We got an Abstracta display system for our show booth, so I knew I needed to pack hammers to set up and break down. I needed a nylon one to put it together and probably a steel one to help take it apart.
The system has to be assembled with a nylon hammer and you need a steel one to break apart stuck pieces. So I kept packing and dropping in a hammer now and then to make sure that I had enough and the right ones. Those in the picture to the left are just the ones I took out! There were 9 hammers in that bag.
That is only a fraction of the hammers I actually have in my collection. When you do a bit of hammering, you mind tends to wander. Maybe it is the ringing in your ears when you forget your earplugs. So -- I have been naming my hammers.
Will introduce a few here. You can tell a lot by their names. Some are old favorites and others are not my best friends.
Molly Whopper and The Princess are my favorite treasures. They are beautiful chasing hammers built by Saign Charlstein. The heads are shaped perfectly and the handles are Osage Orange (aka bois d'arc). Molly Whopper is 10 oz. and The Princess is 4 oz. Both a little heavy for some, but since some of my tools are pretty large I need a bigger hammer.
They are strong with a wonderful whip action and fit my hand as if they were molded to it. This is Paddington, my Peddinghaus planishing hammer. I use it for planishing of course, but also for texture, shaping and hardening. I keep it well polished to give a beautiful finish to the work.
Sometimes if it is a large piece I actually use it to raise the work without separate tools. This hammer is not made to hit tools.This is the newest hammer in the collection - It is a rounding hammer we bought from the bottom of a very dusty case in a feed store that has been in business for 100 years or more. I don't know this hammer well yet, so it doesn't have a a name.
Big Slamma Jammais a great favorite when I need to move something - could be metal or pretty much anything else. He is a deadblow hammer coated in rubber and filled with shot. The shot moves and throws its weight behind the blow.
]Tappy Tip Toes is otherwise known as a common ball peen hammer, but this well trained little beast can give me texture, a small amount of precision and is light enough to use for long periods.
Slam Dinger is another common ball peen hammer but at 24 ounces, he packs enough punch to create those folds I love so much. Before I took blacksmithing, I would have never thought I could use a hammer this big. He's a powerhouse!
The Librarian is a master of precision. Not a big hammer, but nice to handle and works well for folding, texturing and using with a stake. The Librarian has a much smaller brother - Picky Little Bit.
I have other hammers and may introduce them later on, but the worst of the lot so far is Useless. It is not a delirin hammer, as I thought, but a piece of plastic that destroys itself before it does any work at all. Even the shape is useless.
These are just my hammers. Someday we will count and see just how many we actually have.