All MetalShaping - Hammers & Dollies sale at HF

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Hammers & Dollies sale at HF

HF has a 1/2 price sale on a 7 pc combo of hammers and dollies for $29.95. Might be a good starter, of interest to a newby.

FWIW,

mjb

Marc have got any pics of the tools in question? are they US made or else where?
Peter

I bought that set years ago just to have some shapes to rough out metal. They are made in China and not very hard......but for working steel seem to be ok and can be cleaned up easily or re shaped. For planishing work I bought cheap HF drilling hammers at about a 2 lb weight and cut off the handle. They are harder and the extra weight helps planishing. Do have some Martin dollies and they are a pleasure to use....but for a beginner....practice is the key.
George

Those Asian 7 piece sets are available at almost any swap meet in the country for $12.95 to $22.95. THEY ARE ABSOLUTE JUNK…… do yourself a large favor and LEAVE THEM RIGHT WHERE YOU FIND THEM. They are too small (possibly made for more petite Asian workers), too light, too soft (because they are cast, not forged) and the handles are more round than oval. I can not recommend them even for a beginner, it would be like a death sentence to remain a beginner for life. Excellent tools are not going to make a beginner an expert but junk tools like those 7 piece sets will hold him back forever :mad::mad: IMO. ~ John Buchtenkirch

I bought a set years ago and have used them a lot for jobs I would not dare subject my good hammers and dollies to. And I lucked up and one of the dollies was a good shape and i made it into a post dolly and it has held up. Who knows why?

Richard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard-S (Post 103728)

Probably not even the people who made them,

Some days, no matter how hard you try to screw up, you just can't do it.

Feel and Balance

There is so much to be said about feel and balance in any hammer, because of the repetitive nature of how you strike with it.

I was a shop teacher by trade 3/4 of the year, I earned another 1/4 year's income during summers as a carpenter swinging various weight claw hammers all day long. In my retirement I still swing claw hammers.

I agree with everyone above who says a cheap hammer is not worth anything, and may even be counter-productive.

It amazes me that the guys knocking them off overseas still haven't caught on to at least copying a well balanced hammer head with good weight distribution, handle length, cross section, etc. In other words, at least sell a good copy but with bad (worthless) metallurgy! Instead they offer a very poor ergonomic copy and with bad metallurgy. I suspect they are copying the same 25 year old bad Taiwanese copy of a body set, thinking they are knocking off something good.

Since I earn money with my carpenters' hammers I buy high quality brand new. Lots of innovation in the last decade, trick alloy heads, ergonomic handles, etc.

For my body tools, which is a hobby at this point, I buy high quality used and have accumulated a large collection over time, 3/4 of them I purchased without handles for $5 or less.

While lots of hammers is an end-goal for so many, you only need one hammer to start banging with. Brand new high quality hammers start at $29: http://www.tptools.com/Martin-Body-H...d-Dollies.html.

Personally, and others may differ with me: I would suffer an inferior dolly in the beginning, whilst I scrounged the secondary market. A chunk 'o' chinese mystery metal behind the panel suffices, as long as I have a nicely balanced hammer to knock against it. You can even as they say, "polish the turd", so that it doesn't mar the backside of your work. I usually have to polish my used hammers and dollies as well.

Most likely it will be your work that mars the polished turd!

Hi, this sets are real junk BUT I grab a set time to time and use when I need a really strange hammer, cut it, weld on pieces or grind it to a special shape... The dollies I weld a shaft at and use as a postdollie...but it is still junk if you try to use it for what it is designed to do..

The hammers are useable but will need reshaping. The dollies are way small and the heel dolly is hollow so not much weight there...so they are not very useful.

Good to use in a pinch if you have access to a flap wheel on a grinder to reshape the hitting surfaces to a useable contour (The pick hammer for instance, is a great center punch as furnished, with a very sharp end..) Also good for loaning out or someone who has one or two simple jobs...

All that said, a good used Fairmount, Snap on or other "real " hammers or dollies will be a lot more useful..if you can find them used buy them, and save up for the good stuff.

Dagger Tools also has a reasonable bunch of good new hammers.....

I only use my relative cheap starter set when welding ali because of the flux. The rest is almost all second hand real deal stuff or nice shapes I find at the scrapyard.

Frank