Sorry our lump hammer isn’t $5 and won’t wash your truck or cream your spinach.
And if you think that $85 or $90 is crazy for something made by hand in the United States in small batches, then I wish you Godspeed to Walmart.
So after you’re done telling the kids to get off your lawn, get on eBay and buy a used engineer’s hammer with a head that weighs 2-1/2 lbs. (or 1,000 grams for the metricated woodworker). Cut the handle down so it’s about 9” or so long below the head. Clean up the thing and re-wedge the head.
Then put it on your bench.
A metal hammer of this size will save your skin the next time an assembly freezes up during glue-up or won’t come apart. My lump hammer has rescued many workbenches, chairs and dovetailed joints from disaster because it can go almost anywhere and it always outpunches a wooden mallet.
Use it to set your holdfasts (and ignore the people who say you can’t hit metal with metal. Perhaps they’ve never driven a nail or worked on an anvil). Speaking of anvils, use the side of the lump hammer as a small anvil to set rivets or clench nails.
Then one day, when you’re feeling randy, try using it for mortising. Don’t swing it. Just drop it on your chisel handle. Set wedges with it. Swage hinges.
And because this isn’t a Ronco commercial, you can now use your imagination for some other bulleted items.
You might be wondering: Why are we making a lump hammer if there are used ones (and cheesy new ones) available for less? For the same reason we make our own furniture when there are antiques and cheesy flat-pack furniture available for less.
And one more thing…. Nah, I’m gonna drink a beer.
— Christopher Schwarz