Machinist's Hammer

This is a project I did for a tool swap on another site earlier this year.  I migrated it over so the text may seem disjointed...

I had an idea for a machinists hammer I had been pondering for a long time and decided this would be a good opportunity to flush out the design and actually make it. I figured that most anyone with a shop can use a good machinists hammer. My use for the hammer is for fine-tuning position of vises and fixtures on my milling machine and for seating parts in the vise. I also use this type of hammer for truing stock up in my lathe chuck and for striking punches. I saw a commercial hammer that is a deadblow design that uses a lead slug in the head to act like a sort of slide hammer impact rather than using shot to absorb vibration. I felt like that would be a big advantage for me and hopefully it will work for my recipient too. If not though, the slug can simply be removed and you have a plain old hammer with interchangeable faces. Below are all the parts of the hammer:

The faces are brass, steel and nylon and whichever isn't being used on the head can be stored in the butt of the handle. The slug can also be moved from the head to the handle in the event that one wished to tap with the butt of the hammer to coerce something.

I drew Dave Polaschek as my swap recipient. I asked the moderator to ask him if there was any particular type of hammer he was in need of. The response was a deadblow or a plane hammer. Well, I'm sure he had a big beefy deadblow in mind but the machinist hammer sorta counts I think ;-) I was happy to oblige on the plane hammer too as a bonus item. I enjoy making those little fellas and the one I made myself several years ago has proven to be a good design for me so I essentially copied it. The plane hammer has a brass head with a Cocobolo face on one side and a Cocobolo handle. The only thing I've found about mine that I decided to change is that I always choke way up on the handle for better control. So I shortened the handle up on Dave's.

I turned all of the parts for the machinists hammer on my metal-working lathe other than milling the flats on the sides. I did that on my milling machine. I also turned the head for the plane hammer on that lathe but the handle was turned on my wood lathe.

Thanks for reading.  Comments and questions always welcomed!