Trojan 12lb Hickory Sledge Hammer TJI1025

New hammer handle split and cut my hands – My new 10 lb sledge hammer with Genuine Hickory Handle split and left my thumbs pinched as I didn’t initially realise it had split. I did after a couple more blows. I wasn’t abusing the hammer nor had the handle been struck or damaged in any way. It hurts quite a bit and I’m really annoyed with this company. Not fit for purpose. I will be taking this matter further.

This is a very butch and manly man hammer. No sissy boy whackometer for me – It's a good hammer, but it's rather under done, in terms of sophistication, airs, graces and the finess of fine hammers., You see it has 2 hammering faces, the finish's of which are fine for commoners, unsophisticated and plain ignorant people, banging in steel stakes, pulling things apart, putting them together or breaking up concrete, brick walls etc.,

So one plain cement breaking face, is fine but it lacks a crowned and rounded black smithing / metal working / forging and steel plate or bar straightening face.

There is no point in having a hammer with two plain and unrefined faces. In fact it shows a complete lack of imagination and it lessens the capability of the tool.

I however crowned or refinished one of the faces, with a compounded radii and it's pretty much perfect.

The roughly shaped face is on one end of the head, and this is fine for smash, bash and banging things - like large spikes into timber ships, or breaking concrete etc., or tapping steel beams into place, if you don't mind marking them etc...

But a crowned face is "almost" totally flat in the centre, but there is a catanary arch shape of radius, away from the centre, so the centre is not a dome, but it's not flat either, and the edges are ground away at an increasingly steeper curve, so that there are no edges from a well placed blow, digging into the steel.

This means you can concentrate the mass of the hammer blow, through the centre of the face, and the crown is high enough to concentrate the force, but not so curved, that it redialy dints the steel like a large hailstone on a car panel.

This is my professional and expert adaptation of the hammer - to leave one side of the head as a bash harder hammer face and the other side is a sweet precision metal forming face that will take high spots out of 1/2" plate, or thicker, by "gently massaging" the steel, without putting hail stone dings in it or leaving notch marks - and yet the manufacturers are so oblivious to the world of hammering, and the advantages of using two different faces on the same hammer.

If you get your hammers faces right, you can do absolutely incredible shaping work with them... And if you really work the faces into special shapes, you can make almost anything.

https://www.hammersource.com/Blacksmithing-Hammers-and-Tongs/

https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/824721750483916260/

And I figured out that the"Hammer and Sickle" of the Soviet Socialist flag, is actually the type of hammer that is used to sharpen the sickles and scythes...

Blacksmithing - Forging a scythe https://youtu.be/qX6dfIrhsXs

Blacksmithing - Forging a scythe peening anvil https://youtu.be/FgGYzO17H9Y

Hammer Sharpening a Scythe - https://youtu.be/4n81UaJ0vyw

I also found a clear microprint sticker, on the shaft, with the hammers warranty information, with something like 3 to 5 words per centimeter or typically almost 3 letters per millimeter, that NO one can even see the sticker is there, nor read any of the lettering.

Printing anything in this germ sized font, drives me insane.

The art of finishing hammers...

https://youtu.be/poKpxSoyvDo

https://youtu.be/TreWFItSKG4

https://youtu.be/2lCGJDyBfpU

https://youtu.be/bJfwEK_CMLw

https://youtu.be/5c9ZHqa_KAM

https://youtu.be/jyO5rL1t1Xg

https://youtu.be/hYCuQJ2JADM

Oh well it's a good hammer, but it does need improvement.

And you the manufacturer can do a lot better.