Cobbler's hammer.

[dikman]

I've long wanted a cobbler's hammer (mainly 'cos I don't have one!). I remember my dad had one but it disappeared a very long time ago and wasn't among his tools when I got them. Very difficult to find, particularly used, so I thought "why don't I make one?". Can't be that hard. Hah, should have known better!

I found a ball-peen hammer head for $3 and away I went. First thing was to reduce what I think was a very large tent peg to fit the hole in the head to prevent it from collapsing during the forging. I don't know what steel it was made from but it was tough to move under the hammer! Then it was time to start widening the head and likewise I don't know what the steel is in old hammers but this stuff is also hard to move. Once it got below orange heat the hammer had no effect on it. Eventually I got it to a suitable width and then mashed out the ball part to a flat. This hammering, by the way, didn't do my tennis elbow much good!!!

I cleaned it up on the belt grinder and then heated it to non-magnetic and quenched in oil. I thought I'd have to temper it but a file could still (just) mark it so I called it good. I suspect the mass of the head was too much to cool quickly enough in oil and suspect quenching in water would have been better but it should be hard enough for leatherwork. I decided to leave the oil-quench coating on to give it some rust protection and just polished the face. The handle is from some Blackwood that I cut down years ago and saved just-in-case, need to give it another coat of linseed oil tomorrow. Was it worth it? Dunno, but it's something I just had to do.

[chuck123wapati]

friggin awesome friend!! Heck yeah, it was worth it .