Question about hammer face dressing, I think I've been doing it backwards this whole time

About 6 months ago I picked up a cheap cross peen from a flea market and noticed the face had this weird slight dome I kept trying to flatten out. I spent a good while grinding it perfectly flat, then a buddy who's been forging for 20 years watched me miss a strike and asked why my hammer was bouncing sideways. He pointed out the edges were digging in, and that slight dome is actually there to let the face hit flat on slight angle swings. I feel like a tool, has anyone else learned a basic thing way late because you never had anyone show you the why behind it?

2 comments

2 Comments

emerym361mo ago

Whoa, hold on there. You're not a tool for learning that, but I gotta say, you've got the hammer face thing a bit backwards. That dome isn't there just for swinging at weird angles, it's actually to keep the face from digging into the metal when you strike square. A totally flat face will leave nasty divots and can even crack the work if you hit at a slight angle. Weirdly, the real trick is that the face should be a little convex, like the top of a very shallow ball, not flat and not too domed. Sounds like your buddy gave you the right idea, but he didn't explain that the dome is also about spreading the force evenly across the strike. So yeah, you might have spent six months fighting the right shape, but that's a pretty common mix-up when you don't grow up around a forge.

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linda_dixon491mo ago

Read somewhere that old smiths would test that convex face with a coin, @emerym36.