Japanese hammer

Hi guys.

Earlier this year I was on www.japanesenaturalstones.com annual gathering. I really liked some of the hammers which I've seen there and I was surprised when I got one of them as a gift from Maksim. I've been told that this hammer might be about 100 years old. It was well covered with patina and I decided to clean it up. When I started to cleaning I noticed that there is hidden kanji on the surface. Can you help me to identify some of the kanji?

Before:







I am still working on it but now it looks somehow like this:

 

Beautiful! I probably would have left the patina, and strengthened its stability by heating the hammer and rubbing beeswax onto it.

It's hard to tell, but that hammer is 50/50 weight on either side of the eye, correct? I prefer forward weight hammers for forge work for the most part. Here's one I made for myself:
Weight is a bit over 3.5lbs (1.6kg), and it moves steel handily .

That hammer of yours is gorgeous though...I'd love to get my hands on one!

 

Cris I think that this is not the same weight category. My hammer is only 224g.
Handle is waiting for that beauty.




Taking pictures of kanji after polishing is really hard. Also kanji was very shallow so I removed a little bit of it. I think that the most important is big kanji.



This is same from other side:





I can clearly see number 225 but this is all I can understand

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-...JDQwuFmxEpA/w1194-h769-no/20140902_235725.jpg

 

Oh yes! Much smaller than mine, lol. It's still very beautiful though!

 

I will try to polish it little bit more. Maybe less mirror'ish and more satina. I wanted to use natural stones and fingerstone from the beginning but this process was very slow and uneven. It took me maximum 15 minutes with 400 and 800 sandpaper to get it to this stage. Also 2 minut with polishing paste. I was trying to remove patina on a flat stones with result of removing a bit of kanji. Now I know that it was mistake. I really want to finish this project and start using this hammer.

 

Greg
It is a beauty. anxious to hear some translation of the kanji.

Cris
I wonder on the design of your hammer. Is the asymmetry born in form following function? when I look at it, it seems as if it would be unwieldy. Is it a traditional Japanese design or your design?

 

Love projects like this:cool1 no idea with the Kanji but the 225 is probably the weight in grams

 

Historically, forward weight hammers have been used extensively. Japanese swordsmiths have used them pretty much forever. I believe some Norse smiths used them as well. There are many names for them also, including 'dogleg hammer', 'sawmaker's hammer', and 'cutler's hammer'.






Japanese Sword Smith, Muneyasu, working at his workshop. Saitama, Japan

In use, its actually anything BUT unwieldy. Your bows strike with more force naturally, and they move metal in an incredibly efficient manner. Whether this is due to the actual positioning of the eye and geometry/leverage...or simply because we as humans instinctively begin to pull the blow prior to it actually hitting (for example, in many martial arts they train you to punch THROUGH your target...imagining the spot you are punching to be behind it. Strike force increases substantially), and the forward striking surface of the hammer is a less intuitive from the input of where the balance is to our brain. Some people attribute it simply to the need to keep your ungloved (gloves are bad bad news on a hammer hand when forging) hand further away from the 2000°F steel. The handle on mine mimics the traditional cant to the hammer head on the handle...since the eye on my hammer head was drifted straight.

My hammer is a joy to me. I hate when I have to switch to my other hammers for specialty work (cross pien, straight pien, etc).

 

thanks Cris
If I had a hammer...

 

Greg told you before this is an aawesome little thing and the polishing is looking great, but you shouldnt eat your chicken mcnuggets and then handle it

ump

 

I hate chicken mcnuggets. I don't understand how people can eat it??

 

I would love one of each of those hammers. The equally weighted one, and the weight froward style. Nice!

 

Pierre, I'm getting ready to make more for myself with specific head styles...cross peen, straight peen, 6lb heavy etc. What's your preferred hammer weight? The way I make them...it's not that difficult, and they only cost about $50-$75 in materials. Most places want hundreds of dollars for the things...its ridiculous.

 

This guy... How nice is he?

 

Hey Chris! Not sure how I missed this, came back to look at things again and saw this. 3 1/2 pounds on a forward weighted hammer sounds good. As well as a 2 pounder for finer tapping. However, a 5-7 pounder wouldn't hurt! Lol!

 

Hey there brother!

I'll take a look and see what I can do. I've got some catching up to do now that my shop's semi settled...but once I get moving forward I'll be in touch. They're not really that hard to make...it's just a matter of getting the time. I just did a 1.5lb or so (1.25lb head) guy for the lighter tapping myself .