Welded eye hammer

[Bowland]

So, I am planning on forging up a new doghead hammer, and was thinking that instead of punching and drifting the eye out, why not do a welded eye. either done with the entire body from wrought iron with a steel face, or wrought iron sides and eye with the body/ face being steel

Has anyone tried this?
View attachment 70220

I think your misusing wrought iron here. Wrought iron proper needs to be forged welded only so why would you? Am I missing something here?
It's easier to drift it and makes, a better ballanced and tougher hammer
EN 19. Engineering steel quenched at blood Red on the faces only means you get a hard enough face and enough toughness in the body. The eye design you depict is likely to be damaged / distorted in use in my opinion though I admit I have never tried using wrought in any tool the little I get from scrapped railings and such is used for repairs on other wrought only

 

[Noellaflamme]

I think your misusing wrought iron here. Wrought iron proper needs to be forged welded only so why would you? Am I missing something here?
It's easier to drift it and makes, a better ballanced and tougher hammer
EN 19. Engineering steel quenched at blood Red on the faces only means you get a hard enough face and enough toughness in the body. The eye design you depict is likely to be damaged / distorted in use in my opinion though I admit I have never tried using wrought in any tool the little I get from scrapped railings and such is used for repairs on other wrought only

Honestly I'm not sure what you are trying to say... I would be forge welding it, and drifting the eye alone is a nightmare... especislly on a dog head, hence why I and going to try this design. And they eye may not be exactly that shape . But we will see how durable it ends up.

Not sure what engineering steel thing is about though?

 

[Bowland]

Honestly I'm not sure what you are trying to say... I would be forge welding it, and drifting the eye alone is a nightmare... especislly on a dog head, hence why I and going to try this design. And they eye may not be exactly that shape . But we will see how durable it ends up.

Not sure what engineering steel thing is about though?

Sorry engineering steels are steel that is partly hardenable used to make things like chucks, tool posts and hammers, crow bars etc. EN 19 Is a European designation ( we don't all have the same availability of certain steels across the globe I am British and finding w2 or 5160 for knives say for us is very hard where for you guys plentiful, Hitachi White Steel difficult for us both but easy for the Japanese ) en19 it's the std for hammers and half shafts in motor vehicles.sure you could take a large harf shaft and forge that into a hammer of course.
Working alone is tough sometimes, I get inventive at times like your looking to do of course.

 

[Noellaflamme]

Sorry engineering steels are steel that is partly hardenable used to make things like chucks, tool posts and hammers, crow bars etc. EN 19 Is a European designation ( we don't all have the same availability of certain steels across the globe I am British and finding w2 or 5160 for knives say for us is very hard where for you guys plentiful, Hitachi White Steel difficult for us both but easy for the Japanese ) en19 it's the std for hammers and half shafts in motor vehicles.sure you could take a large harf shaft and forge that into a hammer of course.
Working alone is tough sometimes, I get inventive at times like your looking to do of course.

Ahh ok, yeah I actually have a bunch of drive shafts from cars, and drifting an eye in that is what made me want to find another way Haha

 

[Bowland]

Ahh ok, yeah I actually have a bunch of drive shafts from cars, and drifting an eye in that is what made me want to find another way Haha

Here is a cheat, nasty but works En 19 will electric weld from a pre- heat. Why not weld some black pipe onto a chunk if your pushed.? Don't know what your half shafts are mind so take care hammer heads coming off can hurt you lol

 

[Noellaflamme]

Here is a cheat, nasty but works En 19 will electric weld from a pre- heat. Why not weld some black pipe onto a chunk if your pushed.? Don't know what your half shafts are mind so take care hammer heads coming off can hurt you lol

I could do that. But may also give getting a good carbide milling head and milling a slot I can spread out

 

[Raymond Richard]

Around 2002 I started getting interested in hand forging tomahawks. Making one out of railroad spike was how several of us at that time got started with the tomahawk bug. We'd start by making the eye first or at least attempt to make the eye by making a slit and then punching and drifting the eye. 9 times out of 10 after all that the eye would end up being off center and would have to start all over again. There's got to be an easier and more successful way of making the eye. I thought about the way I made the slot for guards for my knives by using my drill press with a cross vice to drill a number of holes in line and then cleaning it up with a carbide burr. I gave that a try and it worked. Once I figured out the proper sequence it worked even better. Once you determine the circumference of your drift you make the slot just a fuzz smaller. The same thing can be done with a hammer. I added a few more photo's of eye being forged.

I started out using a long round tapered drift to open up the slot and once the eye is large enough I use the tomahawk drift to finish off the eye. Lots of elbow grease being used here.

 

[Noellaflamme]

Welp... I'm still going to try the welded eye, but with it being too windy to forge today I started doing your method, and am cutting out s slot after drilling

 

[Noellaflamme]

Welp, 1 down 1 to go

https://imgur.com/a/x1quoH8