Thread: A diagonal peen hammer on the cheap

only time will tell lads, this may get used for less time than it took to make it yet or it may become a favorite.

also looking at making a straight peen hammer since while searching the workshop yesterday for some grinder materials I came across a hammer head with no handle the same as the one I just modified.
thanks to our industrious storeman who decided to throw in the scrap bin as it is too hard to fit a new handle it seems.
no probs my benefit.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

I've been hammering out the hollows on all of my razors with 100% success so far. My pre heat treat grind is deep enough to grind out very deep hammer blows. The biggest problem for me when doing this is that it is very easy to hit the spine, and being so far proud of the hollow, even a light hit with a misguided cross peen causes a big problem.
Attachment 204940

I wonder if the time needed for the careful hammering is less or more than the time to hollow out a triangular wedge.
Did you make those hollows in this picture just by hammering, or was some pre HT grinding already done?

I know it helps at the moment with my current very under powered (1/4hp) hobby belt grinder, as it took me about 1.5 hours to rough hollow my first blade to a pre-heat treat thickness of about 2mm & that was with a bit of hollow hammering to help.
I am sure once the I get the big grinder up & running it will whip through it in a mere fraction of the time.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I wonder if the time needed for the careful hammering is less or more than the time to hollow out a triangular wedge.
Did you make those hollows in this picture just by hammering, or was some pre HT grinding already done?

The time is probably a wash. It uses a little less steel and a bit less grinding belt. I'm not suggesting that hammering into the hollows is a better way, just that that's the way I prefer and that I have been doing it successfully.

The hollows in the previous picture are ground. I was just trying to show the depth of the grind. As long as the hammer marks are more shallow than this, It will clean up pre heat treat. My hammering is still pretty sloppy.


A friend loaned me a 'Smithen Magician' type tool that has much better access in line with the ends of the dies. I made top and bottom fullers for it and will try it soon for starting the hollows. I'll get some pictures up soon in a new thread. I'm thinking that this will take a lot of the careful hammering out of the process if it works.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

A friend loaned me a 'Smithen Magician' type tool that has much better access in line with the ends of the dies. I made top and bottom fullers for it and will try it soon for starting the hollows. I'll get some pictures up soon in a new thread. I'm thinking that this will take a lot of the careful hammering out of the process if it works.

Here is the tool


It worked great for starting the hollow, but by the time I drew out the rest of the blade, it was apparent that I had gained very little from forging the blade hollow, as the shape was a wedge from the groove to the edge.

I think you're right Bruno, that just forging a wedge, using cross and ball peens sparingly to control the amount of smile, makes more sense than forging the hollow.

This would be great for making fuller blades like these


You could grind a curved one also

Originally Posted by Substance

You could grind a curved one also

Actually when you draw out the edge, the groove follows the smile. So there would be no need for a curved one.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

Here is the tool


It worked great for starting the hollow, but by the time I drew out the rest of the blade, it was apparent that I had gained very little from forging the blade hollow, as the shape was a wedge from the groove to the edge.

I think you're right Bruno, that just forging a wedge, using cross and ball peens sparingly to control the amount of smile, makes more sense than forging the hollow.

Aye. For the hollows I have found this to be the most efficient.
For the tang and the tail you can win a lot of time by properly hammering out the shape though, so that you need only a minimal amount of metal removal. I.e. If you already know what type fo razor you are making, you can forge in the thumbnoth, hammer out the monkey tail, etc.

That said, usually I don't know exactly what I am going to make, so most of the time I hammer out generic blanks with different sizes and lengths so that I have a small stock of razor blanks in various sizes and types of metal. When I get to the design stage, I can then match whatever ideas I have in my head and on paper, to the blanks I have.

I find that when I draw out the width of the blade with a cross peen, flipping back and forth between sides, it makes a slight hollow on both sides.

The hollow gets flattened a bit when against the anvil but comes back when the blade is flipped, the midsection of the blade gets pushed back and forth a little bit during the drawing out the width process with the cross peen. The last few iterations of going back and forth are to center the blade after the width is achieved.

Charlie

Not to high jack but how do you grind a fuller? I don't want to detract from your thread OP and by all means ignore this if you think so.