Brass Hammer Safe On Pricking Iron?

[lightningad]

i'm with the marking only brigade - hitting it so hard the prongs pierce the leather will only knacker the Pricking Iron ! I use a very cheap Ivan iron, and a wooden mallet to whack it. Works ok til i can afford a better iron.

To help keep the iron held vertically, i added a silicon putty (Sugru) around the shaft and molded it to my grip. Now i can hold it in the right position every time, and its less strain on my finger muscles - no more cramps after marking a big piece.

adam

[Nuttish]

Ditto others about using a pricking iron as a chisel. They're for making marks on, not in, and not through the grain.

If you insist on using a pricking iron as a chisel, as someone here said, the teeth widen as you go down and will make enormous holes that will never close. Holes opened with a proper sized awl do.

You can modify a pricking iron by grinding a face to reduce the height of the teeth (you might consider this even if you're using a pricking iron as intended) and using a Dremel to remove some of the material from the sides.

A brass hammer in that weight is for blacksmithing soft metal. It will eventually deform steel tools.

If you want a perfectly serviceable maul, buy a foot of 4" HDPE from Grainger and have a friend turn a handle right into it on a woodworking lathe (HDPE will flow out of an engine lathe chuck).

No, you can never use a pricking iron, chisel, or punch over a piece of steel if you ever want to use it again. I use an el cheapo 3" thick grade B surface plate with a piece of thick felt glued to the bottom for whacking and paring.