Tools of the Trade - Townsends Wilderness Homestead - Hand Forged Hammer

So this is my hammer. This is my favorite hammer. I've had it for 15 years. Can do so much with this. It's called a cross peen. It's three pounds. This does majority of the work, 95% of it. I love it, but I really want to make my own. Something that's me, something that's personal. So today we're gonna do that. I'm going to be using a block of tool steel. It's four and a half inches long and two inches square, solid. And that is going to make me my new hammer that I've been waiting for for a long time. So we've got the fire heated up. It's ready to go. First step is to heat this up to the proper temperature and drive a hole all the way through for the handle. Finally, have a finished hammer. Something I've always wanted. One of those things that you always wanted to make. You want to make your own tools whenever you're doing your blacksmithing or whatever you want to make. This hammer, I am really satisfied with it. Now we did make some changes. Originally we were talking about doing the cross peen, the point in the back, but we decided having an all purpose hammer would be much more beneficial here on the homestead. So this hammer, we have both faces are flat. So we can use one and keep it clean and smooth for the forging. And then another face that we can damage up a little bit if we have to. We don't have to worry about keeping it clean. We can use that for driving tent stakes or any other metal objects that we don't have to worry about keeping it clean and smooth. Another satisfying thing about this, it was all made right here on the homestead. The handle was made right here in our wood shop from the draw horse that we made at a previous video. It was also made from ash, which is a really good handle wood from right here on the property. So this hammer, one of the hardest projects we've ever had to do. Really pushed that forge to the limits. Took a lot of heat, a lot of frustration, just trying to get it hot enough. Because you can get it hot to where it's glowing, but it has to be hot enough to where you could drive the punch right through it. And it took a lot of trial and error, a couple days. Honest, it wasn't one day that we did this. Just trying to find different ways to get that forge to blow more air and to really manage the fire. It was really frustrating. And we even added some coal in with the charcoal so that we could get a better fire bed in there to get the heat right where we needed it. We just had to keep trying. But in the end, satisfied, you know, satisfaction. You end up with something you're happy with.