. 

[Mr Moose]

Welcome to the Dark side...Hammer making 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

All around a great hammer, good weight too.

[Awrksmokey]

Thanks. I want to make another hammer now lol.

[jlpservicesinc]

Nice work and nice correction with the handle.. 

If you punch or shape the eye off  there is no great way to correct it without a great understanding on how to shift the metal around..   It's not a simple task.. 

So even going from oval to round back to oval won't correct the area where the metal is bunched up.. One actually needs to shift the fat spot (which happens in 2 places) around. 

Well done..  

[Awrksmokey]

I'd also tried cooling the cheek that bulged out disproportionately and drifting it with one side hot, that didn't work too well either. When I make my next one, hopefully I'll just do it right the first time but the learning experience of learning to move the metal would be welcome too. We'll see. Thank you!  

[jlpservicesinc]

Yup, good learning for sure..  How do you like swinging it? Have you ran it thru it's pace yet? 

[Awrksmokey]

I did some forged the leaf in one of the pics with it, and I also did some forge welding and made a ball on the end of a rod. I also tried scarf welding, and that didn't work so well haha. More practicing to do i guess! I'd say it worked pretty well! I really like that sort of rectangular handle shape. The rounding part took some getting used to but I can really see why people like it now, 

[jlpservicesinc]

Nice..   Nothing like the feeling of making you own gear that you can be happy using.  

By the way.. Nothing is perfect when hand made..  WE just strive to go there..    Each time we get a little closer..

[Awrksmokey]

Yup, I guess perfect can't really exist. But i can try to get real close!

[Momatt]

Congratulations. 3 inch 4140 by hand?  That is big hard metal to move with a hand hammer. 

[Awrksmokey]

I went to a different shop, and they had some nicer tools then i was used to in my home setup, but it was a pretty sizeable chunk of material!