I am glad you found the video helpful

Glad I could help!

I couldn't agree more. You could have a thousand blacksmiths give a talk about the fundamentals of hammers. And the thousand would more or less all agree on some list of fundamentals to cover. What sets a blacksmith apart is the rambling and the variations in technique. And in that category, I think this guy is fantastic. They'll be watching these videos a hundred years from now, I bet. It really is all about imparting wisdom, after all is said and done.

Enjoy the craft, it can by a lot of fun

Hi go to anvil SA and hi also from SA im starting to do blacksmith

Glad to help

Glad you enjoyed it

The diagonal peen hammer is one of my favorites at just under 2 pounds. I do wish I had made the peen a bit larger though.

This is good information. I have wanted to ask about the hammers. I would like to buy a 2.5 lb angle peen. This may not be the correct platform. I am without experience, would like to learn.

Glad to help

Glad I could help!

G FATHER1259 me too

There are some great hammers out there, sometimes the thrift store find is better than the new ones.

Glad it helped

Same bro

Same. And their 20 dollar anvil! ✊💯

Yea same

I think wooden handles are the best option. Eventually everything comes in contact with hot iron and while wood scorches, fiberglass melts and makes a Mess. Wood handle are much easier to replace when the time comes as well.

I have an 1800 gram hammer I use on occasion for faster drawing thicker pieces, but mostly I use my 1250 g (about 2.5 pound) hammer too.

I will look into it. I'll need to find a willing assistant to film. You may want to look at the videos from the recent conference, there are some brief bits of striking shown. about 8:23 on this video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y8WSZpqDq5avqWw.html

thanks

While I prefer a more square head, its really a personal choice and its worth trying a few style to see which you prefer.

@@BlackBearForge all of mine so far have been round heads....maybe I need to find me a square head 2# to try...back in the day I nailed sheet rock with a square head 12oz box axe.

To learn more about your hammer contact Little Giant at www.littlegianthammer.com they don't sell hammers but do have all of the old records and can look up the serial number to see when it was built and who the first owner was. They are also the experts in maintaining these old hammers.

Excellent, thanks. I printed some info from the website and I'll get over to the museum soon and do a little research. I appreciate your help very much!

Thanks very much, it was good advice and I've learned more about the trip hammer, very useful information. I also notice in one of your other videos, you are using an Edwards Shear; is it a #5 or #10? Our museum has one of each. Do you have occasion to dress the jaws? If so, what is your procedure? Thanks again!

I haven't done an anvil video yet, but I do need to. Anvils are hard to find and with the price of old anvils getting higher and higher, the new ones are seeming like better deals. Although I don't know what new anvils might be available in Australia. The cheap cast iron ones are pretty bad, but the cast steel ones being made in places like the Czech republic seem to be good anvils. I wish I could afford to buy and review some of them.

Australia is a lot like America 20 or 30 years ago without so many automatic weapons :) Blacksmithing is still relatively popular so new anvils are available. I can find importers online and I think someone makes them in Melbourne. But the quality is a complete unknown and the price is nothing to go by. I would have a hard time telling a cast iron from a cast steel anvil by sight or worse photograph. Give me a file and I could tell :) Some anvils I see have a flatish top on the horn and no serious blacksmiths seem to have them. I see a lot of Farrier anvils online. Sure they are smaller but the quality seems much better. I'm wondering if a large one of them would be good enough. Still not cheap though. Even if you did a video on the pro's and con's of your anvil. That might be handy to pick the things to look for and look out for. Just so I can practise hitting hot steel I found a steel plate and a 2' diameter log and fixed the plate to the end of the log. I had fun making a Hardy hole in it. A made a chute in the log under the hole for any hot bits to fall out. I'm working on restoring a 1820's horse cart. Not much wood left but the metal bits are mostly there. I can use most of the steel and copy the missing bits. Hey I even enjoyed your zinc plated bolt video. Keep up the instructional nature rather than the look what I can do approach. Thanks David

I will certainly do a video on what I have and discus some of whats out there. There are some very anvil like things to be found in scrap yards, particularly large machinery pieces. Your large stump with a piece of plate is a good start.

I can't find one state side heavier than the one I have now. Try making an anvil shaped object... basically a really heavy flat hardenable steel object is the most important thing in my opinion. I've bought 6 feet of 5.5" round stock and had it cut in half. I also bought 18x32x2" hardenable plate that I'm going to get cut into a 32x20 plate and two 9x12" face plates. Going to drill a hardy in the same place on the plates and weld them together, then harden the now 4" thick anvil face and temper it a bit. Trim and weld the round stock to the plate and weld the face to the struts. No horn, but if you can find a shop that'll turn a cone for you from round stock you can turn it into a hardy tool. I got lucky and found all that stock for $210usd. I've never been to Australia but if you go to a steel refining industrial park you're probably going to find similar scrap, some of it hardenable. I can weld, but even if I couldn't for about another $300 I will have a roughly 800lb anvil shaped object that's exactly the height I need, no base to worry about.

I'll miss the horn a bit, but I'll trade it for an anvil that has a true flat face, good edges, and is hard in the face and heavy.

*Peen not owen

You could. Commercial hammers should be the same hardness throughout. But it will be lots of work and you may spend more on abrasives than you would for a new hammer.

Probably a dumb idea but why not try annealing and then harden it again when you're done removing material from the head?

I've done this many times. Cut a slice off the face with a zip cut blade on an angle grinder. Keep quenching the hammer so it doesn't get too hot.

I don't. It seems like there is a pretty big likelihood that small cracks will occur in conjunction with the mushrooming and I don't want to forge those back into the tool. I have some old mower blades, but I haven't tried them yet.

@@BlackBearForge that makes sense; I didn't think about the possibility of forging those tiny cracks & cold shuts into it. Thanks!

Very rarely

At one point industrial forging was all done by blacksmiths. There are still huge hammers out there but they are more automated and not used the way a blacksmith would use one.

Keith Devers or make?

Matthew Hall I'd like to try to make my own hammers. It'll better fit my budget. I stay broke all the time. I'm raising two boys that ain't mine. So I don't have any extra $100+ for a hammer. I still don't have a rounding hammer and the only cross peen hammer I have is only 1/2lb. I have a set of tongs to hold the hammer head, I just don't have a striker to help me.

I would heat it with a torch until it turn light blue and then perhaps a bit more. That should draw the temper back quite a way

I’ll give it a try. Thank you.

I wouldn't advise it noth because of the fire/explosion risk as well as the carbon monoxide.

Good idea