Miniature Blacksmith's Hammer

Metalworking is among the oldest trades known to mankind. As a blacksmith, I get to do a good bit of historical demonstration and interpretation and when I do, I like to say that for almost as long as people have been people, we've been working with metal. In a trade that is so old, tools tend to take on a special significance: something bordering on the spiritual. Tools are more to the craftsman than just a way to build something or make a living. For those of us that work with our hands, tools are a way of life, a way of connecting to the past, and a way of finding who we are in our deepest selves.

A blacksmithing mentor of mine is fond of the saying: "our tools don't really belong to us." What he means is that many of the tools that we have in our shops are older than we are and they were used by someone before us. I don't really own my tools any more than the last person owned them. I am using them now, caring for them now, and if I'm lucky, I will pass them on and they will be used and cared for by someone after me. The same with the knowledge I have of the craft. It is a knowledge, a skill, that was born of centuries of work, a work that I am lucky enough to be carrying on in this moment. I will not always be here, but if I'm lucky, the skill I currently have and use will be passed on to someone else and they will carry on the work of keeping this craft alive just as I am doing now; just as has been done for millennia.

I learned earlier this year that I am going to be a father, and when I learned this fact, a lot of things came to mind that I wanted to do before the baby arrived. I wanted to build a rocking chair. I wanted to plant some trees that would grow as the kid grows. I wanted to finish certain housing projects to make sure we could make the house baby safe. Among all those things, and a hundred more, there was this project, the making of a little hammer for my soon-to-be child. It's maybe sort of a frivolous little project but I wanted to do it anyway. I wanted to make it for the opportunity to take some cute little crib photos of course. I want to pose my kid as a baby blacksmith and all that, but I also wanted to make it as a gift. I want this little object to remind my child, throughout their life, whether they choose to work with their hands or not, that tools are a significant part of our heritage as a family, as craftspeople, and as humans.

In this guide, I will walk you through the process to make a miniature hammer of your own. The steps could easily be scaled up to make a larger hammer if you wanted, though the work would be much heavier and harder to do by hand. Let's get started!

For this project, you need some specific material and a few different tools. Here's what I used to make this project:

Materials

• High Carbon Railroad Spike - This is technically optional because the hammer doesn't need to be made with a railroad spike. However, I wanted to make this hammer as a cross pein pattern and the pointy end of the spike was already more or less the perfect shape. As more of a display piece, the material really wouldn't need to be high carbon either, but I wanted to give it a little bit of legitimacy so I went with the high carbon spike. You can tell if a spike is high carbon by noting the letters on the head. "HC" means "High Carbon," "MC" means "Medium Carbon" and no markings at all means the spike is low carbon.
• Hardwood - The piece of wood I used came from a sycamore tree in my yard. Sycamore wood is a little lightweight for a full-sized hammer, but it will work fine for this project. Truly appropriate woods for a hammer handle include hickory, ash, mahogany, or even oak. Something dense, tough, and tight-grained is ideal for a hammer handle.
• Wood Wedge - A sliver of wood to be driven into the handle to help secure the hammer head.

Tools

• Drill or drill press with metal bits - For making holes in the hammer head.
• Files - For shaping both the metal and the wood. Assorted sizes are helpful.
• Sandpaper - For smoothing the wood handle as well as the steel hammer head.
• Punches - For marking where the holes will go on the hammer head.
• Hammer - To hit the punches.
• Grinder - For shaping the hammer head and the wooden handle. I used both an angle grinder and a bench sander, but the bench sander would have worked fine on its own. Technically, files can also do the jobs of grinders, but it will take a lot longer and your fingers will be a lot sorer when you're done.
• Saws - For cutting the wood and the steel. I used two different band saws, but you could also use a hacksaw and a wood saw to do the work by hand.
• Bench Vise - Technically optional but it will make your life a lot easier when you go to drill and file out the hammer head. Besides, everybody needs a bench vise.
• Pliers - For holding the hammer head when drilling.
• Forge or Torch- Optional for heat treating the steel. This hammer more of a display piece, but pride of workmanship sometimes compels me to do silly things like heat treating a baby's hammer.
• Tongs - Optional, but only if you don't want to burn your fingers with the forge/torch.
• Water - Optional for quenching the steel if you decide to heat treat it.
• Utility/X-Acto Knife - For fine tuning/fitting the handle.
• Rags - For wiping up messes and applying the oil in the last step.
• Pencils - For marking the wood.
• Sharpie - for marking the metal.
• Mineral Oil - You could also use linseed oil, polyurethane, or something else, but I like mineral oil for it's non-toxicity and finish quality.
• Epoxy - For attaching the hammer head to the handle.
• PPE - I, personally, am pretty attached to my lungs and my eyes and I'd like to keep them around for a long time. Only you can really decide what safety gear to wear, but I recommend at least a pair of glasses and a dust mask/respirator while grinding.

That's it! Let's get started!

To get started, we need to cut out the basic shape of the hammer head. To determine the proportions, I used my full-sized forging hammer, then shrunk down the size and cut accordingly from the spike. The resulting piece came out to about 2 1/4". Mark the piece of steel at your desired length, and then cut it out to get the rough shape of a hammer head.

Next, we need to hollow out the hammer where it will mount to the handle. To do this, I used my sharpie to mark where I want my slot to be. Then, I used my hammer and punch to make a divot on each end of the sharpie line so my drill bit would drill into, and not skip over, the material. After this, I used my drill press with a 1/4" drill bit to bore the holes all the way through. You could also use a regular drill for this. Once I had my holes established, I used my handheld drill, again with the 1/4" drill bit, to clear out most of the material I wanted to remove. I did this by holding the drill diagonally and using the sides of the drill bit to sort of mill out the material. I worked the drill back and forth until my two holes had connected to one another and I had one long slot in the middle of my hammer head. There is probably an easier way to do this, but I have no idea what it is. If you have an idea of what it is, please leave a comment below so I can learn it and not do it this way any more.

Once the holes are connected, use your files to clean up the slot you've just made. My slot was, unfortunately, a little bit crooked so I had to use my files to straighten it out and make everything consistent on the inside. I generally start with a small set of files, working out the edges and corners until I can fit a larger file in to do the heavier material removal. Ideally, you want a straight slot with no odd burrs or twists so that your handle piece can slide right in. This is a fairly tedious step, but it really makes or breaks the project so take your time, work the files and get that slot nice and even on the inside.

I wanted this hammer to more or less be a miniature version of my regular working hammer so I shaped it accordingly, giving it some angled facets near the face and rounding off the pointed bit a little to make it resemble my hammer more closely. I also rounded off the face a little bit to make it a more appropriate shape for moving metal (even if it will never do such a thing). All of this is technically optional, but it really sets the project off and makes it look like a true blacksmith's tool. To do all of this, I used an angle grinder with a flap disk for the heavy removal and polishing and my bench sander for the more refined bits. polish the sides, the face, and the facets. Round off the back a bit so it isn't so sharp and just generally get your hammer head worked into a shape that you really like.

Now it's time to make our handle. Start by marking out the rough outline that you want for your handle with a pencil. I found it was helpful to lay the finished hammer head on the wood while doing this in order to keep everything in proportion. My finished handle came in at about 8" overall. My drilling and filing got away from me a little bit, so to help cover some of my mistakes, I made my handle with a bit of a swell toward the top.

Once you're happy with the rough drawing of your handle, it's time to cut it. I used a wood band saw to do this, moving the blade along the lines I had marked to remove the excess material and leave me with the basic shape that I wanted. You could do this with a hand saw if you're patient and take your time.

After you've got your handle roughly cut, it's time to sand it and give it a more refined shape. I used my bench sander for this, though you could also use your files or even sand paper, but be warned, it will take a very long time. I wanted to give my handle a round-up-top-octagonal-down-below shape since that is what mine looks like. If you want an octagonal handle, like mine, start by squaring the handle up. After it's relatively square, hold the handle at a forty five degree angle over your sander, then press it in and remove some material. Turn it over and hold it so your first angled side is completely horizontal, then press in again. Now hold your handle so your two parallel, angled sides are straight up and down, and press in again. Finally, turn the piece over and press in your final side. Repeat this and flatten out the sides until you are happy with the look of your handle, being careful not to overdo it, but also removing the necessary material to arrive at the desired shape.

When you like the basic shape of the handle, it's time to cut the top so that it will slot into the hammer head. Use your pencil to mark the rough outline of your hammer head's slot. I recommend intentionally making the marks a little bit bigger than needed because you can always remove material, but you can't add it back in once its gone. After you've gotten the basic shape of the slot marked on the handle, remove the excess material by sawing it away. I used my wood band saw again, notching first one side, then the other, then the top and bottom until I had a small rectangle on the top of my handle. After that, I took my files and removed/rounded off the corners until the handle slotted into my hammer head perfectly. I left some extra wood that would stick up from the hammer head's slot just to make sure I had enough material to wedge the head onto the handle.

As an extra step, just to make the head and handle fit together nicely, I marked the curve on the bottom of the hammer head onto the handle and chiseled out a little bit of the material so it would sit snugly against the top of the handle. I then sanded down the sides of my handle swell near the top to take the whole handle underneath the outline of my hammer head.

After you have managed to get the handle to slot into the head, and you're happy with how it all looks, it's time to cut the slot for the wedge. To do this, simply take a saw (I used a handsaw in this case to make sure it didn't get away from me) and cut the part of your handle that slots into the head down to the bottom of where the head will sit. When we attach the head to the handle, we will slip a wedge into that slot to help tighten the wood against the metal and hold the whole thing together nice and tight.

Finally, once you are happy with the overall shape and fit of your handle, take some sandpaper and run it over the whole surface, smoothing off rough edges and giving it a nice, soft feel in your hand.

After you've finished the final shaping of both the handle and the hammer head, it's time for heat treatment. This process is relatively simple, but you will need a way to heat the metal to a consistent, orange heat. I just fired up my trusty propane forge, brought the hammer head up to an orange heat, and then quenched it in water. Again, this step is optional. A baby's hammer probably doesn't need to have a particularly hard face because it isn't going to see much real work, but, you know, craftsmanship and so forth.

If you happen to be using a different high carbon steel, you might want to consider tempering the piece by putting it in the oven at around 490 degrees fahrenheit for roughly twenty minutes and then quenching again in water. As it is, the carbon content of railroad spikes is never particularly high, even in "high carbon" spikes, so I didn't bother to temper this particular piece.

Now we're ready to put it all together. To ensure that the handle stays put, and to help fill any imperfections in the fit, I decided to use a little epoxy as well as the more classic wedge. Add a little epoxy to the bottom half of your handle's slotted piece, then push the hammer head over it, pulling it up and down a couple times to make sure that you get plenty of epoxy into the gaps. Use a rag to wipe away excess epoxy and get the whole piece clean. Now, before the epoxy dries, take your wedge and press it into the slot on the top of your handle. Since this isn't a particularly serious, working hammer, I just used a piece of shim like you would find at any hardware store. For a more serious hammer, I would recommend using a hardwood like hickory or ash and a metal wedge that runs perpendicular to the wooden one to ensure that everything stays put. Once the wedge is in tight, cut off the excess from the top and sand it smooth. I mounted this particular hammer "proud." That is to say, with a bit of the handle sticking up out of the hammer's head. You can also mount it "flush" by cutting the excess material from the top. It's all up to personal preference.

Once the epoxy has dried, we are ready for our final steps. Run some fine grit sandpaper over the whole piece, smoothing out any roughness that you may have missed before, shining up the hammer head as you see fit, and just generally making the piece into something that a person would enjoy holding.

I decided to finish my hammer with mineral oil as it is non-toxic and generally gives a great finish. It will never "set" like a tung oil or polyurethane for instance, but it gives a nice natural finish and it will be just fine if my kid ever decides to stick it in their mouth. Put a little oil on a rag and rub it into the wood and metal. The wood will absorb the oil while the metal obviously won't, but a generous coating will help to protect and beautify both.

And that's that! Once the oil has dried, your hammer is ready to use. Mine specifically is destined as a prop for crib photos and as a meaningful little token, but the truth is, since it was built like a real, full-sized hammer, it could just as easily be used for small tasks like flint knapping, tack nailing, driving a fine chisel, or any other little jobs that would go well with a small, lightweight hammer. The process could also be scaled up just as easily as it was scaled down in order to make a full-sized hammer. The work would, of course, be harder and heavier, but the principles are exactly the same.

I hope you have enjoyed this little guide to building a little hammer! I certainly enjoyed making it and I am looking forward to giving the finished project to my child when they arrive. Thanks for reading!