Made a new gunsmiths hammer

Ken226

Ken226

H-M Supporter - Silver Member
H-M Supporter - Silver Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
1,248
I made one 15 years ago and used it alot, until it broke a few days ago.

I made two more this morning. These ones have removeable steel and brass impact faces. If the last one lasted 15 years, hopefully these two will get me by for the rest of my life.

IMG_20240826_153335813.jpg
 
Ken226 said:
I made one 15 years ago and used it alot, until it broke a few days ago.

I made two more this morning. These ones have removeable steel and brass impact faces. If the last one lasted 15 years, hopefully these two will get me by for the rest of my life.

View attachment 501074
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Very nice, but what makes them Gunsmith Hammers? The short handle?
 
ChazzC said:
Very nice, but what makes them Gunsmith Hammers? The short handle?
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Pretty much that the small size makes them not useful for much other than drifting the little soft pins and roll pins common in firearms.

The steel side is good for smacking hard steel punches

The brass side for hitting steel gun parts without damaging them, like moving dovetail sights, or hitting a steel pin without mushrooming to top of it.

My old one, the entire head was solid brass. After 15 years of smacking steel punches with it, both ends of the head we're mushroomed out to nearly half again the head diameter.
 
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I made a machinist hammer as an early project. I made a removable brass tip and a plastic one for tapping soft material. It really stretched my abilities at the time.

Yours is very nice and highlights your artistic design. Well done!
 
nwfdub said:
I'd like one of those.

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Unfortunately, these were pretty made along the same line of economics as everything else in the hobby machining world. :)

40$ worth of material and 6 hours of labor to make something that can be bought on Amazon for half that.

Like this set for 20$, that comes with punches as well.

 
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Ken226 said:
Pretty much that the small size makes them not useful for much other than drifting the little soft pins and roll pins common in firearms.

The steel side is good for smacking hard steel punches

The brass side for hitting steel gun parts without damaging them, like moving dovetail sights, or hitting a steel pin without mushrooming to top of it.

My old one, the entire head was solid brass. After 15 years of smacking steel punches with it, both ends of the head we're mushroomed out to nearly half again the head diameter.
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Thanks, always called mine Machinist Hammers, but mine have longer handles.
 
Ken226 said:
Unfortunately, these were pretty made along the same line of economics as everything else in the hobby machining world. :)

40$ worth of material and 6 hours of labor to make something that can be bought on Amazon for half that.

Like this set for 20$, that comes with punches as well.

Click to expand...
Actually, that's a pretty nice set for what it is, and you can make additional hammer & soft punch heads as needed. Plus, a lot cheaper than Brownells.
 
The one's on Amazon, the heads loosen. Yeah you can locktite them, but... Ken's are far, far nicer!
 
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