[TheForge] Hammer handles

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

I've been fooling around with just how thin a neck i can put on a 
working hammer handle..it absorbs a lot of the shock of impact 
and is less fatiguing.
On the other hand the sort of " body English" some smiths use 
smearing the metal around would quickly break the skinny necks... 
a ballistic type swing is necessary.
My approach generally, is to have the thickness of the  handle 
mirror how the smith is built.,,or how much he hurts...PF

kim george wrote:
> Just to muddy the water, a good friend of mine who when he was learning 
> the trade 20-30 years ago and was picking the brains of then old smiths 
> in Virginia found this out. Most of those smiths shaved the handle from 
> the head back to their grip. The reason for this was that they felt that 
> the thinner handle flexed and imparted more energy to the blow.
> 
> Kim George
> 
>       "Why for you burry me in cold,cold ground?" Taz
> 
> 
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