milesbailey•24d agoProlific Poster

Spent 4 hours trying to fix a rounding hammer handle and gave up

I thought I could reshape a cheap handle with a rasp and some sandpaper but the grain was running totally wrong and it kept splitting. Took me 6 tries and 12 bucks in handles before I just bought a decent forging hammer from a supply shop. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on a tool repair that should have taken 20 minutes?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_webb24d ago

Did you catch that old anvilfire article about handle grain orientation? They went into detail about how the grain needs to run perfectly parallel with the hammer head's striking face, otherwise it's just gonna snap on you. I found that out the hard way with a 2-pound cross peen last month. The rasp trick only works if the handle's already close to the right size, you can't fix a fundamentally wrong piece of wood with sandpaper. Sounds like you learned the same lesson I did, sometimes it's cheaper in the long run to just buy the real tool instead of trying to Frankenstein something together.

the_nathan24d ago

Grain orientation is one of those things people online get real intense about (you know how forums can be), but I've had handles with so-so grain last years while some perfect ones snapped in a week. Might just be bad luck or a knot nobody noticed, not some universal law of physics.

shanelee24d ago

Did you ever try reaming out the eye of the hammer head for a better fit? I've had cheap handles last forever just because I got a snug fit right from the start, so I'm not totally sold on grain being the whole story.