hammer head

[Eddie Eggleston]

I found an old 3 lb hammer with a broken handle. Was thinking of reshaping the head before I attach new handle. What HT and temper process should I follow?

[Matt Todd]

Unless you know the metal its hard to say. If there is a makers mark or some way to ID it, research the make. Or you can always go old school, bring it up to critical test with a magnet and oil quench. That's probably no the best, but that's what I would do. But you probably don't want to do what I would do, lol

[Stephen Olivo]

A good use for a 3 lb like that is to anneal it as best you can then handle it and use it as a hammer solely for striking tooling. I have one of those and they work great after a good anneal on my fully hardened and tempered tooling.

[VaughnT]

If you go slow with the grinder, you shouldn't generate enough heat to hurt the existing temper. Making a dead soft hammer is always a good idea; they come in handy!

[Eddie Eggleston]

This is what I ended up with. works pretty good for smoothing out minor blemishes.