George Wilson inspired hammers II

[Jim Stewart]

Here are pictures of my new Brass Hammers. Thanks to George and others who have posted hammers. I made the larger hammer handle out of Hickory and the smaller out of Ash. It is just a matter of time before the Ash trees are gone so I thought an Ash handle would be nice. The larger head is about 4 Oz. and the smaller around 2 Oz.Turned out kind of expensive..I bought a jawed chuck. The third old hammer was my grandfathers. It needs a new handle but I don't want change it. Merry Christmas to all! Jim

[Jim Koepke]

Nice work, thanks for sharing.

And a Merry Christmas to you,

jtk

[george wilson]

Glad to see others are getting involved in making tools. Hammers are a good start.

Are ash trees in danger? Please elaborate.

[Gabe Shackle]

Where I am in MN the state is actively cutting down all ash trees for fear of the Emerald Ash Borer.

[Ryan Baker]

Looks good Jim!

The Emerald Ash Borer wiped out all of the ash here (and most of the Mid West) a few years ago. Last I heard, it was approaching Minneapolis. No stopping it.

[Jim Stewart]

I have about 40 acres of woods and maybe 30% of those trees are White Ash with a few other species of Ash as well. I do not see evidence of the Emerald Ash Boer yet. This bug is from Asia where the Ash trees apparently have some chemical that they defend themselves with. The Boer came in to the US in the Great Lakes and I think the Northeast via shipping skids. I have a forestry consultant here two weeks ago and he encouraged me to sell the Ash off. I walk this woods along a creek path almost every day, so I hate to make my woods ugly by cutting it. He said that it will make my woods ugly when the Boer comes through anyway. The Boer is moving fast. It is amazing how fast it moves mainly because people move it to urban centers when they transport it with firewood. Walnuts and Ash seem to thrive on this land. I could try to plant Walnut after I log it. Walnuts do not do well in light competition, so I am not sure that they could thrive in the woods. It may be open enough after logging, however. The Boer is now active about 30 miles from here so it won't be long. The forestry consultant said that he expects that the American Ash will be gone in a fairly short time. He said that they are worried that the species will jump to another tree when the Ash are near gone. There are efforts to cross the American Ash with Asian species that will hopefully change the Ash trees resistance. I never liked the Ash wood that much as far as beauty goes, but I am going to make a chest from Ash cut from here. My hammer handles came from wood rived out of the firewood stash (covered). Ash is a wonderful wood that smells so good in a fire and makes wonderful baseball bats.

[Adam Petersen]

Those are very nice hammers. The faces are very flat, and most of my hammers have a slightly convex face. Does that matter or affect their use at all? Forgive my ignorance.

The ash up here in Sioux Falls have been safe so far but the city cut down and replanted a lot of their trees in the parks. They consulted with forestry folks and decided to plant a very ecceltic mix so that they don't have to chop all their trees again the next time an Asian pest starts killing all our trees. I wish they would have left the trees and let them at least have a chance to survive the infestation, which hasn't reached here yet. I think they are trying to contain it though since the ash borer can only fly so far on its own. Like said, try not to transport ash unless it's kiln dried. You may accidently spread this killer.

[Jim Stewart]

Adam, Good point on the hammer face. I do not know the answer. I hope others will elaborate. My use of the hammers will be to adjust the Norris style plane when reinstalling a blade. I also don't know the purpose of the brass hammer other than that. Are they OK for driving brass nails? What is the purpose of the the wedge shape end of the hammer? Don't know that either. Please advise. I suppose that end might work better for plane adjusting than the hammer end. I have played with that and I think that will become my go to end. I learn a lot on this site.

[george wilson]

Brass doesn't mar the plane irons in your nice infill,or other premium plane. The wedge shaped end could be useful for gently tapping the cap iron into place. In a steel Warrington hammer,it is used to drive brads held between the fingers. Obviously not for that purpose in brass.

BLAST! Too bad about the ash. I suppose it will go the way of the Dutch Elm,or chestnut.

[Adam Petersen]

It is sad isn't it. My parents still has some elm in Sioux City. I understand that both the elm and the chestnut have newer types that are resistant to Dutch Elm and that Chestnut blight. Hopefully they can make a resurgance. For the our area I hope there's never a maple blight! We'd be a barren wasteland as many maples are around here.

[Jim Stewart]

I have two Elms that are propagated by the American Elm Society... I am not sure of the name actually. These Elm are Dutch Elm free but their offspring will not necessarily be resistant. I also read that after crossing Chinese Chestnuts with the American Chestnut they have produced trees that are blight resistant. They are only 1/40 Chinese Chestnut and the wood and nuts are like the American Chestnut. I better look into get a couple of those.

[george wilson]

many years ago,they came and cut down all the huge elm trees in Williamsburg due to the blight.

[Ryan Baker]

Jim, I would try to keep your ash trees as long as you can. But if the borer is only 30 miles away you probably don't have much time. If it gets to your trees, you should seriously consider logging it and getting something out of it before it is too far gone. It takes about two years from the infestation to starting to see effects, to having a pretty much dead tree with no leaves.

In Michigan, there have been infestations attacking some kinds of pine and other species too. So far I haven't heard of any problems with Maple yet, but there seem to be more species being attacked every year.

I really hope they make some good progress with the resistant varieties of Ash, Elm, Chestnut, etc. We need to bring these species back.

[John Coloccia]

BLAST! Too bad about the ash. I suppose it will go the way of the Dutch Elm,or chestnut.

:::sigh:::: Loosing the ash will hurt.

Living in New England, I walk through so many homes here that have CHESTNUT floors. Chestnut was so plentiful at one point that you pretty much made everything out of it. It just breaks my heart now to see us walking on it, knowing that it's pretty much all gone now. Still, though, we have chestnut trees in the area. They're rare enough that I've had people bring the prickly pods to me and ask "what the heck are THESE things". LOL...it's Chestnut. Don't you know how to use Google?