Ready...Shoulder hammers...Whoa! Did you feel that little Ka-Chunk?
Well for cryin' out loud put the hammer back down. In this fourth
article in the series on team striking we will speak of many things; of
cuts and bumps and fractured bones, of hammerheads a-fling.
There's nothing that irks me quite so much as seeing an otherwise
competent blacksmith swat the daylights out of a piece of iron, then
pitching the piece back into the fire, the barrage is punctuated as he
whacks the hammer, handle first, onto the anvil face to drive the head
back into the handle. All right, fess up-you know who you are! For
Pete's sake, your a blacksmith, make some wedges! Among the other lame
excuses I've heard are: "Aw, the handles always dry out and shrink-you
can't keep 'em tight." and the ever popular "Once the head warms up the
eye expands and the head loosens up." Pardon my French, but borscht!
Hickory is a remarkable material. Used by Native Americans for short
bows because of its exceptional resilience and shock resistance, it
makes an ideal handle because when properly installed and wedged in
position it applies a constant force pushing outward on the inner
surfaces of the eye, so that when the head gets hot and the eye
expands, the hickory expands along with it maintaining a tight
mechanical joint regardless of its moisture content!
Let's remember gang, if we're talking sledge hammers, attention to such
detail can save your hammering partner from a blunt trauma vasectomy
(Invariably a sledge head will always cut loose waist high). Make
certain before you use a sledge that the growth rings are oriented as
in Fig.1.
This guarantees the greatest strength and flexibility in the
direction of greatest stress. Next, make sure that the handle is
wedged in both directions. Wedging front to back is most critical, but
a wooden wedge (So it can be crossed by steel wedges) should have been
used side to side. If the handle is undamaged, knot free hickory,
arrow straight of grain and Ka-Chunk free, you are cleared for takeoff,
otherwise prepare to create firewood.
If you are creating your own handle from scratch, a few caveats. First
as mentioned, you need to pay strict attention to growth ring
orientation and grain straightness. Second, if you want to use some
nifty looking wood species such as oak, walnut, cherry, mahogany etc.
follow these instructions:
A.) Take the bare hammer head over to your hammering partner.
B.) Drop it on his right foot.
C.) Ask him "If this were to happen again with the head traveling at
100 MPH and the jagged wooden remnant of the handle were to perforate
your foot and stake you to the ground on this spot, would you find it
pleasurable?" If he says "Oh my, yes" go ahead and make your nifty
looking handle. Otherwise use ONLY hickory or osage orange (Also an
archery wood). Third, don't cut your handle blanks. Splitting follows
the natural strength of the grain and produces a far stronger handle.
This is the one time when it's alright to use a handle that's a little
bent (I mean a little) or wavy, since these defects in a split handle
do not significantly impair strength unless you try to "pretty" it up
and sand or cut it straight again.
If there's a natural flare or knob on one end, shave down the other to
a taper which fits the contour of the hammer eye as closely as
possible, leaving a flared out shoulder just under where the head will
come to rest when driven on. Remember to maintain as large a cross
sectional area as possible above the hammer eye center (Fig.2).
The head should be driven on firmly (This is the one time when it's OK to
rap the hammer, handle first, onto the anvil face, but put down a
hardwood block first so as not to split or mash the end of the handle).
The wood extending above the head can then be cutoff as close to the
head as possible. Next take a wood chisel as wide as the eye is long
and begin a split bisecting the handle showing through the eye from
front to back (Fig.3). With this split started, you can drive in a
wedge, shaved from an old handle, far enough to fully fill the eye from
side to side. Shave this wooden wedge thicker at its base and longer
than it will need to be and just keep driving it until it will go no
further and breaks off. Earlier, while working on the forge, you will
have pointed the end of a 1/2" rebar, flattening it along its length to
be very thin at the tip and 3/16" at the base of the pointed section.
You will have then extended it 1/4" at a time over a sharp anvil edge
while administering sharp blows producing "barbs" to hold it in
place before finally cutting it off over a hardy and quenching it.
Such wedges can be made between heats of larger projects and only
require 1 heat themselves. These wedges, when cool, will be driven
into the handle at a diagonal. This orientation
creates greatest expansive forces front to rear, but also some side to
side, supplementing the action of the wooden wedge.
Keep driving wedges in with a 4 lb. hammer until you can't get any more in--I mean
it! This having been completed, a right angle grinder can be used to
dress any wood or iron making an unsightly display.
I believe that even greater safety could be had by using some of the
composite/fiberglass handles on the market, though striking barehanded
as I do, my hands have never found one that didn't give them blisters.
Next time Frank takes us through the tantalizing topic of team tools
with SLEDGE, Team Striking Part V: "Just Tooling Around". Till then
remember a sledge is just a cannonball with an earpierce!
Jeffrey D. Knight
HTML Editor: Roger Schmitt
ArtMetal Curator: Enrique Vega
Last Updated:Sun, Jul 30, 1995