Smithing With The Handheld Pneumatic Hammer

E.A. Chase is among the early contemporary American blacksmiths to use mixed metals as well as wood, stone and plastics in his sculptural and architectural commissions. This innovation produced dramatic affects with the contrasting uses of copper, bronze, brass and stainless steel with iron. Complementary to his use of mixed metals, another innovation and the subject of this book, is his use of the handheld pneumatic hammer.

As he became more familiar with the characteristics of the tool he realized that its unique features could be advantageous in other applications, particularly to reduce the tedium of tasks requiring repetitive blows such as texturing and peening and later to its more ambitious use to construct large scale raised metal work.

Learn to use the smaller handheld pneumatic hammers on hot iron days for cold center punching and line tracing for layout, hot carving and incising, slitting, cutting, peening, and riveting. On cold working days these pneumatic hammers are used for forming everything from delicate floral details to large-scale objects in non-ferrous sheet metals.

This is a must have for all smiths - blacksmiths, metalsmiths, whitesmiths, coppersmiths, tinsmiths - to help create small scale hand projects or large sculptural and architectural commissions.