When I was starting out as a teenage smith, I had a hammer like this one. I used it as a big rounding hanger for heavy smashing jobs, but it was one of the tools that got left behind when I left New England in ‘92. 

This one was in a bin of hammers I got at the industrial surplus place yesterday. It’s very similar to my old one, although possibly a hair smaller and with the enlarged face on only one side rather than both. 

Anyone ever seen a hammer like this and can give me an idea about what it might have originally been for?

A friend of mine had one and he was a retired Boilermaker.

Interesting. 

Wine barrel bungs.

Neil

I believe bung mallets are usually wood with metal bands, rather like a fatter version of a caulking mallet. 

I've seen them as boiler makers or plate hammers, often as double jacks. I have one somewhere but it's heavier than I generally use. Handy when you need a little authority.

Frosty The Lucky.

Boiler makers for seating fire tubes for fire tube boilers. I have 2 on my rack. Both sourced in Ohio as I recall.  I wonder if Lima was rife with them?

Interesting. I got the first one at a flea market in the Hudson Valley in NY, if memory serves.

It would make a great drift.

I think I've seen that shape of hammer used setting spikes to hold rr track in place. 

I have examples of both the spike setting hammers: cylindrical and sq/octagonal ones and the boilermaker's hammers.  Here are pictures of the boilermaker's hammers and the spike hammers together:

The domed on both faces of the boilermaker's hammers would be hard to drive a spike straight with; the spike driving hammers have flat faces.

   

Yessir, that's my baby. Should be good for heavy dishing, if nothing else.

For once I got the ID right. When I saw the picture it brought back a long lost memory of "Average Chandler" nickname of my friend the retired boilermaker. Haven't seen or heard from him in decades.

If you google "Pexto Raising Hammer" you will get many image hits for hammers in this style.  They are coveted by the metalshaping crowd (the custom sheet metal forming community) and were marketed in catalogs as "Tinners Raising Hammers" (see imag below).  Pexto is a common make but there are others who made nearly identical hammers.  I've seen them in many sizes up to five pounds. Modern metalsmiths might say that the term raising in the context of this hammers' purpose is a misnomer, but that is another discussion.  

Thomas Powers:  I'm curious how this form of hammer would serve seating boiler tubes.  That work is usually done with a tube expander and what are called "crow's foot" flaring and beading set tools (hammer-struck or pneumatic). 

Edited August 21, 20214 yr by Mod30
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I don't know how they were used; I've just picked up several over the years to use for dishing armour pieces.

Hmm I wonder if striking the other end with a lead maul would work to start the flare and curl?

Any steamer's here that are up on the methods once used?

So "Pexto" was formed from "Peck" and "Stowe"? Huh.

6 hours ago, JHCC said:

So "Pexto" was formed from "Peck" and "Stowe"? Huh.

Affirmative.  I've always thought it was curious how names can morph like that.  I live in a town named Anacortes, it was named after "Annie Curtis".  

Thomas Powers

I may be that "steamer" guy.  I've been around live steam most of my life operating antique stationary and traction machinery.  I've observed fire tube boilers being re-tubed and I've cut my fare share of tubes out of flue sheets.  I've been reading about beading the edge by hand.  The traditional tool, the "crow's foot" or "boilermaker's thumb" (see attached image of the two tools on the outside of the frame) is what one might expect and no different than the forms used today on pneumatic tools.  the tube is upset as much as it is beaded over.  A lot of force in small area is preferable to spreading that force over the whole circumference of the end of the tube, particularly when you consider that this is done cold.  

Adair: Please don't use the "AT" symbol. The Iforge OS doesn't use tags and the symbol messes things up so the mods get to spend time deleting them.

Frosty The Lucky.

Back a couple of decades ago in Columbus Ohio, I stumbled across a crate full of WWII British Boilermakers hammers like large ball peens with a long shaft on the flat face side---some still had the original tag on the handles:  Ballpeen, boilermakers, 1 ea as well as the date stamp and broad arrow in the heads.  Not too cheap so every year I would buy a couple and resell them at quad-state.  They went fast and one fellow tracked me down as they were *perfect* for removing pins on their WWII  tracked vehicles...