How to make hammers?

[flint kemper]

My question involves making hammers for forming metal with. I have looked at several from various vendors, but since losing my job funds are not readily availible as they used to be. Can you make them out of wood or do they have to be the hard plastic any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

[snotzalot]

My question involves making hammers for forming metal with. I have looked at several from various vendors, but since losing my job funds are not readily availible as they used to be. Can you make them out of wood or do they have to be the hard plastic any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

Kerry made a real nice hammer out of a baseball bat. Cut in in half and made the handle out of the lower half. It worked well.

http://www.metalmeet.com/photopost/data/3123/9MetalMeet03_167-med.jpg?8787

[roberlt]

I have a lathe so I used it to make hammer, faces and stuff.

Started with a 2" diameter hunk of steel. Faced it, cut the center out to 1 1/2" inner dia 1/4" deep drilled and tapped a 1/2-13 thread. did this on both sides. Drilled out the center for a handle and put handle on and some allthread in the center

Made a dupulacate of the hammer head (on 1 side) chucked it in the lathe and preceded to cut 2" delrin in a bunch of different radiuses.

made a brass face as well.

I am building a plamishing hammer as well, using the same faces and decided to make some steel hammer faces.

Found out (quickly) that steel hammer head and steel faces weigh a TON so I made another hammer head from 2" aluminum.

So I now have a light hammer, a heavy hemmer and a plemishing hammer with interchangable faces.

Total cost appx $10.00 for the hammers and faces. I scrounged the delrin, the steel and aluminum were in the scrap box and I bought the handles and allthread

Hope this helps.

Rob

[bcarlson]

Hello,

I made a hammer from a Maple dowel I picked up a while back, and a $4 hammer handle I picked up from the local hardware store. It seems to work well, and was relatively cheap to make:

http://www.metalmeet.com/photopost/data/3178/679P1000530.jpg?3277

The more rounded it is, the more you move the metal in each hit. Also, you don't need a 3" diamter like I've got, this one I've found is somewhat restrictive.

Good luck,

Ben

[Oldtin]

You can make mallets from pallet wood, old basball bats, tree trimmings, etc. they will serve you well for the price, but if you can spring for some plastic drops you will be better off.

I have used plastic mallets owned by many of the people on this list and found that the plastic is harder to damage than any of the wood mallets I have used.

I am still use wood mallets, for now. Two of my mallets are home made from a Louisville Slugger that is slightly younger than I am. The other mallet is a stanley brand from the local hardware store. Unfortunately my favorite tapered slugger mallet split from stem to stern last weekend, now I'm shopping for plastic!

Caution: hammering tucks with a wood mallet can be hazardous to your mallet stash!

Les Edmundson

[RexWorks]

What is a good way to attach plastic tips to hammers? The conventional way is to use the threaded tips but that can get spendy. I have also seen hammers that use hose clamps to hold the tips.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Rex Perry

[Bob Baisden]

if you drill a hole in a piece of uhmw and hold it in vise, you can screw the threaded end of black iron water pipe into the plastic. the plastic will get hot and you'll never get the pipe back out. I've made several hammers like this.

Bob

[Korey Wood]

This is actually a slapper I made from an old leaf spring and a scrap piece of one-inch tubing from the MM at Dan Pates shop in Minnesota. The tubing is welded to the spring and the surface of the spring was polished and the edges are radiused. This can all be done at home with scraps and a palm sander for next to nothing if you have access to scrap... I will add a bicycle handgrip or some hockey stick tape to it in the future to finish off the grip... Works way faster than a hammer for planishing... I use it the most and it cost me the least...

[RexWorks]

if you drill a hole in a piece of uhmw and hold it in vise, you can screw the threaded end of black iron water pipe into the plastic. the plastic will get hot and you'll never get the pipe back out. I've made several hammers like this.

Bob

Bob,
Thanks for the suggestion. I will give it a try.
I have built a couple slapping hammers similar to the example offered by Korey Wood. They also work well.
Thanks,
Rex

[RexWorks]

What is a good way to attach plastic tips to hammers? The conventional way is to use the threaded tips but that can get spendy. I have also seen hammers that use hose clamps to hold the tips.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Rex Perry

I thought that I would try to post a picture of the mallet that resulted from these discussions.
Rex Perry
http://www.metalmeet.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=15780&cat=500&page=1

[jlrussell4]

Looks real good to me, Rex. http://206.125.208.236/forum/images/icons/icon3.gif You might consider making another end in the shape of a wedge. You can then swap out one of the round ends when shrinking. The wedge shape works better for tuck shrinking.

[RexWorks]

Jim,

I had some thoughts along those lines but thought that I would wait until the tips were installed before shaping the wedge. I assume that the wedge should be parallel with the handle of the mallet.
Rex

[jlrussell4]

Hi Rex,

I answered this post yesterday, but I guess it never got here. The wedge is arranged to be at right angles to the axis of the handle. This seems to work easier than one aligned parallel the handle. I looked for a picture of a hammer with a wedge end at right angles and couldn't find one. Even the picture of my hammer in my albums has the wedge parallel to the handle :lol: . Tom Lipton, the gentleman who used to sell these nice plastic insert hammers has removed all of his pictures from his album :confused: so I can't show you what a nice high quality hammer with interchangable heads looks like.