That sounds like the same sort of unit that Harbor Freight Tools sells in the US for about $130. My brother has one and says it does the job okay. Tremendously noisy, of course, so you have to wear hearing protection.

It is fairly easy to build a rig like that if you have a welder. The power head is nothing more than a muffler gun air chisel clamped to the upper arm, with a domed head in it. The lower anvil needs to be adjustable for height and made to take different radius heads. The foot pedal can be had for forty bucks at most discount tool sources, or you can make your own from a ball valve and a bit of welding.

The ne plus ultra of planishing hammers is the Pullmax, which can be used for serious forming work, but costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. It all depends on what you're doing, I suppose.

I have shaped with a pneumatic planishing hammer, using linear stretch dies. It works pretty well, if you don't want too radical a shape. I still have some pieces around that I did that way, reverse curves.

They are unbelievably noisy, I would never own one unless my shop was a long way from anywhere, or in an industrial area. Use earplugs and headphones, both.

If you have a pneumatic planishing hammer you don't really need an English wheel, it will smooth it out pretty well.

Figure to make some of your own dies.

Richard

Thanks for the information and advice. I really just need it for fairly rough work in steel,(most of my sculpture is rough) such as shallow dished shapes and texturing surfaces. It sounds as if it isn’t as versatile as I had hoped so I might try and find one locally to play with first.