Hammer Project

[Ricochet]

Friday afternoon as I drove home from work, I saw a jagged brown piece of rock, I thought, that had fallen down a bank into the road. Drove around it and went on home. Hurried to get out and go walking before the big carnivorous wild critters went on the prowl, so I didn't have to pack anything heavier than my iPod. Stumbled across what I'd thought was the rock, which turned out to be an unusual hammer head. I've eventually identified it as a 5 pound blacksmith's hammer. Someone had pitched it up the bank into the woods in frustration after breaking the handle, which had been improperly installed last time anyway. Looks like the head hasn't been used to amount to much, certainly it's never been damaged and isn't much worn, but since it had rolled down the bank cars had rolled over it and scratched it lightly on every side. I'd pegged it as some sort of metal working hammer and wished my dad (who was a blacksmith in his youth) were around to identify it; he was a huge fan of tools all his life. I went out Saturday to find a handle to fix it. None of the short handles I could find in the local hardware were big enough. Had to buy a 36" sledge handle and whittle it down with a chisel and rasp to fit, which took a couple of hours of steady work Saturday night. Sunday I put the head on the handle, drove in the wooden wedge, trimmed it off, drove in the steel wedge, and soaked the end of the handle in linseed oil to swell and seal it. Today I'll cut the handle off to 12" for a proper blacksmith's hammer, and have a leftover 2' hickory stick for other purposes. My daughter being a metal smith, she'll grab the hammer straight off when she gets up here.
:D

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/asfoundtop.jpg

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/mountedside.jpg

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/mountedtop.jpg

[scrapcan]

It looks to me like a German pattern blacksmiths hammer. Any kind of markings that you can see? It really doesn't matter as these are just like firearms. You take care of them and use them as intended, they will last several lifetimes.

I will bet there was some nice language when the handle broke and the head whistled off into the distance! It has a much better home now as you have brought it back to a usable state.

[Lucky Joe]

Now there you go. Good find and a good job. Like some one once said "There's always a way".

[Ricochet]

I can't recognize any markings. There's a circular place in the center of one side with something inside that I suppose could've been some sort of cartouche, but it's not clear and it could be coincidental.

You know, this hammer may not be related to the houses presently on this road at all. This is an old farm site, and this also was the road to a city dump (which was the hollow just over the hill, now full of houses) for a long time. It had been out in the woods for a good while, I think.

[fishhawk]

that is known as a "cross peen" hammer

[Ricochet]

A "cross pein" hammer? Please enlighten my ignorance. I wish I'd been less interested in teenage pursuits and pursued getting my dad to build a forge and teach me some rudiments of blacksmithing, but I never did. Not asking for an encyclopedia of smithing, but what does "cross pein" mean?

[fishhawk]

if you have looked at many hammers you see some that have what looks like a ball on the end hense a "ball peen" hammer, the one you have is a "cross peen" it goes across the hammer used for streching out a hot piece of say 1x1/2x12 iron the cross peen would strech it length ways insted of tending to flaten the whole piece

[Ricochet]

OK, thanks!

[Nueces]

Nice job, Ricochet, bringing that chunk of iron back to life. Some of my favorite tools are resurrected road kill, too. I'll bet your daughter will treasure it.

Mark

[Jim]

Ric,
Ya' done good!

[Ricochet]

Thanks! I'll bet she will, too. Bet she won't do a whole lot of beating with it, though, as this thing is HEAVY! I cut it off at 16" as it just looked nicely proportioned there. It would've looked pretty stubby at 12". Won't hurt to "choke up on" the handle in use, of course, and a few inches sticking back won't get in the way. I'd always rather leave a little more to remove later than wish I could put some back. I smoothed out the cut end and beveled the edge, applied linseed oil, and it looks just like a handle that came on a storebought one. (Of the old fashioned sort.)
:mrgreen:

I did a bit of Googling around on cross peen hammers. They're all over the place. I really am ignorant about this stuff. (But I am getting a handle on it.) :lol:

(There aren't a lot of 5 lb. cross peen hammers being sold these days.)

[Dale53]

I am glad to see that you are "getting a handle on it":mrgreen: .

Looks like you did a FINE job on putting an honest tool back to work. "Good on you"!

Dale53

[Four Fingers of Death]

Good work, she will find it handy when she is working with heavy pieces of metal, two hits from a hammer half the weight do not give the same result, can't beat weight, less work in the end.

Good to see that old tool back in business.
Mick.

[MT Gianni]

Nice work Ricochet. I have a 4 lb hammer with a 13 1/2" handle cut to fit a truck box a long time ago. To put the whole thing on topic, Veral Smith said in his book to use a heavy hammer with light blows when slugging a barrel rather than a light hammer with heavy blows. Gianni

[Ricochet]

Thanks, guys!

I had a friend from NZ tell me that this is a blacksmith's sledge, as hand hammers only went to 4 1/2 lbs max. It is plenty heavy for one-handed use, that's for sure. In any case, I have seen sledges sold with 16" handles, and they're usable that way. It'd be tricky to get much on-target accuracy with that yard-long stick. That's pretty much just for busting up stuff. Speaking of which, why do you suppose MSC lists their blacksmith's hammers with their sledges under the category of "demolition hammers?" And back to the "blacksmith's sledge" categorization, what's the point of a cross peen on a sledge?

I've always thought there was supposed to be an "i" in the "peen" of "ball peen hammer." Looks like I was misinformed.

On this peen, pein, pien thing, I went and dragged out the big old book last night, my ancient and bulky second edition Webster's New International Dictionary, Unabridged that I keep around for just such things. "Pein" isn't in the book, apparently just a misspelling. "Pien" is simply defined as "An arris." "Arris" is defined as: "Arch. The sharp edge or salient angle formed by the meeting of two surfaces, whether plane or curved; -- applied esp. to the edges in mouldings, and to the raised edges separating the flutings in a Doric column." "Peen" is defined as "The hemispherical, round-edged, sharp, or thin end of the head of a hammer or sledge opposite to the face. In a metalworker's hammer it is used especially to stretch or bend metal by indentation; in a mason's hammer, to chip or shape stone, and to break bricks." An illustration of "a Peen" is given, showing a hammer head with a round flat face on one end and a straight edged peen aligned with the axis of the handle on the other.

[scrapcan]

Richochet go to centaur forge website and look at hammers. What you have is a german pattern blacksmiths hammer. It is too heavy and the wrong shape for a cross peen. Your hammer is a multipurpose hammer. it can be used alone or it can be used with a striker (helper) with a bigger sledge to move lots of material. the smith holds the hammer you have and the striker hits the big part of the head. It also takes a good large anvil, that too will end up in your tool collection, most likely several of them.

Another hammer that can be used with a striker is the flatter type. It has a big flat head that is used to flatten (ah, someone was thinking when they named this thing) worked metal.

Just for reference. All of us have probably seen a ball peen hammer? If you replce the ball end with a straight piece with a rounded tip you get a cross peen, if and only if the straight is at 90degrees to the handle. those with straight part at an angle or in line with the handle have different names.

If you think cast boolits is a real addiction, wait till you become a tool collector. The best thing to do is take that first hammer you now have and hit your hand every time you think you need another old tool or book about old tools.

[Ricochet]

Thanks for the info!

That site also makes clear the difference between a straight peen, which is aligned with the handle, and a cross peen, which is perpendicular to the handle.

As for bigger driving sledges, I have a 12 pounder if that ever becomes needed. :-D

When Pop died, while Mama was at the funeral home somebody pulled in the driveway with a truck, loaded up his anvils and drove off. I've got his forge blower in the basement.

[Ricochet]

Here's the finished product:

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/SlidePicker/Finished1.jpg

I'm done working on it for now. :-D

[Four Fingers of Death]

Thats a low act, stealing off a widow, shooting offence in my book.

I've dabbled with a bit of blacksmithing and the trick I was taught I remembered my grandfather teaching me, but I was young and forgot. When striking, raise the hammer so your fist holding the hammer is at shoulder level. You will then get maximum strike and actually do less work to get the same result. I have an olf forge with a rusty tray, a blower, a few anvils, one small cheapy and one small one made fro a railroad track and a leg vice and a selection of hammers. I gotta get my finger out and get em' working.

What was that song Clifton Clowers? he had a heart like a nine pound hammer.

[Junior1942]

Thats a low act, stealing off a widow, shooting offence in my book.+1. Acts like that make me hope there really is a hell.

[R.M.]

It's going back 40 years, but I seem to remember using hammers like that in the tire shop that I worked at in school. We repaired a lot of truck tires, and we had to beat the locking ring in place as we filled it with air.

R.M.

[BD]

That's a fairly common size and shape for a mechanics hammer. I have an 8 pounder shaped just like it on the tongue of the equipment trailer, (ours has a steel handle welded on). Very useful for convincing stuborn split rims/track pins/cylinder cross pins/chain knots ect. to see things "my way". My guess is that it flew up onto that bank out of a cloud of "blue" air surrounding a broken piece of heavy equipment.
BD

[KCSO]

Hammers peen or enlarge metal directionaly. A ball peen is best used for setting rivets as it pushes the metal out in all directions, a cross peen is sometimes used to lengthen or bend. Yours loos like a two man hammer as the apprentice or helper swings the hammer the smith moves the metal and directs the blows. I just picked up a set of flatters that a fellow was using to beat bolts out of a tractor frame. It took me 3 days to regrind and smooth them. After you had apprenticed you took your hammers and an anvil and made alll the rest of your tools. At one time I had over 20 sets of tongs for different shaped projects and I let most of them slip away. I still have 14 different hammers though.

[Ricochet]

Oh, I'm quite confident that there is a hell. I'm not sure that's something to be happy about, though.

Mick's tip about raising the fist holding the hammer to shoulder level sounds like a good one. Can't say as I've ever seen one of the working smiths at Dollywood swing a hammer way up high.

For me, this hammer would be most comfortably used with two hands for a lot of beating, i.e., the two-man use mentioned. Of course, you could use a bigger one that way, but this is pretty big for one hand.

Heard a song on the country station at noontime today mentioning a guy with a heart like a nine pound hammer.

[nelsonted1]

I got a blacksmithing book from the library written by a babe blacksmith in Ohio. SHe said use a heavy hammer- a light one will give you carpel tunnel. Guaranteed. She said let the hammer do the work.

Another thing she said when setting and positioning an anvil make sure you don't set it where you can walk into the pointy part, the horn. A hundred pound anvil doesn't move. I can visualize the pain.

TED

[Rick N Bama]

The hammer is a spitting image of what I used as Telephone Co. worker. We simply called it a "Lineman's Hammer".

Rick

[Ricochet]

Ow! I can imagine walking into the horn of the anvil the wrong way isn't a happy experience.

A lineman's hammer, huh? That's right close to where the lines run through, where I found the head. Across the road from a pole, up on the bank is where it had been resting. I'll have to look and see if a guywire anchor had been driven in there. I think it could be pretty handy for a lot of things, actually.

[Ricochet]

Went back and looked. The hammer rolled down the bank straight across from a pole which is a corner, on the outside of a curve in the road. Has two guywires on the outside, opposite the road and bank. If the hammer was used on the guywire anchors, maybe it broke on an overstrike, the guy got P.O.'d and hurled it across the road up the bank into the woods. As a friend suggested, if it hurt him when it broke, that would've made it more likely to happen that way. Maybe it was a lineman's hammer. Whoever had it before, it already had a replacement handle that wasn't put in right and was a setup to break.

[Powderpacker]

Ric-
Glad to see you resolved the peen/pien/pein issue - - now if you can find your way to the correct side of the mold/mould dichotomy. Nice job on the hammer, by the way .
Ted

[Ricochet]

:-D

I think "pein" and "mould" are both preferred spellings from the Eastern side of the pond. I kinda like 'em, though. Grew up thinking "ball pein" was the right way to spell it, and Webster's has gotten things wrong before. Besides, other editions of Webster's besides this second one I have list "pein" as an alternate spelling, also "pane" and "pien" as well, so take your choice and be happy with it. I've been looking around at lots of hardware and blacksmithing supply sites lately, and as many of them use "pein" as "peen."

FWIW, last night I ran across an excerpt on Google Books from an early 20th century book on heat treating that explained, with illustrations, the proper method for heat treating the peen and face of a hammer. The peen is first heated just above the critical temperature at the edge and quenched in the water bath, then the face is heated and held down to a slightly raised fountain of water that has to be streaming up from a tube just below the surface of the water bath, hitting the face of the hammer in the center. This prevents steam from building up in the center and interfering with rapid quenching. Done properly, this gives maximum hardness near the center of the face, where it's needed, and a softer, tougher surrounding collar. Wonder if it's still done similarly?

[Ricochet]

Just got a 1954 reprint of the 1948 edition Metals Handbook on eBay for $5.00 + $5.00 shipping. Ought to be enough to keep me busy reading about alloys, heat treatments and such for a while. Pretty good reference for that stuff, anyway, even if newer stuff's not to be found in it. I love old technical books!

While I was on eBay today I also snagged another $5.00 bargain, a barely used (still with the price tag on it) Fairmount 1 1/2 lb. hammer, with a straight peen on one end and a cross peen on the other.

[Ricochet]

Well, never mind that silly stuff I said about it being just about too heavy for one hand and all. That was based on wielding it inside where you've got to stop the swing you started, before it hits something. I went out and did some practicing on a railroad tie, and holding it by the end of the handle, raising it with the fist shoulder high is quite comfortable and I can strike a good solid blow with it that way. Leaves a good dent in the tie, and you can hear it all over the neighborhood. It'd definitely be a usable blacksmith's hammer, and while I'm out of shape I could put it to good use when I got into the swing of it. My daughter's no fragile flower, and she could, too, I'm sure.

[Ricochet]

Just a postscript to the hammer thread:

I carried the hammer to church Sunday. Pulled it out of a bag down front and used it as an object lesson for a communion meditation. Held it up and asked if they knew what it was. "A hammer." Right. Told how they wouldn't have recognized it if I'd brought it in as I first saw it, and how I didn't recognize it at first, myself. Told how I'd found it, discarded like trash on the roadside, abandoned, useless, worthless and deteriorating, recognized it for what it was, fixed it up and restored it to what it was supposed to be, a valuable, useful tool ready for service. I hadn't tried to polish it up to look like new, though, it still bore the marks of its hard experiences. Compared its lost state it had lain in to the situation so many of us have been in without Christ, similarly broken, tossed away and abandoned on the side of the road of life, in the eyes of the world worthless and useless, with no one who cares. Or maybe not looking so bad to the world, yet still definitely not fulfilling the purpose originally intended for us by our Maker. But when Christ comes along and we allow him, he sees our great intrinsic worth as God made us. He picks us up from the roadside, lovingly fixes what's broken and makes us fully ready for service. He doesn't remove our scars and marks of experience, either; he's still got his wounds from the cross in Heaven, after all! Our marks of experience may be part of the preparation for what he's fixed us up for. And he's already got work ready for us to do, prepared ahead of time by his father! Ephesians 2:8-10 says: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do." As we gather around the Lord's Table to remember his sacrifice that brought us salvation, forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life, let's remember that he did it with this purpose in mind, that we're made in Christ to do good works for God. It says so right here in Ephesians. If you're already doing God's work, great! God bless you! In fact, he is already blessing you. And if you keep it up, one day he'll look you in the eye, smile and say "Well done, good and faithful servant." It doesn't get any better than that! If you're not, this is a great time to pray and ask God to show you what it is that he wants you to do; that he specially custom made you to do, that nobody else can do for him like you can.

Summarized it a bit there, but that's the crux of it. Got more positive feedback on that one than anything else I've said in 19 years. Went perfectly with what the new preacher said in his first sermon. It was meant to be.

Also had a lot of folks wanting to see and handle it afterward, and had one older gentleman tell me firmly that it was a stonemason's hammer. May well be right, there's a brick wall on one side and a stone wall on the other of the property across the road from where I found it. Heard a couple of other stories about found hammers in fields and their restoration. And a friend excitedly told me he wanted to show me something in his truck. He'd been to a Celtic festival on Saturday, met a blacksmith with a display, and made a letter opener out of a small piece of square stock. Hammered a blade into a butterknife shape, twisted the handle and flattened the end, which was turned down attractively, and sharpened the edge. Mighty well done for a first piece of iron work!
:-D

[crabo]

I had a different kind of hammer project today. I teach autobody in a high school. I was talking about, and displaying all the different hammers we use, and I asked them, "If I handed you some nails and a hammer, how many of you could nail two boards together?" Out of 29 kids, only about 5 of them raised their hands. I did this in my other classes as well, and it was about the same ratio. 5 or 6 out of 30.

So I spent today and will spend tomorrow teaching 150 kids how to drive a nail. I bought a 50 pound box of 12 penny nails and some 2x4s and we are nailing boards together. I demonstrate and then have them practice for a while. Then I have everyone drive 2 nails for me for a grade. Then I have a contest. I give $2 for a coke and a bag of chips to the student who can drive the most nails in 60 seconds. If you bend the nail, no point. Top score was 14. It is amazing how hard they try when you put a couple of bucks up.

This is something we just take for granted, but a lot of kids grow up in apartments, without a father in the home, or with parents that just don't know how to fix things. We need to teach our kids how to "fix things".

Crabo

[Ricochet]

Yeah, they sure do need to know how to do stuff like that.

BTW, I think it's great that your school has auto body. Craft and trade classes are being dropped in high schools in a lot of places.

[lar45]

Thats a low act, stealing off a widow, shooting offence in my book.
.

Should be stretched between a couple of mules first, then cut off the offending member.(hands)