Now I am getting carried away, but I really like the idea of making Damascus and San Mai (Tapatalk inserts the caps) so I am thinking of building a small air hammer like Larry Zoller's.

My question is: how small can you go and still be useful?

I have a piece of 2.5 inch round stock 5.5 inches long with 1/2 inch threaded end from the end of a farm axle, which I was hoping to use as the hammer head, but that's only about 8 lbs.

I got some 4x4x.125 tube and 10 ft of 4x 3/4 flat bar that I was going to stack into an anvil 30 inches high (lengthwise). Man, everything is expensive.

A friend has a valve for trade but it is 12v solenoid activated so I will need to find an electric roller switch. I only have a cheap 110v air compressor, but that should be ok for light use, I reckon.

Hoping I can find all the main pieces and some more scrap before this gets too expensive!