Dressing Hammer Faces:Hammer Making, Mantenence and RepairMost forging hammers are delivered in what I call "rough" condition - that is, they need to have the final profiling and dressing done by the user in order to be really effective forging instruments. Most nearly every pein I've seen has come from the factory too sharp. WHile they move the metal vbery rapidly, the do so by chopping it up into little notches that often leave cold shuts when forged flat again after drawing. A broader pein is actually much better than a narrower one. I prefer to dress my pein with a slightly flattened radius that ends up being about 7/16" wide overall, with the "flat" area about 1/4" wide. This is what proves to be most effective for me, your mileage may vary. vicopper - Saturday, 04/25/09 21:45:49 EDT As Rich noted, these hammers come with both the face and pien rough dressed. The piens are often flat with square corners. All these hammers must be hand dressed by the user. That is one of the big differences between a $30 hammer and a $150 hammer. Years ago tools came with a much better factory dress. Today you pay for that service. - guru - Saturday, 04/25/09 22:36:53 EDT Channellock Hammers: I use one as well, a 3 pound (I think). They are a standard American pattern blacksmiths hammer. Virtually any tool catalog (other than current blacksmiths) have them. Channellock no longer makes hammers but these were the standard carried by many hardware stores in the U.S. for decades. The Armstrong Tool site mentioned the other day has a very similar though possibly more slender pattern. The pien is shorter and blunter than the German hammers sold by the Kaynes and the eye is slightly back toward the pien. The face is round having been forged to a square with flats making it a near octagon, then machine dressed having a heavy chamfer and a crowned round face. It had a high quality hickory handle. While the face was nicely machine dressed the pien was square on the sides. The machine dress was well done as were most quality tools of the time. I've seen many later hammers with poorly speced bad machine dressing or low quality hand dressing by unskilled laborers. - guru - Sunday, 04/26/09 16:42:53 EDT The Grind: There are many ways to grind tool work surfaces. A straight radius is the mid point between an oval section the long axis in one direction and another with the long axis in the other. 
On piens it is fairly easy to make a long straight oval section but for smooth forging the edges should drop off making the corners hemi-spherical. But some smiths like them sharp for texturing. Faces are more difficult to shape to oval sections. Round, square and rocker faces can be ground to ovoidal sections. Even flat face hammers should have a very slight curve to them. Doing it properly takes practice and it is easy to over do. I try to work equal flat facets then grind flats between the flats. The last grind to blend it all in is done on a belt sander/grinder OR with a file then sandpaper. Struck surfaces of chisels and fullers should also have a crowned oval section. This slows mushrooming and helps center the blow in the proper direction. Repousse', chasing and graving chisels have the struck ends ground small then crowned in an oval section. The work faces of the repousse' and chasing tools are also carefully blended and radiused no mater how sharp the edges look. Smooth well dressed tools work better. Study your tools that work the best and those that do not. It takes a trained eye to know what works and what does not. Study. practice, test. More to come. . . References and Links
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