I have two of these little hammers which I find the most used and useful of all the hammers in my workshop. one must be 90 years old.
I've been looking all over to get anothe, or another few, but am only seeing ball pein hammers down to 8oz.
price of chinese progress?? are they still available?
Stealth Pilot
Stealth Pilot fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
they are. Try MicroMark tools.
However, this is a machining sig. Why not chuck up a lump of steel in your lathe and make one? The only milling required would be to plunge- cut the handle pocket.
LLoyd
Wes
-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:21:40 +0800, with neither quill nor qualm, Stealth Pilot quickly quoth:
Everywhere.
I picked up a nice little Warrington hammer at Lee Valley a few years ago. I use it to adjust my wooden plane blades. (No, Tawm, they're steel blades which fit into wooden planes.)
well I'll be blowed. they are nowhere to be found where I live.
Here you go:
dennis in nca
snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
But the "handle pocket" is not straight sided and don't forget the heat treating; VERY important for this type of hammer.
dennis in nca
The socket is tapered in both directions, with the longer taper on top. And the face is hardened and tempered overall to a medium-high hardness. Then the outer edge of the face is tempered to dark blue, using an "iron" that has a cone-shaped socket, which is heated to red heat, into which the hammer face is pushed for a few seconds to transfer heat to just the peripheral edge.
It's a little tricky if you're trying to make a high-quality hammer, particularly if you need a polished face. I have three raising hammers that were custom-made that way by an expert, in the 1930s.
-- Ed Huntress
I'd think that the heat treating was actually not very important at all for a 4oz hammer. A hammer of that size is just going to be used for light taping I would think. What am I missing?
Very cool.
It depends on what you're tapping. If you're tapping hardened pins into their holes, you need a properly hardened face or it will get dented. If you're heading copper rivets, it doesn't matter much. If you're planishing decorative metal work over a polished stake, you need a polished face -- and it won't stay polished very long if it isn't properly hardened.
But the worst thing is to harden them the way the Chinese do, and the Japanese used to do, which is to uniformly harden the whole face. When you do that, you'll eventually get chipped edges on the hammer face.
The local True Value has them down to 1 oz. A wall full of chisels and punches right next to them, too. Also carries the Nupla line of interchangeable heads as well as larger changeable head hammers. If the HD or Lowe's borgs have carried off your local real hardware stores, it's a Bad Thing.
I've inherited a bunch of old hammers, some factory-made, some blacksmith-made. Biggest thing in longevity is the tapered socket. If they don't have that, they're best used for scrap iron. Also, ash or hickory replacement handles are getting to be close to the price of a new fiberglass-handled hammer. I have a bucket full of replacements, so I'm covered for most sizes.
Stan
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:04:14 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Wes quickly quoth:
Condolences on owning cheap Searz crap, Wes.
I love my itty bitty little hammers, too. I forgot the chasing hammah I got from Widget. It could be used as a ball peen, too.
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:04:10 +0800, with neither quill nor qualm, Stealth Pilot quickly quoth:
Yeah, they're a specialty item, but they're easy to find. I googled 'em up in a gazillionth (or 1/4) of a second.
thats what I'm finding. Stealth Pilot
Not all sears tools are crap. I seriously abuse certain tools that I have purchased from sears and they hold up. Sometimes I view a tool as expendable if it gets a fastener loose no matter how long a lever or big a hammer I use to provide torque.
I have Sears hand tools spanning across 38 years. Usually when I break one I've done something out of the scope of the tools design with it. The exception was back in 1977 or so, I couldn't keep a sears ratchet working for more than a few months. They seem to have fixed the issue. Some where along the line I took to using breaker bars instead of ratchets for the tight ones.
I'm not a sears diehard by any means. My work box has Armstrong, EASCO, SK-Wayne, Continental American ( 1970's line of Japanese tools ), Thorsen, Stanley, even a few Snap-on tools that were purchased by the company to replace a broken tool. I even have some no-name china crap that looked like it was made well and guess what, that stuff has held up.
I will admit that somewhere in the past Sears went cheap sorta like AMF and Harley-Davidson. I passed on that crap. Six years ago, I had to go back to the maintenance repair guy mode of making a living. The old well worn tools that I've accumulated to get the job done are at work in the newer tool boxes.
The older boxes that are well worn out and in the garage have new Craftsman hand tools from one of their many piece sets purchased 5 years ago. Nice and shiny, full sets of everything, actually more tools at home than at work. The new stuff is working out fine and I don't have to engrave my initials on each piece. ;)
At work when I break something I just order a replacement from Mc Masters and take what I get. I'm not into matching sets of tool box jewelry.
Now power tools, I don't buy power tools at sears. Especially wood working power tools.
What do you use a chasing hammer for? One of my favorite hammers is a 30# copper electrode. Helps to align a big machine w/o leaving marks. Thumper is what I call it.
Wes
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller
I have a couple of Vaughn claw hammers. One with a wood handle and the other with a fiberglass handle. I like the fiberglass handled one the best. It seems to transfer less shock to my wrist and more to the nail. That said, my chasing hammers have wooden handles carved to give the correct amount of spring and I love 'em. ERS
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:18:19 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Wes quickly quoth:
-------
Bwahahahahahaha! I rest my case.
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:18:19 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Wes quickly quoth:
fastener loose
OK, I'm done laughing now. Here's a real reply.
in 1977 or
seem to have
That's when I gave Searz my bucket of blood and pound of flesh, ending my purchase of -anything- Searz since. In today's litigous world, and if I were so inclined, I'm sure I'd have been able to get them to settle my pain and suffering lawsuit for several million drachma, I'll bet.
Yeah, my toolbox is filled with Heinz-57 mfgr names, too. Pre-'75 crapsman, Matco, Snap-On, MAC, Cornwell, SK, B&K, + dozens more.
My roller toolbox is an old Crapsman which Mom and Dad bought me for my graduation from UTI. It's a sad reminder.
Nor am I. I buy good value tools. For occasional use, HF is fine. If one breaks and I find that I used it a lot, I'll go buy a better tool for more money. When I was working on auto front-ends a lot, I bought the $250 MAC set of f/e tools. It's a 15" long damned-heavy-duty ratchet with hollow sockets and a 3/4" square drive hole in the end for use with a breaker bar. An HF or Crapsman ratshit just wouldn't have worked for that. ;) Ditto the Snap-On crows foot line wrenche set.
I believe Searz still has the ARHA routers on sale there. (Automatic-Random-Height-Adjuster, where the bits don't stay put, sometimes making lighter cuts, sometimes actually flying out at you.) Loverly!
Chasin' cats. (ask Ed) Ackshully, I need to straighten flashing on occasion and thought having a few repousse tools wouldn't do me any harm. I back it up with a hard piece of doug fir tubatwo.
-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---
On 20 Jul 2008 00:27:24 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "DoN. Nichols" quickly quoth:
I thought you were joking.
Yeah, eBayers can be awfully fun to watch. I don't play the high-bid game at all, and for other kicks, I just won a set of language immersion CDs for a buck. They cover Russian (Hi, Ig!), German (Hi, Herr MULEr), and Chinese [(Hi, possible newest controller of the USA (soon)!].
Ohmybuddha! At last, a hammer that lets you see precisely what you're going to smash before you do it!
Yeah, right. ;)
-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---
I had one of those ARHA routers. I gave it to my brother when his Searz router burned up. I'll stick to my Hitachi and Porter cable routers now.
Btw, it didn't last long with him before burning up. Seems it didn't like putting bevels on oak railings.
Wes
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