Thread: What are you working on?

Can’t really knock Tom’s efforts, proof is in the pudding. Just saying I skin my cats with the ball side.

Originally Posted by JellyJar

Been working on a couple of tools. Got my hammer customized and made a magnetic blade holder.

I took all of the paint off the hammer, cold blued the head, did a traditional gun stock finish with Formby's "tung oil" to 600 grit, rounded the end of the handle, and did some light stippling near the head for grip. The holder was made from some scrap red oak I had laying around with a Cabernet stain, 1/4" neodymium magnets (6 for $5 at Michael's), and a bit of spray poly. I decided to use painters tape to cover the holder so I can change the tape between grits.

...

I was going to say something else... Darn it where did I leave that note???

Good idea with the tape! thanks for the tip.
Due to lack of skills in wood working my first holder is ugly and not straight.

I will probably build a new holder in the next weeks.

Im a flat side guy. When i try the ball end i dont get enough on the pin and hit the scales too much.

I'm not an expert that's for sure, but I've always used the ball.
It's already a challenge for me not to bend the pin, from what I've read here and elsewhere, if you have too much surface area of the pin making contact with the hammer then it's more likely to bend.
The idea being that the very small spot being struck will bend before the rest of the pin.
But if you are able to do it on the flat side, then that's all that matters. It's just strange to me because it goes against what I "thought" I knew.
EDIT: I'm gonna try the flat side. The edge.
Tom, I'm surprised, thought for sure you were with the Roundside!

Flat, somewhat straight, slightly out of square.....That's me!

say! I inherited 3 ingots of Cerrosafe. Does that mean it melts at 190 degrees?

Thinking of casting some wedges.......

Originally Posted by schwabenchris

Good idea with the tape! thanks for the tip.
Due to lack of skills in wood working my first holder is ugly and not straight.

I will probably build a new holder in the next weeks.

Don't worry about ugly, it's a tool that will see some minor abuse. For something like this I'll take function over appearance. I just stained it because I had it and thought why not? Mine has it's "ugly" spots as well. The 1 1/4" drywall screws on the back would make a fine woodworker cringe. If you start with a piece of wood wide enough for both the vertical and horizontal you can rip the vertical off the board after cross cutting to length. The pieces will line up pretty easy. Not sure I worded that clearly An expanding glue like Gorilla will fill gaps in the joint.

My ugly screws

My hammer is rounded on the big end too. Just less round...

interesting how everyone has a slightly different peening/hammering technique. I mostly use the ball end to "speed-tap" around the edges of the pin as I dome it over. Being mostly self-taught and having learned the hard way on a lot of screwed-up pinning jobs on my early rescales, I have found that I get much better results if I put the fresh-cut pin fairly deep into my pin vise, file it flat and smooth, and really get a pretty good mushroom going before putting it through the pin-hole and finishing both sides.

Jerry, it looks like you have taken a jeweler's hammer and rounded the flat side, or did yours come that way?

As I always say, genius makes its own rules, as some of you guys on here prove. Jimi Hendrix is a great example of that truism: he played barre chords with his very long thumb over the top of the fretboard, on a guitar strung upside down and backwards!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

I use the edge of the flat end. I manipulate the hammer so as to have the edge downward where I am. I can nearly polish the peen (and have!) using the flat side.

Just a mess when I try the ball-side. Tiny hammer, BTW.
Just me....YMMV

I've always called the ball side the peen end, never occurred to me to use the flat. I like using the ball end so I can use my fingers as a sort of funnel and rock the razor around to get the sides/edges. Ugh, I think I need to re-polish my anvil.

I like my tiny hammer. Some of us don't need big hammers to do the deed. (FYI my attempt at humor without voice or body language... text is so limiting).

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

interesting how everyone has a slightly different peening/hammering technique. I mostly use the ball end to "speed-tap" around the edges of the pin as I dome it over. Being mostly self-taught and having learned the hard way on a lot of screwed-up pinning jobs on my early rescales, I have found that I get much better results if I put the fresh-cut pin fairly deep into my pin vise, file it flat and smooth, and really get a pretty good mushroom going before putting it through the pin-hole and finishing both sides.

Jerry, it looks like you have taken a jeweler's hammer and rounded the flat side, or did yours come that way?

As I always say, genius makes its own rules, as some of you guys on here prove. Jimi Hendrix is a great example of that truism: he played barre chords with his very long thumb over the top of the fretboard, on a guitar strung upside down and backwards!

You can buy them with either the flat or rounded face:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chasing-Ham...EAAOSw~9Jccz3q

I have both and prefer the rounded. To each their own.