Adhering metal to wooden plane hammer?

[Chris Griggs]

I'm sure this has already been covered somewhere in here, but I can't recall where so I'll just ask. I made a small plane mallet this weekend, and am going to make one or two more. One side of the head is just a standard square with chamfers, but the other I cut down to a thin about 1/4 face specifically for tapping plane irons. I want to attach a small piece of steel to this small area of contact, since the corners of a plane iron will split up the small face rather quickly. Tried slow set epoxy already, and when I went to file the metal flush to the head it popped right off.

Is there a way to get a really solid bond between this small piece of steel and the wood head? Can I just glue it right on or do I need some kind of small mortise to inlay the metal into? What should I use as an adhesive? Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome.

Thanks!

[george wilson]

I can only recommend that you recess the metal into the head with a welded on shank,preferably one with spurs chiseled along its sides,to encourage it to not back out. Maybe gluing the shank in with contact cement could stand the blows without fracturing the glue line. Maybe cross pin the shank in. The shank is needed in all my scenarios. I like gluing the shank in with rubbery cement best. Anything else would begin to powder the wood away eventually.

[James Taglienti]

Can you drive a short hex head bolt or screw into the face and then file it to shape?

[Jack Curtis]

Can you post a photo of the blade/plane? I don't see any reason, other than possible space restraints, for making the hammer head so small. Often I use a full dai (roughly 1.5" X 3.5" X 10") as a hammer, bashing the blade with a 1.5X3.5 end.

[Leigh Betsch]

How about sectioning the wooden head and burying a threaded insert into it. Then either making a threaded metal face and thread it into the burried insert, or like James said threading a bolt into it then filing it to shape. I like the buried threaded insert better that just driving in a wood screw because the wood screw is eventually going to pull out.

[Bill Houghton]

Can you drive a short hex head bolt or screw into the face and then file it to shape?

For that matter, your hardware store might have square-headed bolts; mine does. Whether there are any that small - not sure.

[Jim Neeley]

If you don't mind a domed head, you could mold a carriage bolt and nut into the mallet head, as you glued it up. Then just polish the head.

The carriage bolt has a small square head behind the main head that gets drawn into softwood to prevent turning after installation. You could mortise for the head, if necessary. This could be done in regular or stainless steel. I suppose the domed head could even be ground flat, if desired.

Jim in Alaska

[Leigh Betsch]

Or you could buy about $1000 of old metal working equipment and make one like this.
Course then you'd have to figure out how to attach wood to metal!

[Trevor Walsh]

Leigh, I'm assuming that there is a NF thread integral to the brass head and a tapped hole in the cherry head?

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks for all the suggestions folks

Leigh, that is an awesome suggestion! Maybe I can just borrow your equipment. What would shipping be in that? (Really nice mallet by the way)

Jack, as it turns out the small head really is not necessary nor particularly helpful. Its something I'd seen before and and wanted to try. It does offer a little bit of extra unobtrusiveness when tapping low irons, but making the head small really isn't worth the effort. On top of it when sawing out the small head I went of course, so I ended up with smaller head than I wanted - works fine, but looks off balance like part of the head is missing (why I didn't post a pic). I'll give the screwed up one to my buddy Archie :)and I'm going to make another one for myself. May or may not reduce one side of the head a little, but either way definitely want one side to be metal.

Anyway, I like the idea of using a bolt of some kind, possible with a threaded insert...really a good suggestions. Regardless of the shape, should be easy enough to grind file down. I'll take a trip to the BORG or the Ace and see what I dig up.

[Zach Dillinger]

You can do the bolt route, but you could also acid etch the steel and use hot hide glue to bond the metal to the wood. I suspect it would hold for a while, but I'm not sure about the impact resistance of hide glue, not that a plane hammer should be experiencing that much impact.

[Mike Brady]

Doesn't Dave Andersen here do this in reverse on his hammers (wood head on a brass hammer?) You could ask him.

[Mike Henderson]

Doesn't Dave Andersen here do this in reverse on his hammers (wood head on a brass hammer?) You could ask him.
Here's (http://www.mikes-woodwork.com/BrassHammer.htm)a tutorial on doing a metal hammer with a wooden face.

Mike

[Chris Griggs]

Here's (http://www.mikes-woodwork.com/BrassHammer.htm)a tutorial on doing a metal hammer with a wooden face.

Mike

Cool Mike. Thanks for the link. I don't have the equipment to do turning in wood or brass - but the way they explain to use a dowel to connect to the brass to the wood is definitely doable.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Finck's wooden Krenov style plane book shows making a hammer out of brass rod that's pretty much what link shows, minus the shaping.

If you were making it out of brass, seems for something as small as a hammer, you could probably do most of the shaping by hand, particularly if shaping is just slight doming. Heck, with you could probably make a warrington-style hammer out of brass by hand if you wanted, and that'd be nice looking.

The glued dowel to align the face and brass for a wood-faced mallet is interesting, but I'd be more tempted to tap it for a coarse bolt and have a threaded insert to hold the two together. But I'm probably overthinking things.

[Chris Griggs]

Perhaps I will just ditch the hole small face thing and try to attach a slightly larger piece of metal to match the size of the rest of the head. I wonder if I could just hack saw off a piece of plain old steel rod from the BORG and either drill a hole for a dowel or better yet tap it and and attach it with a small cut down headless hanger bolt.

EDIT:



The glued dowel to align the face and brass for a wood-faced mallet is interesting, but I'd be more tempted to tap it for a coarse bolt and have a threaded insert to hold the two together. But I'm probably overthinking things.

Josh. Ha. You posted this while I was writing this post. It looks like we were thinking the same thing.

[Dave Anderson NH]

For the general fund of information, my brass hammer heads use a .375" diameter brass tenon on the wooden end. The tenon has annualar rings to hold some of the epoxy used to attach the lignum vitae head. This provides both the mechanical and chemical bond. For epoxy, use something like System 3's regular epoxy. The cure time is longer, but the 5 minute epoxies are weaker, less flexible, and more brittle, leading to the possiblility of the head coming off from the shock of the blows.

[Niels Cosman]

I made this plane hammer last week. The wooden face attached with a tapered plug (like a socket head chisel). It holds fine by itself, but I added a spot of CA glue all the same. I am planning on fully documenting my process in the coming weeks when I make a second one. I'll be posting as a blog entry.

226380

[Niels Cosman]

oh wait- metal head to a WOODEN mallet. a bolt sounds about right.

[jamie shard]

Super easy to go metal to wood: select one or more brass screws; take the brass plate, drill one or more holes that will seat the head of the brass screw about halfway down; mark center of holes on wood face, drill for thread of screw; now screw the brass plate to the wood face; finally file off the screw heads that still stick above the brass plate.


Hope this helps!

[Dave Anderson NH]

Nice Job Neil!! A good looking hammer.