Dead-Blow Hammer Recommendations Please

I ordered one of these - arrived today. I must admit it's blow is not very dead - in fact if anything it bounces worse than my existing Thor copper hammer. There doesn't sound to be much more than a pinch of "lead" in it either.

Copper naturally absorbs shock it will always be better than plastic in this regard, if you want a copper version (didn't mention in original post) I would have recommended the copper faced version below, or rubber faced faced option etc...

Well that seems to confirm what most here have said in that they tend to either use a copper mallet or just a lump of copper. So why was the Narex suggested if copper is better with regards bounce and the copper Narex is not a dead blow and Doc already gas a copper option?

Not wishing to engage in that debate ^^^

May I recommend a Google search [images] for dead blow hammer inside

… quite a range of interesting designs around

MichaelG

Because an opinion on dead blow hammers was asked for.

Because a specific task was mentioned, tapping work down in a vice, my copper mallet leaves copper smeared on what I use it on, so it wouldn't be my first choice for using on workpiece.

I use both for different things, dead blow hammers come with many different faces, because it has a dead blow feature shouldn't change the face material chosen for a specific task, I don't use my copper mallet for centre punching because it's a small area and digs in to the face, I do use my dead blow ball pein though.

Just to conclude this thread:

I did mention I had a copper/hide hammer in my second post. I've actually got about six Thor hammers of various sizes and types, but that's another story. I wanted a smaller hammer than the smallest Thor one I've currently got, specifically for the model engineering work I'm doing.

The Narex hammer (the smallest one available at 180g) is described as being "bounceless" and having "zero recoil".

Which sounded fine. On arrival, it was the perfect size, but it is absolutely not "bounceless" and does not have "zero recoil". After doing a quick subjective test between the Narex and with a similarly sized solid metal hammer, and the Thor copper face, they all bounce by about the same amount when struck on a solid metal surface (BTW on another point raised; I've never hit anything hard enough with a copper hammer to leave traces of copper on the surface).

The only one of the three to have zero recoil was in fact the hide face of the Thor hammer. Unfortunately the face is really too large to precisely tap a lot of the jobs I want to use it on, and also not particularly well defined.

I think a very small hide hammer would do the job, but I'm not sure they're available.

Anyway, I contacted the Narex supplier this morning, who said they would give a full refund, so nothing lost, but yet another hammer gained.

A question for the dead blow users, does the hammer need to be raised swiftly enough so that as you bring it down the lead moves away from the back of the face and then settles on impact. Strikes me if you are just tapping something then the weight be it solid or shot would not really move much?

Doc what size is your small Thor as they come is quite a few sizes, should have a number on the main head.

Jason,

The shot moves relative to the hammer body on the down stroke only.

They are still "dead" for tapping because the friction between the shot particles dampens the resonace that causes bounce. Lots of small masses connected by friction rather than a single mass.

Robert.

The Smallest Thor hammer I've got is a No.1

I'd think that there's some correlation between the mass of the shot in the head, w.r.t. the mass of the head itself which determines how effective it is in eliminating rebound? As I got the Narex hammer out of the box an shook it about to hear the shot, I pretty much knew there and then that it would be useless. You can feel it's just too light overall, and it sounds like there's just a pinch of salt in the head.

For me, the rebound of the hammer isn't the problem per se, it's that the workpiece can rebound and un-seat itself from the vice (or whatever) as a result of the impact. My assumption was that a decent dead blow hammer would remain in contact with the job, and stop the workpiece rebounding as well. Just like if you drop a steel ball onto a couple of flat plates, the whole lot would jump up, whereas if you dropped an equivalent mass of rough steel granules in a bag on the plates, they wouldn't.

Anyway, my dead-blow hammer experience is now over. As someone suggested, I might try and design my own.

The do make a smaller size A with 25mm dia ends.

Are you hitting the work after tightening the vice, if it is just nipped up then you are more likely to get things jumping about as well as getting jaw lift when finally tightened.

My Thor A

OK I'll have a look for the 25mm Thor Hammer.

The work is usually nipped up, but not fully tight. It seems to sometimes seat on one side, but not the other, and takes a few ever lighter taps side-to-side to seat it (sometimes I can hear when everything is seated OK). I thought that something with less spring might make it easier and less hit-and-miss. It's like every time the vice is tightened, it can very slightly displace the work, and when I'm trying to get something square, it's a pain. By the time the vice is fully tight, there's always that bit of doubt left that something hasn't lifted.

I'm probably chasing an irrelevant issue, but the more I do, the more I'm aware of what might go wrong. Plenty of times I've milled something supposedly square, and it's not quite spot-on for some reason. During the winter when it's too cold to work in the garage, I occasionally watch YouTube videos on machining like this one:

The Best Mill Tip You Will Ever Get --WATCH THIS ENTIRE VIDEO-- - YouTube

The next job for me is to re-make the split bearings for the PR, so it seemed kind of relevant.

I think there's an Model Engineering show at Harrogate next Friday and Saturday (strange two days to choose), so I'll see if there's anything there.

Thanks.

I made my small dead blow from a 22 22 15 unequal copper tee with threaded brass inserts for nylon and Alu threaded inserts with some old scrap 177 pellets in the gap. Handle on the 15 part of the tee.

I wonder if you should be looking at the machine vice jaw lift as the jaw grip increases.

If making a small but persuasive dead-blow hammer, it might be worth using Tungsten heavy-alloy pellets of some sort for the loose-fill … Not sure what’s available, but I would think it worth investigating.

MichaelG.

Check out Hemingways Machinists Hammer, easy to make and nicely balanced

I made one and I use the little hide/copper headed Thor mallet in preference.

JA

I used to use a Thor Copper & Hide on my mill but I switched to a Thor Dead blow and I much prefer it.