teen--What a great opportunity! I guess we will have to start calling you "Sir Teen" now. Study hard. Good luck.
As for ww, I rehandled a hammer today. It started as a Chicago adjustable hammer head. I cleaned it up and coated it with BLO to keep the rust off. Decided not to paint it because I did not want stray paint on my projects. My hand strength is not the best and it is hard to use these heavy hammers without an errant blow here and there.
I found the perfect match at HD. It was a tad long.
I cleaned off the stickers and used GOO Gone on the residue. Then I removed the hanging staple from the end. There was overspill drip finish on the business end.
It is a well made hickory handle but the finishing was so bad I sawed off the tip and used a sharp knife to scrape the sides where the head will go. Luckily the finish did not penetrate far into the hickory and it came off easily.
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Then I used a handsaw to saw the finish out of the wedge kerf. This is why you need to mount your vise proud of the bench.
The first trial fitting showed it was shy.
But there was a good mark on the handle.
I used a drawknife to prepare the surface.
With wedge in place, I tried again. The easiest way to do this is how my dad showed me to rehandle an axe. Just tap on a solid surface and let the head seat itself.
Four or five blows on the concrete floor sent it home. How do you know when you are done? Well, each blow is like hitting something with a deadblow hammer. Once the head is seated, the tool rebounds like it has a spring on the end. So keep up with the blows until you get a bounce. And then give the wedge a tap. It helps if you have a hammer with a nice wooden end.
I used the handsaw to cut it to length.
I chamfered the end with the spindle sander.
And cut the wedge down.
Next step is to make some hickory faces for it.
So that is how I spent my Saturday morning.
