What type of hammer? do you use?

[Frodo]

I bought a nice teflon/plastic hammer to strike my tools with.  I do not care for the bounce 

so I grabbed a blade pin off of the D8 dozer. LOL  wrapped it in leather.

it weighs a pound or more. it is my weight to hold items still

it is an anvil

it does not bounce

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by Frodo

[DJole]

You strike something with that, the thing KNOWS it's been struck! 

I just use the yellow poly mallets (one smaller than the other) from Tandy. I haven't had any reason to switch yet.

Edited October 12, 2019 by DJole

[zuludog]

I have a small hide mallet that I bought a few years ago in a craft store sale for about £3 = $4?

I don't do any tooling; the only things I need to hit are stitching chisels and sometimes a hole punch, so this does all I want

 

[Frodo]

4 hours ago, DJole said:

You strike something with that, the thing KNOWS it's been struck! 

I just use the yellow poly mallets (one smaller than the other) from Tandy. I haven't had any reason to switch yet.

I do not hit with it.  it is more like  1 tap

try this

hit a stamp with your poly mallet

then hit the stamp with a regular hammer

 

do you feel a difference?   

[billybopp]

There is certainly room in any leatherworker's toolkit for more than one hammer! 

I started with a couple 14oz rawhide hammers that were given to me with my original toolkit, and used that for quite awhile and it works alright, but lacked the hitting power for things like 3d stamps and gang punches.  So I was at the auto parts store one day and saw a dead-blow hammer, 2lbs I think, and bought it.  It works really great on those 3d stamps, gang punches and belt end punches.  Eventually, I decided to try a round maul for the lighter hits needed for tooling stamps in place of that old rawhide hammer, and after a little practice found that I really liked it.  The old rawhide hammers still get used from time to time, but I mostly rely on the round mauls now.  One of these days I do want to try a tapered round maul, as I think that may work even better for me than the plain round mauls.  With round mauls and hammers, you need to keep your elbow up while tooling for a square hit, a tapered maul would allow me to drop my elbow and maybe even rest it on the worktop which is much more comfy for me.

Sometimes things need to KNOW they've been hit, and other times you need a little more finesse.

- Bill

[Tugadude]

I use a hammer purchased from Harbor Freight with the screw on faces.  Several are dense plastic and there is good weight with no bounce.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Tugadude

[DJole]

7 hours ago, Frodo said:

I do not hit with it.  it is more like  1 tap

try this

hit a stamp with your poly mallet

then hit the stamp with a regular hammer

 

do you feel a difference?   

For punching and stamping, yes -- the weighted deadblow hammer is good. One hit and done. If I did a lot more stamping and punching than I actually do, the deadblow hammer out in the garage would join my mallets in the leather tool box. 
For tooling, where the aim is lighter, repeated taps, the mallets work well. 

[chuck123wapati]

the thumper I use I whittled out of a scrub oak  branch I'd post a picture but you all would laugh at it. It works well, was free and is easily replaceable.

[Frodo]

35 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

the thumper I use I whittled out of a scrub oak  branch I'd post a picture but you all would laugh at it. It works well, was free and is easily replaceable.

I NEVER laugh at another's art work, especially when I am making ugly   old cars with 357 motors in them

 

post that hammer so we can all see its beauty!!!!!!!

Edited October 12, 2019 by Frodo

[Frodo]

I found the picture

THIS is UGLY  I needed a copper funnel,  with a 2'' outlet,  So I made one from 1/2'' copper pipe

And I am PROUD OF THE UGLIEST FUNNEL EVER MAD