Thread: Peen Pein or Bash

Matt,

I've long been aware of the warnings against striking one hammer with another, some hammers come with labels cautioning against such and I generally avoid the practice. However I've never had a hammer spall or chip in use no matter what I'm bashing with it. Likewise with anvil faces, car parts and chisel/punch striking faces.
If you have a punch, like a blacksmiths punch, that has a softer striking face and a hardened working end I don't see why you couldn't peen dovetails in the way you propose. Something like this Vintage Ajax Alloy 3/4" Blacksmiths Hot Metal Punch w/ 18 1/4" Hickory Handle | eBay

Cheers,
Rob

Originally Posted by rob streeper

Matt,

I've long been aware of the warnings against striking one hammer with another, some hammers come with labels cautioning against such and I generally avoid the practice. However I've never had a hammer spall or chip in use no matter what I'm bashing with it. Likewise with anvil faces, car parts and chisel/punch striking faces.
If you have a punch, like a blacksmiths punch, that has a softer striking face and a hardened working end I don't see why you couldn't peen dovetails in the way you propose. Something like this Vintage Ajax Alloy 3/4" Blacksmiths Hot Metal Punch w/ 18 1/4" Hickory Handle | eBay

Cheers,
Rob

Rob like you I've never had a hammer split chip fail in any of the ways I've been lead to believe.
I've used them in many ways also.
Yes I see all the warning labels on them.
But in this day and age I would not be surprised to find warming labels on fairy floss[emoji12][emoji12].

Cheers Matt
And thanks for the link

Of the everyday hammers I've tested such as ball peens, carpenter's hammers and so forth most are 'moderately' hard with HRC between 30 and 45 or so. The specialized sawsmithing (cold-work) and blacksmithing (hot-work) hammers tend to be harder, from the 40's up to the high 50's though some are surprisingly soft.

If the hammer head is made of one of the more shock tolerant alloys from the 4XXX types, the D or particularly the S steels I don't think you'll have any problem as long as you don't get carried away. I have a set of punches from Glenn Stollmeyer made of D2 (?!) and though they're intended for hot-work I'm sure that they would tolerate the relatively light peening force used in securing plane dovetails.

Hammers made from carbon steels such as 1045 would I think merit more caution if they're hardened.

Another option would be to intentionally soften the struck face of a hammer by heating it to a dull red and allowing it to air cool leaving the peen end unheated.

I've had a Cobblers hammer with a big sliver taken off one side and had a couple of hammers with mangled faces which haven't actually splintered come through my possession. Because of what I had heard I was always nervous using the chipped hammer. I do get the feeling it would be hard to control hitting hammer faces together as I think they would both tend to bounce and rebound and accuracy would be compromised.

I have made only limited attempts at peening, without much success. I was attempting to fix the scales of a knife handle to a blade using steel nails as rivets and instead of mushrooming the ends I just managed to bend the shanks and split the handle. On another attempt I used brass screws instead of nails and had little more success. Clearly there is some skill involved to achieve just the right touch, it's not just the hammer.

I always grind back the mushroomed tops of chisels and punches too, though I've never had any chips come off.

? Something like a rivet-set, hard on the rivet end and softer on the hammered end.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

One more digression for Mr Bushmillar.
Surely a poster aimed at young little boys ,
pointing out the fact that two hammers struck will send sparks flying at the speed of a jet plane.
Would have been all the encouragement a young boy would have needed to run home and find two hammers in the back shed to test the theory out conclusively.


Matt

I never said it worked!!

Regards
Paul

[QUOTE=rob streeper;2047729]I always grind back the mushroomed tops of chisels and punches too, though I've never had any chips come off.

It is the mushroom tops that form on the heads of such tools as cold chisels and splitting wedges that are the primary cause for concern. I cut these off with a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I never said it worked!!

Regards
Paul

Were of heading the lead before turn one is Paul with a Digression. Chasing new ground in big words is Simplicity leading a hard chase from a moderator soon around the bend.
That will be peen to the end no doubt folks.


Cheers Matt [emoji849]

I have seen the results of hammer on hammer or hardened on hardened. One was in the eye the other has a permanent piece of shrapnel in his arm. I have heard of many others in the blacksmith community. So I'm in the never ever do it camp.

Some people throughharden their struck tools ( top tools, stages, punches) and have an annealed soft face hammer just for striking afore mentioned tools.

Most use a regular hammer and temper the tools so they are hard faced and soft ended.

Personally I'd just go straight to the peening with the hammer but see no reason the timid couldn't use a ball ended punch to do it.

As with solid riveting I'd hit first with a flat faced hammer to set the dovetail before shaping or directing to fill any gaps with a ball pein.

Peen/pein/pane you missed the third.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by DSEL74

I have seen the results of hammer on hammer or hardened on hardened. One was in the eye the other has a permanent piece of shrapnel in his arm. I have heard of many others in the blacksmith community. So I'm in the never ever do it camp.

Some people throughharden their struck tools ( top tools, stages, punches) and have an annealed soft face hammer just for striking afore mentioned tools.

Most use a regular hammer and temper the tools so they are hard faced and soft ended.

Personally I'd just go straight to the peening with the hammer but see no reason the timid couldn't use a ball ended punch to do it.

As with solid riveting I'd hit first with a flat faced hammer to set the dovetail before shaping or directing to fill any gaps with a ball pein.

Peen/pein/pane you missed the third.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Dale
Maybe I should mend my ways then.

Cheers Matt

I've had 2 friends injured from hard-on-hard impacts. One I was on site for and he a pair of tweezers to fish out a nasty chunk of metal which had gone in one side of his finger and was just under the skin on the other side after skidding around the bone - I managed not to throw up. Other friend had to have his hand opened up as the metal splinter had gone in near the fingers and ended up somewhere in his wrist & they needed to re-connect all the bits it had cut.

So, yes, use an unhardened piece either between the hardened pieces or make sure one piece is unhardened. Blacksmiths also have a tool called a 'set hammer' which is basically a block of metal with a handle which they use as an intermediate striker when more accuracy is needed than is possible with just a hammer alone.