I found this at a yard sale. It is short and heavy, with angled faces that are smooth and circular.
I couldn't find an exact image with a search. I speculate it might be for chipping scale or welding flash? I figure somebody here will recognize it. The handle is 5 3/4 inches long, and it weighs 2 3/4 pounds.
Tack Hammer/?
That's a good site, I checked it before I posted.
No, I don't think so. I have a tack hammer, and while the images look somewhat similar they aren't even remotely alike. The tack hammer is very light and made for delicate jobs. This hammer is obviously for something like blacksmith or boiler work, very heavy duty.
My guess was going to be welding chipping, but that site shows a heat resistant handle.
I also saw this one, a cross pein hammer looks close to the blacksmiths
That's much closer and has to be similar in application. It is different in that it has a 16 inch handle instead of a 6, and the faces aren't angled.
Grandpa, a mason, had a few small sledges of various designs. I have a couple of them now but nothing with faces like that.
Planishing hammers have smooth round faces, but I've never seen a planishing *sledge*.
Maybe for heavy metal planishing?
No, welding flash needs sharp points.
Looks like what is used for stone to me.
No, those need points and edges. So do scale hammers.
Those have longer handles.
I tried a few google image searches - no luck. The short handle + heavy weight is a good clue - but I'm stumped.
Here's a guess ..
His handle is much too short to be a railway spike hammer.
I've seen those up close. They're for driving railroad spikes. The short handle isn't going to work and the angled face isn't going to help.
My guess: It's a sculpture hammer. The short handle fits. The angles on the face might have been altered for some specific task.
Wow...how observant. What would we do without you?
Which sort of fits with my guess of a "heavy metal planishing" hammer.
Thick metal for a sculpture with the artist going for a particular look on the surface. Could be...
Yep, I agree.
Yep. Olden days folks would often re-purpose a tool - perhaps a tool that they found by the railroad tracks - - they aren't driving rail spikes - but with a short handle - it might work well for sculpting .. John T.
I kind of expected someone would know exactly what that was, and depending on who that person was, would ridicule me for not knowing something so obvious.
I have continued to google and still found no close match, but I think it has to be intended to shape metal. It is obviously a one hand tool, but with a very heavy head that narrows to a small face so the strike has maximum force on a small area. So, moving metal around to reshape it directly, rather than hitting a punch or chisel indirectly, which would be safer and easier with a larger face. Some kind of forging blacksmith tool - although I found some blacksmith forums without an example.
The face angles are between 10 and 20 degrees off the axis of the handle, but they are in opposite directions, so the choice seems to be for the effect on the object rather than the arc of the swing.
This guy's workshop was a total disaster, no way to tell what he worked on, but most of the equipment that was left seemed to be woodworking tools and materials (paint, lumber, dowels, etc.) It wouldn't surprise me if he found this hammer in a yard sale a few decades back and thought, wonder what that is, gotta grab it.
I've seen similar for metal working and forging. I wonder if the angle was custom ground by the user. I'd bet a beer on it but not a six-pack.
More to look at here:
I looked all over that site and the closest I came was the planishing hammers, based solely on the flat round faces. However, none of them are angled.
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