Lead Hammers?

Samuel Lee Jernigen · Tue Mar 27, 2001 12:12 am

I was surfing e-bay and found a Lead hammer for cutting with a wedge in blacksmithing.. ( my first thought was if it gets hot it will MELT faster than steel, but that isnt the topic of this post:-)

Anyhow I was thinking of casting a lead hammer head for dishing helm tops and stuff.. anyone tried this????

I was thinking it would replace the leather faced hammer that I cant ever find...

Sasha · Post by **Sasha** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 1:59 am

Lead hammers have their upsides and downsides.
For my opiniion, they have no upsides that make them superior then either a copper faced or leather faced hammer.

If you cast the whole head in lead the handle will keep enlarging the hole till it flies off the handle in a most amusing way.

If you make a steel hammer body and add a lead face (such as seen with leather faced hammers) the lead will deform away from the edges of the steel it is cupped in until you find you have left three or four BIG cresent marks in your steel...proof that the lead has now exposed the steel edge of te hammer.

I use lead in one-off forming applications. Needing to drive steel into an odd shaped form that will not lend itself to another shaping technique.

Lead is a useful part of a good armour workshop....but it has limitations which restrict its application to specialised bits and pieces.

Sasha

Gundo · Post by **Gundo** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 7:08 am

I think McMaster-Carr has those leather-face mallets.

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white mountain armoury · Tue Mar 27, 2001 8:06 am

i would much rather hammer into lead than hammer with lead. rawhide faced hammers, plastic hammers and copper/brass are a must have, i see leather as being too soft

Sasha · Post by **Sasha** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 8:37 am

grrrr!

Raw hide faced is what I meant.
It is also what I assume he meant.

The first home made leather faced hammer I built actually used coiled leather in place of coiled raw-hide....it worked, I suppose...but nowadays I buy the raw-hide disks/coils and fit them to the hammers I build.

The other issue when using lead hammers 9and hammering into lead blocks, for that matter) is that lead dust gets put into the air and gets breathed in by the bunny closest to the action. You.

Lead poisining is only charming in Roman Emporers, who knew a bit about going mad in style.
If you are not in a position to appoint your horse as chief military tactition for your legions then breathing in excessive amounts of lead is probably a bad idea.

I saw something the other week that called itself a gel-hammer (it had to happen). Apparently the little plastic-faced-hammer type disks that screw into the body of the hammer are hollow and full of a thick silicone gel. You can buy them in four grades of wall thickness, and this controls the degree of deformation/accomadation of the impact surface. I am not sure if it also acts as a dead-blow effect.

I plan to take a closer look and play at these hammers in a few weeks. Too expensive to just buy one and "fiddle" with it.

Now even your hammers can get a boob-job.

Sasha

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 9:55 am

Ok so I want a lead block for dooin things like finger gauntlet parts and a better way to screw up trying to do repousse.

Where the heck do I buy lead?

What kind of dust mask is sufficient for keeping lead dust out of your lungs.

Hey how about a mercury hammer? I bet it wouldn't leave any hammer marks at all. And it's way more toxic then lead so much more fun.

Yes I am kidding.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
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Melchior · Post by **Melchior** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 10:32 am

McMater Carr is a good source for rawhide hammers, lead billets, brass, rivets and lots of good stuff. I like buying from them. Some things may seem more expensive, but they usually do not charge for shipping.

http://www.mcmaster.com/

Melchior

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Clay · Post by **Clay** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 11:48 am

For lead, we just went down to the sporting good stores in our area and picked up some large fishing weights. Then we melted them down and voila - large lead block. I think the weights weren't more than a buck or two a piece and we got six of them. About 2" around as I remember.....

Lochlainn · Post by **Lochlainn** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 1:13 pm

For lead, try tire shops. Even if they don't have any tire weights they can give/sell to you, they will probably be able to point you in the right direction.

Also, you might try local recycling companies.

Mad Matt, what do you mean by "a better way to screw up repousse?" I've been tinkering with repousse, and so far lead is the only thing I've been able to get to work; my attempt at a pitch bedding is alternately too hard or too soft, and way too damn messy to mix. Any pointers?

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[This message has been edited by Lochlainn (edited 03-27-2001).]

schreiber · Post by **schreiber** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 1:34 pm

Around DC, which admittedly is not a good example of the rest of America, we can't find lead at tire stores anymore. Local environmental naziism has gotten to the point where they have someone coming by every week to gather them up, and you're not welcome to them in between.

Go to an HVAC or plumbing store. It's still possible to buy 5 lb ingots of lead for soldering copper roof flashing & such. I bought two last year for sling bullets, and they were about $6 a piece. Pretty pricy for something that you're going to throw, though...

HELMUT

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 2:09 pm

Lochlan the only repousse I've been sucessfull with was a womans body neck to ankles done in a flat piece of 16ga about 6" tall.

I did it by basically hammering into small depressions that were beaten into the endgrain or parts of a hardwood skid.

I used different ball piens and some punches and stuff.

And I still ended up stupidly putting the breasts up way too high.

So like I said. A better way to screw up repousse.

Man I'm kinda dense they sell lead trolling anchors all over the place around here. They come in 4-12# and are usually around $7.

Guess I'm gonna haveta go pick some up. Find a couplea old pots for a double boiler and make myself a lead block.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

gargoyle · Post by **gargoyle** » Tue Mar 27, 2001 10:42 pm

Let me check where we get them, but we use lead hammers at work all the time. Ready made and work really well. I use mine for armour all the time. I use shot filled plastic sometimes too.

Sasha · Post by **Sasha** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 1:01 am

Okay, class got out early today and I headed over to the shop with a piece of scrap metal to have a play with the gel-hammer.
The sample piece was a bit of galvanised 16ga.

the anvil was a piece of chinese cast crap that was for sale in the shop.

I found the hammer to be pretty good. It does miss the bounce-back I like, but it leaves absolutely no marks. The "display" hammer had a medium head fitted on one side and a soft fitted to the other. Both seem good.
You know that dishing action you can get by working on a flat anvil face? well this hammer can do that without leaving marks and scratches! Got the scrap to do some pretty nifty things working entirely on the flat.

This is the only "soft" hammer I have met that lets me do "percussive shaping" (I do not know a better name for it) on a flat surface.

I will probably buy one of these as soon as i can spare $140 for a hammer.

the unit I tried is a 3pounder. The sizes they stocked went up to 4.5pounds.

Not exactly sure WHAT I would use it for around the workshop that cannot be done with a cheaper hammer....I guess if I buy it I will find "something".

It certainly is nice and easy on the wrist though.

Sasha

Morgan · Post by **Morgan** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 9:20 am

I used to cast lead miniatures, and I know lead is dirt cheap. If you only want a very little, Clay has a good idea. But that's a lot to spend on lead. Search the net for lead casting or call around your area if you live in a bigger place and you'll likely find it much cheaper.

http://www.dunken.com/order.html

this is where I used to get all my stuff. They're in Calvert, TX which is just a little southeast of Waco, but they do mail order.

[This message has been edited by Morgan (edited 03-28-2001).]

schreiber · Post by **schreiber** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 11:16 am

I used to cast miniatures too, albeit for a retailer. By the time in '93 when I was working there the law had caught up with the industry and pure lead was no longer available in miniatures.

I don't know what the status is for home miniature casting supplies, but I would suspect that anything bought for that purpose would actually be lead pewter (not sure of composition, but I'm assuming a pretty high tin content).

For that matter, is pewter acceptable for a lead hammer? It's going to be a lot harder and probably last longer, but is it going to leave marks? What's to stop me from making a few hammers out of plumbing solder?

HELMUT

gargoyle · Post by **gargoyle** » Wed Mar 28, 2001 12:45 pm

This is the company that makes our hammers.
LSP INDUSTRIES INC.
P.O. BOX 5303, 2511-20th St. Rockford, Illinois 61125
Phone (815)-226-8090 Fax (815)-226-9250