Harbor Freight Planishing Hammer

[Model A Bill]

I would like to know what mods people have made to this hamer. I remember some body talking about hardening the anvils but forgot how it was done. Has any body else made other modifications ??

[Rick (madera)]

Bill I don't have a HF planishing hammer, but I have made several linear stretching dies for them. I hardened the dies with Kasenite. I bought a can of it from McMaster-Carr worked great!
Just heat your part to red hot push it in the powder,remove,heat again then quench it in water. The part turns a black/grey then clean and polish

[CARS]

Originally Posted by Rick (madera)

....but I have made several linear stretching dies for them.

I would like to know more about these dies you make for them.

H.F. only makes one model right?
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=94847

(note: I am not trying to advertise the item, simply showing the item I have)

[Rick (madera)]

Originally Posted by CARS

I would like to know more about these dies you make for them.

H.F. only makes one model right?
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=94847

(note: I am not trying to advertise the item, simply showing the item I have)

I got the idea for this die when someone posted picture stretching with a hammer and chisel. I first made a few different sizes for my Mechammer the worked so good I made some to for the HF plannishing hammer

stretcher hf ebay3.jpg

stretcher hf ebay1.jpg

stretcher hf ebay4.jpg

stretcher hf ebay5.jpg

stretcher hf ebay6.jpg

I machine a flat spot if you want to drill and tap the bottom tool holder
but some duct tape works fine

[merlinsautobody]

I used mine for ten minutes before the hammer locked up and quite working. I wasen't even able to get the chisel out so I figgured the head mushroomed out and caused it to lock up actuallty it still tried to burp but I junked it and cut off the hammer head and welded it to a good used air chisel bit and bored out the head of the planisher body to accep[t an old snap-on air chisel an now it works pretty good . I'm thinking I want to put an aircraft riviter [ 4x] on it but I haven't done that yet.


Gale

[Charley Davidson]

So other than noise issues why would anybody even want a stretcher when this thing does a great looking job?

[john soko]

Bill,

PM Bill Gibson. He had a his modified version with him at EMMR. I don't remember
what all he did to it, but it was inexpensive and effective.

john

[Model A Bill]

Hi John,

Thanks for the info. I thought it was Kirks plannishing machine but I could be wrong. Unfortuneatly you can not email or PM people on this site. I lost a lot of messages on my english wheel build that I am doing at the Gator meet this year. ( I hope)

[Peter Miles]

Originally Posted by Model A Bill

Hi John,

Thanks for the info. I thought it was Kirks plannishing machine but I could be wrong. Unfortuneatly you can not email or PM people on this site. I lost a lot of messages on my english wheel build that I am doing at the Gator meet this year. ( I hope)

Hi Bill,

I don't want to hijack the thread but I did want to point out that you can send email messages to members if they put their email address into their user profile and allow members to see their email address. Maybe tomorrow I'll put together a message thread with screenshots showing how to do that.

[scootermcrad]

Just picked one of these up on sale for $80 on sale and with a coupon. Figured for that price, even if something went wrong with it, I've got a set of dies to play with and a foot pedal to use. HAHA!

Watching this thread! I TOO would like to see what all has been done. GREAT tip on the hardening of the dies.

Rick,
What do you get for a set of dies?