Ball pein hammer

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Harlequin

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recommendations please

for use on brass mainly - hand planes,knife handle(rivets)etc
 
I use Stanleys with British standard marks - expensive when new. Nothing very special but they stand up to it fine. Also I have a few collected hammers of different shaped ball peins but tend to stick to the average round for most riveting. For peining dovetails I use punches for the most part - even using a 1/4lb as a punch, ball down and hit with a 1lb.

The 2lb I use in the forge is an old Gilpin - beautiful. I just wish I could find some smaller Gilpins for bench work.
 
All mine are inherited, no idea what make they are?
Here's part of the "collection" that I recently re-handled:

Rod
 

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Another maker of specialist hammers was Whitehouse, if you're looking for secondhand.

For small riveting jobs like knife-scales, a small hammer is usually recommended, say about 4oz. It helps to polish the face and ball-pein up, this seems to give a better finish to the work, leaving less to clean up later. New hammers sometimes have grinder-marks on the face and ball, it's worth polishing them out with emery.

As with chisels and the like, it can pay to keep 'fine work' hammers nicely polished, and have a separate not-so-fussed-over hammer or two for general duties. The dints and dings aquired during normal abuse of general workshop stock hammers will reflect in the work if used on anything needing a bit of finish.
 
Hi,

I found my last hammer in a hedge! stanley 2 1/2lb spotted it on the way to the pub and picked it up on the way home.
The ball pein had been used on concrete and was a mess, I angle grindered it and polished it with wet and dry.

Car boots are a good place to look for hammers.

Pete
 
Richard T":1y5hvb14 said:
For peining dovetails I use punches for the most part - even using a 1/4lb as a punch, ball down and hit with a 1lb.
Isn't it dangerous to hit hammers together, I was taught at an early age never to hit two hammers together because of shrapnel flying off them.
mack
 
Hi, Mack

Mythbusters have examined this myth in depth and it isn't a problem with moderen hammers.

Pete
 
Racers":3o851jza said:
Hi, Mack

Mythbusters have examined this myth in depth and it isn't a problem with moderen hammers.

Pete

After suffering the fate of having flying shrapnel from a hammer head embed itself in my right forearm (Still carrying the scar over 40 years later) when a work colleague experimented with striking two hammer faces off one another, I tend to approach such activities with caution.
 
GazPal":15tnxgb3 said:
Racers":15tnxgb3 said:
Hi, Mack

Mythbusters have examined this myth in depth and it isn't a problem with moderen hammers.

Pete

After suffering the fate of having flying shrapnel from a hammer head embed itself in my right forearm (Still carrying the scar over 40 years later) when a work colleague experimented with striking two hammer faces off one another, I tend to approach such activities with caution.

They did find evidence of old hammers chipping/cracking and shrapnel causing injures.

I does make me narrow my eyes and tighten sphincters seeing it done. :shock:

Pete
 
A couple of years ago my dad whacked a brick hammer with a lump hammer (both relatively new) and ended up in hospital to have the piece of metal which flew off removed from his wrist. It took the surgeon over an hour to find it!

I still wouldn't chance hitting hammers together, despite the modern ones being safer.
 
mark aspin":1bc3m7yf said:
A couple of years ago my dad whacked a brick hammer with a lump hammer (both relatively new) and ended up in hospital to have the piece of metal which flew off removed from his wrist. It took the surgeon over an hour to find it!

I still wouldn't chance hitting hammers together, despite the modern ones being safer.


I would have thought a good surgeon would be able to find a wrist :shock: :wink:

No lasting damage I hope.


Pete
 
Racers":2m6sgmg8 said:
mark aspin":2m6sgmg8 said:
A couple of years ago my dad whacked a brick hammer with a lump hammer (both relatively new) and ended up in hospital to have the piece of metal which flew off removed from his wrist. It took the surgeon over an hour to find it!

I still wouldn't chance hitting hammers together, despite the modern ones being safer.


I would have thought a good surgeon would be able to find a wrist :shock: :wink:

No lasting damage I hope.


Pete

He still complains about it being sore. The operation left a 4 inch scar, mind.
 
mark aspin":7fe117ss said:
He still complains about it being sore. The operation left a 4 inch scar, mind.

Better his wrist or my arm than an eye or severed artery my friend.

Hammer safety is often neglected and bashing two hardened steel faces together isn't the best option regardless of what Mythbusters proved or disproved. :)
 
You've all got me worried now ... I'd better make me a ball pein punch and stop my senseless cruelty to small hammers in unnatural positions. :shock:
 
:D I thought it was common practice to draw the hardness from/avoid quenching striking faces when forging fullers, etc.
 
I stand to be corrected by the tool historicacklists, but I was always led to believe that ball pein hammers were specifically meant for bashing soft metals into shape.

I'll never forget those bloody napkin rings I had to make at skool; copper, brazed into a circle then "planished" for the finish! (hammer)
 
GazPal":1c7lz2g6 said:
:D I thought it was common practice to draw the hardness from/avoid quenching striking faces when forging fullers, etc.

I'm sure it is Gary - it's just so much easier to grind an existing cold chisel to a cross pein punch; no forging or heat treating involved. I'll have to do some "proper" smithery to make a ball pein.

Tony - the first purpose of a ball pein is to spread metal in all directions outwards. Very good for upsetting rivets/doming, beating out bowls. The second purpose is indeed what I also did at school - leaving nice dents on copper.
 

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