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How to Resurface a Chasing Hammer Face

If you have used a Chasing Hammer for any amount of time, the face of your hammer will eventually get small dents and pits in its surface. Usually these defects won’t affect anything, but if you are going to be hammering silver, gold, or copper, you will want a smooth face. Today we will look at how to re-smooth the surface of your hammer.

Hammer Face Header

I use my Chasing Hammer for many things from hammering metal, to channel setting stones, hard pounding and light tapping. Eventually the face of the hammer will get dented and pitted and you will want to clean it up. My hammer face is not beat up too bad, because I resurface it pretty regularly, but I will show you the process I go through anyway.

Hammer Face (1) Hammer Face (2)

First I will sand the face with a Rotary Snap-on Disc, first a Medium, then a Fine Disc. I do this to remove the deeper blemishes. Next I will rub the face of the hammer on a piece of sandpaper on a flat, hard surface. I start with 400 Grit, then move to 600 Grit.

Hammer Face (5) Hammer Face (6)

Hammer Face (7) Hammer Face (8)

Hammer Face (9)

After I have sanded the face fairly smooth with 600 Grit Sandpaper, I like to polish the surface by putting some Graystar Polishing Compound on a paper towel or on a cloth and rubbing the face of the hammer on it. Rub it fairly hard and vigorously. This will take out the small sandpaper scratches and give the hammer face a good polish.

Hammer Face (8) Hammer Face (9)

Hammer Face (10) Hammer Face (11)

Now that the face of the hammer is smooth and polished, it will leave a cleaner imprint when hammering metal. I will try to demonstrate this in the next day or two, because I had a couple of readers ask about hammering wire flat if you do not have a Rolling Mill. I will try to demonstrate this process, and it works much better with a smooth hammer face, so stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by and as always, feel free to share and comment.

Now, get out there and make an impression on your world.

Doug

14 thoughts on “How to Resurface a Chasing Hammer Face”

  1. Michelle Sandler

    Hi Monk
    It is sad that this is about at the end of the line.
    Before you go could you go over the polishing compounds which one is best or first and so on.. I only use the 3M wheels. The compounds seem a little to messy but now they look more important. I recently polished a hammer and ended at the sandpaper.
    Thanx

  2. JewelryMonk

    Michelle, It won’t be the end of the line, just the beginning….. I am not going anywhere, just not going to be blog-posting every day, I will be adding video lessons, more podcasts, eBooks, and tutorials, Oh, I am not going anywhere. haha
    if you go to the main site (www.JewelryMonk.com) and search polishing, there are a few lessons on polishing and pre-polishing that you might find helpful.
    Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
    Doug

  3. Vicki

    Thank you so much for this Doug. Your must have read my mind about resurfacing hammer faces. Thank you so much for showing how to do it in a low tech way, without using a belt sander or grinder, which not every one has.

  5. Catherine

    How does the graystar polishing compound compare to Tripoli? I don’t have graystar but I do have Tripoli. Can I use this instead?

  7. Stephanie T.

    Hi Doug,

    If you are doing this by hand, no electric tools. Is it just a lot of elbow grease? is it the same for resurfacing a bench block?
    Thanks for your help!

  8. JewelryMonk

    Stephanie, yes, same process, just add a lot of elbow grease. I would start with a more aggressive grit though, maybe 320, then move to 400, then 600. Good luck and let us know how it works.
    Doug

        1. Sharron

          Thank you for sharing. One question is as I do not have the snap on sanding disks and cannot
          get any where I live, center of Mexico, can I use flat sheets of sandpaper, say 100 or 250 and proceed from there
          till I get to the 600?

          Or file the surface? I used to live in a humid country and all my hammers are tarnished and in need of polishing.

          Thank you for your help.

          Sharron

  10. LindaS

    Thanks for this! I have a couple of hammers I need to re-finish… While talking about tools, what is the purpose of the other end of the chasing hammer head, the small knob? I only use the round, flat face.

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