Adze From Broken Hammer Head (no Forging)

Adze is a usefull tool. This one is made from broken masonry hammer. There's nothing more I can say to introduce this project, so let's just moove on.

I had this hammer head in my box of broken tools and at each time seeing it during the time I gradually planned it's transformation. And the time has come.

So firstly I roughly sketched out the design.

Then with an angle grinder I cut the eye area at an angle removing damaged parts.

At the last moment I decided to add a little beard underneath.

With a grinding disc I then cleaned the surface.

I rounded the area of the eyelet.

Then with 60P flap disk I smmothed the surface further.

Before going to finer disks I applied a rust transformer to stabilaze the spots that I won't be able to remove with grinding.

I did some filework on the eye. A little champher on the bottom edge for the head to sit comfortably on the handle. And also a widening towards the top portion for wedging.

Now with finer 80P and 100P flap wheels I'm refining the surface further.

After the flapwheels I'm using a sandpaper and doing it by hand, up to 500P grit.

Then I'm polishing the head with polishing compound.

To make a handle I'm going to use a piece of oak wood. It's a bit limited in size. so firstly I'm transefing it to paper and then on the paper I'm drawing the shape of the handle within the edges of the piece.

I'm cutting the shape of the handle out and transfering it to wood.

To cut thr handle out I'm using a jigsaw.

Then I'm cutting the piece lenghtvice to reduce the thickness.

A bowsaw is the best tool I have for this.

To rene the shape of the handle I'm using a small handplane and, after some sharpening, a drawknife.

I need create a narowing at the top portion of the handle so after implementing some sacred geometry I'm removing the excess material with a drawknife and a plane.

A naroowing of the other part was done with a chissel.

I'm rounding the top portion according to the shape of the head.

Then I'm working on the handle to bring it to its final shape. I don't have a rasp but I have this DIY sanding thing so I'm fine.

I'm marking the position of the head on the handle and creating a narrowing for the eye.

I cut it a bit too much so the head was sitting loosely. To fix it I'm gluing a strip of wood to make it thicker.

At this point I also noticed a couple of other problems. Firstly there was a gap between the beard on the head and a handle. So I gued a piece of wood to the hanle and then shaped it to fit.

The other problem was the way the head was finished. I wasn't too fanatic about the look of the tool since I'm going to use it anyway, but the flafwheel has left some notacible grooves on the surface and it bothered me.

So I used these sanding disks to smooth the surface. Up to 600 grit. But you won't see it on photo cause my camera doesn't understand what "macro" is.

Also I sharpened the edge.

I can predict someone saying that the steel on a hammer is too soft and it won't hold the edge propertly. The bottom part of the hammer (I mean a working part) is hardened. I can definitelly say this by how tough it was for grinding.

On the handle I'm cutting a slit for the wedge. Since the eye is so shallow and there's not enough wood to bend out I'm drilling a hole along the bottom of the slit. It should help the wood to spread out more easily.

The head is ready to be installed onto the handle. And it means that it's a time for a final sanding. It'a allways a good idea to wash your hands before final sanding.

I\m sanding the handle up to 500 grit.

The handle is going to be wedged two times. First time with a wooden wedge. I'm cutting it from a piece of wood, sanding to shape and driving it on glue to the slit.

While glue is drying I can make a pair of metal wedges that go next.

Some metall scrap, some filing, some cutting and we're done. These wedges go perpendicular to the wooden one. This way the handle is wedged in both dirrections and the head goes nowhere.

To finish the handle I'm usinf some old linseed oil.

The adze is finished now. I found a masonry hammer identical to what I used to make it. Now you can see what it was before.

Generally I'm very happy with the result. It looks great from wherever you look at it and performs it's job good. I'm glad that I have this tool now.

Thanks for your attention, this is it for now, and have a good adze.

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