August 21, 2005

I am feeling quite proud of myself right now. I just completed a handle out of ash for a Plumb roofing hatchet that was given to me recently by a friend along with several hammer heads, all of which had no handles.  I considered buying a handle since it would be a lot more cost effective, but my galootishness got the better of me, and I broke out the tools to make a handle from a hunk of ash tree that has been drying for many years.

I made the handle totally by hand with my galoot made tools and some
sandpaper at the end. Take a look:
 

August 22, 2005

This morning I did a resurrection of another tool given me by my buddy
last week. I almost made a new handle for it, but my better sense told
me to try to repair the existing handle because it would look old,
while any new one I made would look new.

It took some doing to repair that handle because of all the extra iron driven in where there should be a wedge, but  got it done, and here is a picture. (along with the Plumb tool I did yesterday)

Now who can tell me what the difference is in the use of these 2 tools.  The smaller tool (a Plumb) has a cross hatched face on the hammer head, while the larger (an old Craftsman) has a smooth face. Obviously the Craftsman tool has a much larger hatchet blade.

There must have been advantages to each tool for some particular purpose.  Why else would people buy them? Anybody know?

August 23, 2005

I found a small Stanley hammer No. 593 recently which was missing the
striking faces. I did a resurrection on it which included finding a way
to salvage the badly cracked handle.  The handle resisted every kind of
glue, so I resorted to wrapping it with Dacron string and using CA glue
to secure it.  This seems to work, but time will tell.

I think the hammer originally had plastic striking faces, but the only
thing remaining was the 2 nibs sticking out which had once secured the
faces. Since I am not capable of casting plastic, I decided to use
brass for the striking faces. Measuring the nibs told me they were
flared out at the end to secure the plastic (or other) face. These
flares had to be carefully filed down to a uniform size which could
accept a press fit from the brass cups. They were pressed on with a
.005" interference fit.

Anyhow, the end result is a pretty cool looking old tool. It might even
see use as a plane blade adjusting hammer.



Does anybody have an old catalog showing what this hammer looked like
when it was new?

August 21-23, 2005