Yes, it is hammers, again.
I have now refinished 4 of the 18 hammer heads. Once all of them are done then I will have to sand and clean up the handles and reseat them in the heads. I might have to replace one or two handles are they have a crack and I don't think driving the wedge in further will do any good.

Here are some before, during and after pictures of one of the hammer. You can see they are pretty rusty and full of grime. After taking 280 sand paper to the sides, top and bottom, most of the rust was gone but not in the deep machining grooves - WD-40 will be used to get at that. Then I used 280 to clean up the faces of the hammer. This was difficult as there was some deep pitting and you don't want to ruin the shape (angles and curves) of the faces. After that I took 320, 400 and 600 to the faces as well. This process took 1.5 hours and my hands were red and gray from the sanding. WIth the first phase completed and hands washed, I started with the 9 fine sanding/polishing grits I have to get the faces nice and shiny smooth. This took another 1.5 hours but as you can see in the final pictures, it was worth it.

At this rate, it will take at least another month of weekends to finish all the hammers and the flat planishing hammers will be the hardest. 

Over on the Tools of the Craft page you will see some pictures of my recent hammer acquisitions. 

I recently purchase 3 original Dixon hammers that were new and never been used.

Next I scored a win on ebay of 18 hammers (3 heads were not on the handles but were included). These will take a bit of time to clean up but there are some nice little hammers in the lot. These may be one-off's because even though there are initials on them, I can't seem to find a manufacturing mark.

Despite it being almost a month from the smashing event, I have realized that I was still a bit hammer shy and was avoiding starting a new piece.  This being Thanksgiving day, I am off from work and have no company to cook for, it seemed the perfect time to start something new.  

Over my morning coffee, I pondered the question: "What would be nice to make but not too complicated so I could have a nice feeling of accomplishment?" 

First Answer: Make a silver version of the Dish-J. 
Second Answer: Raise a simple silver cylindrical form.

For both, I started with a 3" square of 20 gauge sterling silver. One is made via sinking, the other via raising.  

I have the sinking on the Dish-J completed but I have to order some 12 gauge wire for the base which means I can't really finish it until next weekend.  I am part way "up" with the cylindrical form too. 

When I have completed them, they will be up for sale.

I have just put the potatoes in the over to bake;  I have poured myself a wee dram of Scotch and I shall resume tomorrow (it is 4:30 pm)

Here is an in-process pictures of each. 

Yesterday, I made a "scrunched fabric" cuff bracelet out of silver. The body of the cuff is made from fine silver and the frame is sterling.

Using fine silver allow the folds to happen without the work hardening and potential cracking to occur. The sterling silver frame adds some rigidity - you could use fine silver too but to prevent the cuff from bending out of shape too easily, so using sterling and its work hardening propensity, keeps the cuff in shape.

I was going to allow the white tarnish from heating and pickling to stay in the folds to give these deeper spots a matt look; and then using a buffing cloth, I was going to polish the frame and hight spots on the fold.  


Part of the reason behind this matt/shiny look was that I don't like the 'normal' gray patina look which you get with LOS on silver. Having used LOS on copper, I love the various colors that can be obtained yet on silver you only see gray to black tones. 

There has to be something else that can be done! 

Doing some reading from my patina book; I came across a recipe that indicated that you can get golds, pink/purples, and blues on silver just like i do on copper.  Coooool but how hard was it going to be?

To get this effect, the first thing I had to do was scrub the cuff and remove all the oxides and finger oils.  Then set up the LOS bath with the dipping station, running water, steel wool, gloves and safety glasses. I also turned on all the lights so I could see the patina develop.  

I went at it very slowly and wow, what amazing results. My view of LOS on silver has just changed.  After using the LOS, I went back with my steel wool and rubbed the patina off the frame and the high spots on the folds since wearing the bracelet over the time would wear away the patina on these spots. Secondly doing this allows the white of the silver to shine through and add a great contrast to the colors from the patina 

 The first picture below is before LOS and the second is after the patina process is over.

And I love my bracelet, it is really, really, really amazing. I have to finish up one more as I promised it to Elisa of Scotland.  

A few weeks ago I was demoing sinking on a scrap piece of copper that was square. I ended up with what I thought was a pretty nice little dish.  

Today I got back to that design and I made my prototype, I made the dish, planished it, and then added a ring base. I had to go back a planish again since the soldering annealed the piece again (note to self: invent way to solder a base onto a vessel and NOT have the piece get annealed). 

My solder job was only so-so, I was afraid of too much solder and ended up not using enough and now I have some gaps. I have to work on this more but for my sample I am ok with there being some gaps in the solder joint between the ring and the bowl. 

After a good cleaning I added a patina.  

Now I have to make a production piece out of silver and copper and in many sizes...I am calling it 'Dish-J'

Last weekend I took a drive to Studio DeLucca - I went for a couple of reasons.

First, Khobe and I had sent a few emails back and forth because she was interested in how to make a fire brick forge, that I learned to make while up at metals week. We had discussed me bringing the forge to her studio and showing her how to carve the fire bricks, bind them together and then set up a torch as the heat source.  But we never set an actual date to get together and so that leads to the second reason...

Secondly, I was hoping to take the 2 day workshop given by NC Black, at Studio DeLucca, but due to scheduling and dollars I could not. Then Khobe told me there was going to be a demo on Friday night, prior to the workshop. I planned to get to work early on Friday so I could leave early and have more than enought time to drive to Long Beach. I had put the forge in the car because I figured, after the demo, I could meet with Khobe and pass on the informaiton. Sure enough there were too many things to be done and I ended up working late and could not get to the Studio on Friday night. I emailed Khobe asking if it was ok, with her, for me to come by on Sunday, see what was being taught and show her the forge, and she said yes and that leads to the third reason....

Thirdly , I had wanted to take the class with NC Black because I was interested in their hammers (which ties in with the title of this post). If I am raising small scale hollow ware, you need small scale tools - stakes and hammers; I have the stakes [The Fretz Miniatures] and I am now gathering the hammers.  Khobe said that NCB would have hammers to purchase. Since I did not take the class, attending the demo would be my chance to see these hammers and get them into my hands. As you can see, my plans were not working out to this point.

Sunday I got up early (despite the time change) made coffee, did the email and then got ready to drive to Long Beach; and I was out of the house by 10:00 am and I arrived at the Studio by 11:30 am.

Meeting Khobe was great and I was able to pull up a chair and watch everyone work. After about 45 minutes, I met with Andrea and we talked hammers: how she makes them; current suppliers; finding old ones; and how many she has, which is a lot. I ended up purchasing 4 hammers: The C (140 gram head) , mini-C (68 gram head) , K (15 gram head)  and special K (uncertain of head weight but less than 15, maybe around 10 grams).

I also spent some time talking to Les who liked my shoes (hey Les, I have those orange shoes on today!!!) we chatted about various things: his path to learning engraving; my path to learning raising; how he and Andrea travel around the country with their hammers and teach classes.

After lunch, I opened up the box with forge and talked Khobe, Andrea, and Les through the process of making the forge - which they wanted to make in the next few days so they could make some tools. I hung out for a while longer and then headed home around 3:30 pm, having had a great day.

Head over to the Pictures area and on the Tools of the Craft page, you can see pictures of my new hammers.

Yes, I now have a hammer fetish! I think it was always there but now it is really visible.

None were thrown or used to smash any works in progress.  

Today I decided it was time to modify a few hammer heads and do a few tweaks on the head I modified during Metals Week back in June/July.

The first hammer I worked on is a riveting hammer. I bought this for about 12.00 on line and it is not very heavy or by any - I took the flat round end and made it into  a tiny planishing hammer. The other end I just rounded all the sharp edges and corners. I mostly will use it as a planishing hammer.

The second hammer was this little cheap thing I bought at Harbor Freight. It comes with four screw on heads - 3  cylindrical flat heads - brass, metal and plastic and one metal cross-pien.  I only modified two of the heads. I turned the brass head into a shallow dome so I can use it as another tiny planishing hammer and the cross-pien I rounded and softened, like I did with the riveting hammer,  to a tiny forging hammer.

Then on the hammer I modified this past summer, I found the handle too long and when I used it, had some corner marks from the underside - which I had issues working on originally since I had not removed the handle. I sawed off the handle, popped out the wood with wedge and went to work on my further refinements.  

After grinding, filing and sanding with 220, 400, 600, 800, 1500, 1800, 3200, 4000, 6000 and yes even 8000 sand paper - I am now filthy but all the heads have a mirror finish. 

Oh. and I found the perfect hammer handle at ACE Hardware for SEVEN DOLLARS - it is the perfect size and made in the USA. I ended up buying 5 of them, as you never know when might need another hammer handle.

Use this link to my Tools of the Craft page to see some pretty pictures. 
As for me, I am hitting the shower..

I have just put up a new section for photographs and the first pictures to be put up are about my newest hammer (head) which I snagged from eBay a few weeks ago.