An old timer told me my hammer face was too flat, here's what I fixed

Been forging for about 4 years now, mostly hooks and small hardware. Last fall I took a piece to a guy who's been at it since the 70s for his opinion. He picked it up, ran his thumb over the face marks, and said my hammer face was too flat. I thought that was the point, you know, smooth striking surface. Turns out he meant I never dressed my hammer with any crown. I spent a whole Saturday reshaping my cross peen with a slight radius, maybe 1/16 inch across the middle. First time I used it on a 3/8 inch square blank, the strike marks cleaned up way easier and I stopped leaving those sharp divot lines that needed grinding. Took me about 2 weeks of practice to get the feel of not sliding off when hitting at an angle. Anyone else get told to put a dome on their hammer face, or is this just an old school trick that fell out of style?

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brooke_nguyen658d ago

I picked up a used hammer at a flea market in Tulsa last year and the face was dead flat, and I figured that was just how they came. Reading this makes me want to take a grinder to it this weekend, since cleanup work eating up my time is the part I hate most. Guess the old timers were onto something.

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