IrregularReno Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 Good evening folks, I'm still fairly new to forging and don't have very large equipment or tooling at the moment; however, I'm interested in trying my hand at making a hammer. I understand that a full sized hammer is likely out of reach, but I was wondering if making some miniature hammers would be good to try as practice? We have a thick piece of 1" thick 4" wide by roughly 6". I've cut off a piece of 1" square by 4" long. I was thinking of using some coil spring tools to try to make a hammer. The piece only weighs about 10 ounces so it will likely just be used as a chipping hammer. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 I think that you will mostly learn how to make smaller hammers and will still have a number of issues when you go to scale up. Have you thought of finding a nice large axle and make a bunch of full sized hammers from it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrregularReno Posted June 18, 2021 Author Share Posted June 18, 2021 I have a piece of 1 1/2" square that's like 4ft long that I've done some test heat treats on that I was planning on using for full size hammers. I just don't have any eye punches and especially not any drifts at the moment. I just got this idea though, I have some 1 1/4" shaft that I could probably work down into a drift. I could get a 2lb Harbor Freight hammer, remove the handle, and size it off of that. Then, I could forge the 2lb into a cross peen or something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 Make sure the HF hammer head has a good eye. Never want to make tools based on someone else's bad design! (One thing to check for is that the eye fits commonly available hammer handles!) I think I would rather get a good brand hammer head from the scrapyard or fleamarket or yard sale or pawn shop and use that for the "tool to make a tool". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anvil Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 Why don't you take your 1" stock and make a hammer eye punch or a slitting chisel, and a drift, then make a real hammer that you will use? You can either punch the eye, or slit and drift the eye. I wouldn't buy a hammer so I would know what size eye to make. Seems redundant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 If you need a hammer to use as a template to make your punch and drifts but a yard sale hammer, HF Chinese made hammers aren't up to uniform standards. Patterned on a good hammer and you'll be able to buy handles at the local hardware store if you wish. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 I visit a freight salvage company from time to time and once ran across an entire crate of hammer heads selling cheap by the piece---I was excited till I picked one up and looked it over. Eye was punched out of square. Looked at a bunch more. All the eyes were mist punched in various ways. Crate was labeled in Chinese. I guess someone got shipped a crate of mistakes and noticed and refused it and hence it showed up at the Freight Salvage store... I am always perplexed when I see folks picking bad designs to copy because they are cheap. As hand workers we can't compete on "cheap" we need to compete on "GOOD!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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