New Hammer Shafts - treating

[Tin Can]

Just picked up 2 new engineers hickory hammer shafts and was wondering what to treat them with. Any ideas - thanks in advance - Mark

 

[gordon stephenson]

just let them stand,head down in a couple of inches of water every now and again. It will keep the heads tight.

 

[outofthefire]

Soaking in water makes hammer shafts shrink more when they dry out. Don't do anything to them, just fit them, use a wooden wedge down the length of the hammer head and a steel hammer wedge across the width of it.

 

[reedx]

You could apply some boiled linseed oil to seal the wood a bit.

Colin

 

[brightspark]

danish oil will stop oil being absorbed in the wood and a nice durable finish

 

[gordon stephenson]

The trick is not to let them dry out,Just a dip now and again is fine, We always kept ours at work like this. Right up to Mundy hammers, Never had a problem with loose heads.

 

[500e]

The trick is not to let them dry out,Just a dip now and again is fine, We always kept ours at work like this. Right up to Mundy hammers, Never had a problem with loose heads.

An 8 or 28 lb maul. Are you a rail track man ?
The blacksmith next to us put his in horse P**s said the salts or whatever got in the wood & crystallized never saw one loose in his smithy.

 

[julianthegypsy]

An 8 or 28 lb maul. Are you a rail track man ?
The blacksmith next to us put his in horse P**s said the salts or whatever got in the wood & crystallized never saw one loose in his smithy.

I wouldn't fancy standing behind the horse with a bucket though! We used to dump ours in the quenching trough occasionally if they got loose, but it was pretty much a last resort as they would then need soaking every night and would eventually need changing.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Not a rail track man, but it does get pretty hot working around steam turbines,Running on 2000psi steam at over 1000*F
P.S the Mundy hammers were in the steel works, the next step up was the Tup.

 

[rory1]

Mundy hammers.... Swing em' on Monday and your knackerd on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday!

if I remember rightly a tup was a large balanced-ish mass that was swung gently-ish into the offending item whilst slung off a gantry/crane/ forks. Enerpacs have taken over from the tup somewhat but a bit of a bash helps to shock things loose sometimes!

 

[MattF]

...but a bit of a bash helps to shock things loose sometimes!

That's the truth. Sometimes it's the only thing which'll get stuff loose. It's like when people say not to use hammers when disassembling machinery. Granted the basic premise of what they say is correct, (that the designers wouldn't have created something which needs a hammer to get it apart), but when you add rust, solidified grease, lack of maintenance, possible abuse and God knows how many years of service onto an item, I think it's fairly safe to say that the original designers likely never considered that scenario either. Presses are wonderful things for subtle force introduction, but it's amazing how few things are ever of a size/shape suitable for going in any available press.